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I imagine traveling the world, never putting down roots. I picture deciding to settle down somewhere for the first time, and when you get there, it turns out your neighbor wants nothing to do with you.
I shake my head again, appalled at my conduct, before shutting off the water and grabbing a towel. As I walk from the bathroom to my bedroom, I can’t help but glance out the window toward Clarissa’s house. It’s quiet out there, but the storm is on its way, and I head down the hall to my room to change into sweatpants and a tank top for the evening.
But it’s starting to grow chilly as the air pressure drops. I can hear the wind starting to howl outside, and I throw on a hoodie as I ponder what to do about Clarissa.
“I don’t have to seduce her,” I say to myself as I make my way to the kitchen. “But I don’t have to be an ass either.” I can tell that the right answer lies somewhere between those two things. I can stop being the playboy who can’t commit and breaks girl’s hearts. And maybe learning to care about someone as a friend will do me some good.
As I’m pulling out some ingredients for dinner, I have an idea. I know it’s a bit hokey, but if I’m entirely honest, I’m nothing if not a little hokey at times. I guess that’s what growing up in a small town does to you.
Still, the more I ponder this idea, the more I like it. Soon, I’m smiling to myself. Clarissa said she just picked a place on a map, which means she probably doesn’t know anything about Aura Creek or maybe even North Carolina in general. But if there’s one thing this town does well, it’s farm produce. I start building an imaginary welcome basket in my mind.
I cast an eye around the kitchen, checking things off in my mind. The fruit bowl already has a couple of ripe peaches and a nice-looking pawpaw. Not to mention the fresh raspberries and blackberries I have in my fridge.
None of this stuff is for me anyway, of course – at least not without some blood mixed into it. Mostly it’s for the human friends and colleagues who come by to visit regularly, or the craftspeople who come to help with the boat build from time to time.
I just hope Clarissa is one of those humans that likes fruit.
I pull open the pantry to find a jar of local honey, a bottle of North Carolina vinaigrette, and the locally made barbecue sauce that Aura Creekans swear by. I only hope it’ll help make up for the lunch
“It’s a start,” I mutter, reaching past the barbecue sauce to grab a packet of instant blood and bone for tonight’s dinner.
As I stir some boiling water into the packet mix, I wonder what else I might be able to do to make Clarissa welcome. I realize I don’t know that much more about her though. Apart from traveling and baking — I make a mental note to add some local pastries to the basket — I have no idea what her hobbies are.
Then it hits me. Obviously, she likes jogging, and I know for a fact that Aura Creek has some beautiful jogging trails, even if I don’t use them much myself.
By the time I sit down to drink my dinner for one, I’m feeling much better about Clarissa and absolved of my lunchtime rudeness. Well, almost absolved. I need to actually put my ‘welcome to the neighborhood, take two’ plan into action.
I imagine knocking on Clarissa’s door and greeting her with a friendly smile, apologizing for the lunchtime conversation, and then offering her the basket. Or maybe I shouldn’t mention lunch at all. Judging from how awkward she was, it might be better if we both just pretend it didn’t happen.
After all, if my attraction to her made her uncomfortable, bringing it up again is probably not going to solve anything. It’s probably going to confirm it and make it worse. This’ll prove I see her as a complete person, not just a skirt to chase, and I think that’s the best thing for both of us.
“Yes, that’s it,” I say to myself as I live out the plan in my mind’s eye. “Just be chill about it.”
I just have to make sure I keep it all above board. Neighborly gestures should fit into that category. Right?
9
CLARISSA
The blows are coming hard and fast, each one sending a crack of deafening noise through my skull and rattling my brain. One after the other after the other, raining down on me. And even when the fists pull back for a moment, there’s no reprieve. Along with the punches, a near-constant pelting of pebbles is falling on me and stinging my skin.
I open my mouth, desperate to scream for help, but every time I do, another blow comes, and another, and another. I can’t see my attackers, but I don’t need to. I know those fists intimately, like every knuckle is imprinted onto my skin, onto my internal organs, even onto my bones.
The Holy Rollers scream at me as they beat me, insults that come out as howls. Their meaning is elusive but no less painful, no less terrorizing.
“Traitor!”
I feel the word more than hear it, like it’s being seared into my brain.
I know there’s no hope of escape. But I fight, anyway. I am writhing, twisting, and turning, trying to break free from the endless pain, the endless fear, the endless noise. The more I struggle, the more entangled I become, the bedsheet wrapping around my limbs and tying me in knots as the booming in my head grows louder and louder and —
I wake up, head still ringing with the sound of the punches, hands still tangled in the sheets. The Holy Rollers aren’t here now, but I can still feel their presence, like they’re hiding in the shadows just waiting to strike, still spitting their venomous words at me.
Traitor. Snitch. Coward.
The sound of my breath mingles with the howls of the mobsters, but as my brain and body adjust to the shift in reality, I suddenly realize the howling is coming from outside, from the wind that whips through the trees and whistles in the windows.
Another boom rings out. Thunder this time, I realize. The rattle of rain against my roof slowly draws me out of my panicked dream and into my bedroom, away from the ravine, away from the gang, away from the life I was forced to leave behind.
