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Yup, distracted. I’m thoroughly distracted.
As I toss my keys to their place on the table by the door, I shake off the last of my worries. It’s more likely I forgot to lock it rather than someone stalkingme, a nobody. I literally jogged for forty-five minutes. There’s no one here.
Then again…a tiny percent of me still demands it’s not that farfetched.
I remove my shoes as quietly as I possibly can, tiptoeing toward my kitchen. The drawer where I hide the biggest, meanest knives—meant more for protection than anything—doesn’t rattle as I open it. I close my fingers around the handle of the top knife, the fourteen-inch cleaver that can cut through meat.
Feeling safer with it in my hold, I peek inside my bedroom.
My heart races and clamors in its cage. This scenario I’ve built in my head suddenly becomes a real thing.
One thing, then the other and…
Empty.
Relief doesn’t flood me, not until I check the inside of my bathroom. A new layer of sweat forms on my forehead, trickling into my eyes. I blink them away, not daring to make any sudden move by swiping at them.
In the complete and utter silence of the apartment, I keep telling myself,No one’s here, you’re imagining it. No one’s here, you’re—
As soon as I see my bathroom empty, my phone decides to chime and ring.
I yell from the surprise.
No, that’s a lie. I don’t yell.
I scream my head off.
Idiot, Prue. You’re an idiot.
I unzip my shorts pocket with one hand, but I don’t have time to reach for my phone.
Loud footfalls on the floor close in on my apartment, and the door is being pushed open.
“Prue?” My next-door neighbor, Florence, materializes in my living room, out of breath. “What’s wrong? Where’s the fire?”
Talk about avoiding embarrassment.
Adrenaline, tons of it, courses through my veins. So much so that though my hands are moving, my mouth is heavy.
She looks at me; I look at her. When I say nothing, her eyes drift from my must-be weird expression to my knife-holding hand. And she takes a step back.
“You seem fine, so I…I’ll be on my way…” More distance is put between us. More of her dark complexion paling. “Okay?”
Shoot. I have to say something. I can’t have people saying I’m unhinged altogether.
“Florence.”
The phone continues to ring in my hand as I unfurl my fingers. The knife drops on the bathroom floor with aclinkand athunk.
I don’t turn my head toward it. “I’m fine. Nothing happened. And…uh…I wasn’t going to hurt anyone.”
My neighbor gulps and nods.
“Yeah, I know. You’re a good person, Prue. I’ll be over there,”—the elderly woman jerks her thumb to the left where she lives—“catching up onThe Bachelorfrom last week. If that’s okay with you?”
Oh, gosh. She’s asking for my permission as though I’d hunt her down and stuff her body parts in my fridge Dahmer-style. Trying to explain to her I’m not some sort of serial killer would have the opposite effect, I’m sure of it.
Instead, I give her my most genuine smile. “Sure. Thank you for checking in on me.”
