The doorbell rang, waking me from a fitful sleep.
Letting out a growl, I immediately rolled back over, burying my head under the pillow. Fuck getting up and answering the door. Fuck daylight. Fuck getting dressed and being a functional human being. Fuck everything. I was six-hundred percent done with this day, and about ninety-six percent done with my entire life.
Fuck that. One hundred and seventeen percent done with my life. Just. Fucking. Done.
I closed my eyes, trying to block out everything that was invading my mind. The bullshit fight with Taylor last night. The hangover that had made my head balloon to roughly eight times its normal size. The horrendous date I’d been coerced into with that fetid piece of pond scum whose name I’d already forgotten. The constant, dull ache of longing I felt for the husband who would never come back home.
Graham. Especially Graham. My sluggish mind worked overtime to forget everything about him, from his handsome face to his charming smile to his big, muscly body that wasn’t even a little disguised by his mild-mannered office worker wardrobe. The way he made my lady bits thaw out, wake up, and stumble around, trying to dance the rumba.
The way I wondered what he was up to, and when I could see him again.
I shut it all out, wiping my mind clean so I could go back to sleep. My breathing slowed, my limbs grew heavy, and I slipped under.
Until the motherfucking doorbell rang again.
With a howl of fury, I sat up. The pillow went flying, the covers dropped to my waist, and I looked around the room, blinking to clear the haze of sleep and rage. My eyes narrowed at the bedroom door, and I jumped out of bed, stalking over to it and throwing it open.
The doorbell rang again while I marched down the hallway, and I let out another wordless scream. When I finally reached the front door, I wrenched it open hard enough to rattle the transom window above it.
“What?” I growled, blinking against the bright October sunshine streaming in through the doorway.
My next-door neighbor, Phillip, was standing on my front porch, and he flinched when he met my no-doubt crazy eyes. He quickly looked away, though I noticed his gaze lingered for a moment on my coffee-stained PJs.
“Uh, maybe I should, uh, come back another time,” Phillip said slowly, taking a step back.
I stepped out of the house, and he backed up faster. “What do you want this time, Phil? Come to remind me my garage needs a paint job? Or that my porch steps are creaky? Come to harangue me about the broken flagstones in the front walk? Huh?”
His eyes darted to mine, then away again. He eyed my hair for half a second. I could feel it sticking to my face on one side. The other side probably looked like I’d taken an immersion blender to it.
I gave zero fucks about either side.
“Well?” I prompted.
He swallowed. “Uh. It’s just, uh, it’s Saturday.”
My nostrils flared. “You rang my doorbell and woke me up just to tell me what day of the week it is?” My voice sounded dangerously low to my own ears, like the calm before the storm.
Because I was this fucking close to completely losing it.
He winced. “Well, I was going to, uh. You know, I was just going to…”
I stepped forward again, and he backed up, his ass hitting the porch railing. Unable to back up any further, he stepped sideways, slowly sidling over to the steps.
“IwasgoingtomowmylawnandthoughtIwoulddoyourstoo,” he breathed, his eyes widening like a hunted rabbit.
I narrowed my eyes. “Come again?”
He huffed, looking over at his own porch longingly. Because it was safe over there. There were no neighbors with insane asylum-chic hairdos and homicidal eyes over there.
I tapped my foot impatiently, because the enemy deserved no mercy. Especially when the enemy was my obnoxious neighbor who cared more about his grass being the proper height than he did my peace and quiet.
He took a deep breath. “I was going to mow my lawn,” he repeated in that obnoxiously slow way people did when they thought you were stupid. He pointed to the gas-powered mower sitting on the sidewalk in front of his house. “I thought maybe I’d, uh, you know.” He blinked at me expectantly.
I waited. He waited. We both waited.
Finally, I broke the stupidest standoff ever. “You thought you’d what, Phil?”
“Phillip,” he corrected, frowning slightly.
I snorted. I knew his full name. I knew he liked to be called by it. I just didn’t care.
“I thought I’d mow your lawn, too,” he finally replied.
I studied him for a moment, wondering where this uncharacteristically generous offer was coming from. Phillip viewed suburban life as a competition, and he expected everyone to take it as seriously as he did. I was therefore his arch nemesis, because I gave as many fucks about my yard as I did about my hair: zero.
So needless to say, I didn’t trust his offer to give me a leg up in a race we both knew I wasn’t even interested in running. Was he going to sabotage my lawn?
More to the point, did I even care?
I stared at him for a long moment, trying to figure it out. But Phillip’s doughy face gave away nothing. Finally, I shrugged. I had no energy for this ridiculousness.
“You know what, Phil?” I didn’t wait for his reply before plowing on. “You go ahead and do that.”
He looked shocked that I’d acquiesced so easily, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. I tended to do the opposite of what he wanted, just to be petty. It was a little game we played. He did stuff to annoy me, I did stuff to annoy him. It was like a sitcom, only without the laugh track.
Good times.
“Oh. Uh, okay.”
I nodded once. “Good. And Phil?”
He huffed. “Phillip,” he muttered.
“Whatever. Do me a favor and prune my hydrangeas while you’re at it.”
And then I slammed the door in his face.
I could hear him muttering to himself through the front door, and I chuckled evilly as I headed back to my room. I planned on going right back to bed, but since I’d just woken up, nature called. When I stepped into the bathroom, I caught sight of my reflection, and I sighed. No wonder I’d terrified Phillip. I looked like I’d been run over by his lawn mower. A quick sniff test told me I also smelled like something stuck to the bottom of his shoe, something his wife’s yappy little dog liked to leave under my birch tree right around dinner time, every goddamn day.
Though I didn’t particularly care what Phillip – or anyone else – thought of my appearance, I still had to smell me. So after I took care of business, I grabbed a quick shower, combed my hair, and dressed in clean leggings and Daniel’s favorite Joy Division tee. Then I sat down on the unmade bed, opening the nightstand drawer and pulling the envelope out.
I stared at the worn, slightly yellowed paper, my eyes tracing over the letters on the front. I zeroed in on the ‘I,’ and the little heart above it that was just plain mocking me now. Always mocking me. I flicked my nail across the tear in the corner of the flap, where I’d started to open it all those months ago.
Sixteen months, twenty-four days, and – I checked my watch – two hours and thirty-one minutes ago. But who was counting?
When I’d had enough torture, I slid the drawer open and laid the envelope in the back. Then I got up and headed to the kitchen. I blinked against the still-too-damn-bright light as I brewed a pot of coffee, hoping it would ease the headache that was currently trying to split my skull in two. I’d had an entire bottle of wine last night, and I was feeling it today.
Feeling weirdly peppy despite the blood chugging slowly through my veins, I hummed in synch with the sound of my coffee percolating. I pulled a banana down from the stupid plastic hammock thingy, my hum morphing into an a cappella rendition of “Really Sayin’ Something.” I even took a stab at the harmonies all by myself, since Taylor wasn’t there to help. I didn’t do too badly, if I do say so myself.
I grabbed today’s Newsday, sliding it across the counter as I ate my breakfast. I scanned the headlines, chewing my banana slowly. Taylor must have brought the paper in this morning, while I was still sleeping.
I hadn’t seen her all day, and it wasn’t because I’d been in bed, hiding under the covers. She never had any qualms about waking me up whenever she wanted to. The fact that she hadn’t bounced into my room at eight this morning to try to drag me out to the grocery store, or for a run, or to watch her shop for shoes, could only mean one thing: she was avoiding me.
Which was fine with me. I was still so fucking enraged.
Anger was not normally in Taylor’s emotional vocabulary. She got annoyed sometimes, at people who littered or wore the wrong shade of nude lipstick for their skin tone. She got frustrated when she smeared polish on her cuticles when painting her nails. But she never really got mad at anyone, never seethed or stewed or steamed, or any other sibilant synonym. She rarely even yelled, not for anything much beyond “ooh, Lark, look! A sale on handbags!”
So the fact that she’d yelled at me last night – repeatedly – was way out of character for her. And she’d yelled at me because I wasn’t happy! She’d actually tried to make me feel like shit for feeling like shit.
What. The. Fuck?
Before I could contemplate what exactly my best friend had been smoking last night, the doorbell rang again.
After tossing my banana peel in the compost bin, I stomped down the hall, yanking the door open once more. Phillip stood on the other side of it, an irritated look on his face.
“Do you have pruning shears?” he asked. “I loaned mine to Mrs. Kilkenny last week, and she hasn’t returned them.” He sounded suspicious, and I snorted.
Mrs. Kilkenny was our neighbor down the street. She was also about eight hundred years old. (Ninety-three last August, actually. Because of course I knew her exact age.) At her age, what the fuck was she going to do with his pruning shears? Enact some kind of Satanic ritual? Use them as a makeshift, highly unsanitary and frankly painful dildo? Sell them on eBay?
I rolled my eyes. “They’re in the garage,” I told him, grabbing the door knob and pulling the door shut again.
“Wait!” he called, just before it closed. I opened it again, glaring at him. “Your garage is locked.”
“Of course it is,” I grumbled, reaching over to the console table in my tiny vestibule and grabbing my keys. But rather than just slapping them into his outstretched hand like he clearly expected, I stepped outside, marching across the porch, down the steps, and across my freshly-mowed lawn.
Because his mention of the garage had reminded me of something I’d promised myself last night, and I now had another mission: Operation Destroy the Doorbell.
Through my angry haze, I absently noted that it was a pretty nice day. The chill wind of last night had gone, leaving sunshine and an unseasonably warm October day in its wake. Maybe after I disconnected the doorbell, I’d celebrate with a beer on the beach.
Phillip trailed along behind me as I traversed my long driveway.
“I can just grab them myself,” he puffed, struggling to keep up with my much faster, adrenaline-fueled stride.
I grunted. “I need something in there, too.”
“Something for the house?” he said. “I can take care of whatever it is.”
I stopped, whirling around on the spot, and he crashed into me. We both groaned and stepped away from each other, checking for injuries. He started rubbing his shoulder, and I shook my leg out to ease the sharp pain in my shin where he’d kicked me. He muttered an apology, but I ignored it.
“Why are you helping me?” I barked instead.
He flashed me a guilty look. “Well, my wife pointed out that, uh, I’ve been pretty hard on you.” He sighed. “I know Daniel always took care of the yard work, and, you know.”
I frowned, blinking back the inevitable tears at the offhanded mention of my dead husband’s name. I especially hated the sound of it on my neighbor’s lips, so casually pitying.
I stifled a sob. Goddamn it. I was so fucking sick of crying.
“No, Phil, I don’t know.”
He shrugged. “I guess it’s just the neighborly thing to do.” His cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and he gave me a small smile. “Help you out in your time of need.”
I should have been touched, or grateful, or something other than my default mode of ‘hostile bitch.’ I really should have been. But I wasn’t. Instead, I growled in anger. At Phillip, for always being such a nitpicky asshole, except when he was being a nice guy. At Taylor, for being a chickenshit and leaving for the day instead of staying and letting me yell at her some more.
But most of all, at Daniel, for having the fucking gall to die and leave me to deal with the lawn, which he knew I hated. Goddamn inconsiderate piece of shit. He died. He fucking died on me. He was supposed to be with me forever, to love me and take care of me and do the things I hated doing, like cutting the grass, and snaking the shower drain, and dealing with other people. But instead, he’d died.
Unable to look at Phillip any longer, I turned and walked the last fifteen feet down the gravel driveway and to the garage, not even caring that the little pebbles and crushed bits of seashell were digging into my bare feet. I fumbled with the keys, whimpering in frustration when I couldn’t find the one that fit the padlock. After a moment, Phillip took them from my hands, finding the key and inserting it into the lock on the first try. The fucker.
When he’d pulled the carriage house-style doors open, he crossed to Daniel’s tool bench, grabbing the pruning shears. Then he turned to me, opening and closing his mouth hesitantly, like he wanted to say something.
I shook my head at him, mutely telling him I was not up for more questions. Ignoring his pointed stare, I looked around, ostensibly looking for a screwdriver I could use to disconnect the doorbell. After a moment, my gaze rested on something else altogether.
Something that was just perfect for both my mood and the task in front of me.
I picked up the sledgehammer, and Phillip scurried backward, bumping into the tool bench.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not gonna go all Patrick Bateman on you, Phil.”
“Phillip,” he squeaked, because apparently he was still pedantic even when scared shitless. “And didn’t he use a chainsaw?”
I huffed, not even bothering to reply to that. I simply walked back to the house, up the porch steps, and over to the door. I planted my feet wide, digging in my heels. Then I raised the sledgehammer.
It made the most glorious sound when it connected with the doorbell. There was a strangled chime, and then a crunch of wood as the rubber mallet clipped the jamb. The sound was everything I’d dreamed it would be and more.
The doorbell casing was now dangling from the wall, the button crushed, but I wasn’t even close to done. I raised the hammer again, knocking the whole mechanism off the wall. It clunked nicely as it skittered across the porch. But I still wasn’t finished.
I raised the hammer again, and again, and again, smashing anything that shared any real estate with my most hated inanimate object. The door frame, the clapboard siding, the house number. Gone, gone, gone. I kept on hefting that hammer until I could no longer lift my arm.
I stood, my chest heaving, staring at the gaping maw in my little cottage where the doorbell had once been.
And then I burst into tears.
“Uh, okay,” Phillip said from behind me. He spun me around, gingerly took the sledgehammer from my hand, and steered me toward the porch swing. He could have shoved me, though, for all I would have noticed; my arm was numb. My whole body was numb.
My whole being was numb.
With a bewildered look on his face, my neighbor cautiously lifted the sledgehammer. He looked at it, then at me, then at the hole in the house, then back at me. Then he sighed.
“My wife has a cousin in construction,” he said. “I could call him to fix that.”
I hiccupped, unable to stop sobbing long enough to answer. I had no idea why I was crying. I hated that fucking doorbell. I wouldn’t miss it at all. My tears confounded me. Something else, some other feeling, had to be behind them. But damned if, in that exact moment, I could say what it was. I was just overwhelmed.
It felt right, though. It felt freeing, sitting here on my porch and crying with a man I despised.
“His rates are reasonable,” my neighbor continued, like we were having an actual conversation. “But I, uh, guess you don’t need that, what with all Daniel’s money,” he added.
Because this was South Bay Island, where everyone knew everyone else’s business. Of course he knew about Daniel’s trust fund, and that I’d inherited it after his death. He probably knew my damn account balance, too. His wife worked at the bank on Grand Avenue, and she was as nosy as her husband, if not more.
I looked up at him, blinking. I was done with this conversation. Done with Phil. Done with everything. I needed out of here. I needed an escape. I sniffed, wiping my tear-streaked, snotty face on the backs of my hands. Then I stood.
“I’m going for a run,” I announced.
“Uh, okay,” Phillip said.
Ignoring him, I stepped inside the house to grab my running shoes, which I kept in a little cubby by the front door. I shoved them on my feet, sans socks, tying them just tight enough to make sure they wouldn’t fall off. Then I straightened, walking across the porch and down the steps.
Before I took off, I stopped. I turned to look at my neighbor, who was still standing on my porch, debris strewn all around him. I met his eyes for a brief second, but I couldn’t hold his gaze for too long.
“Phil?” I grunted.
He huffed. “Phillip.”
I closed my eyes. “Phillip,” I relented.
“What?” He sounded wary, and I couldn’t blame him. I’d just gone all Patrick Bateman on my own house, after all.
“Thanks,” I muttered, eyes still closed.
I would not have been able to do this while looking at him. He may have mowed my lawn, and sure, he was about to weed my flower beds and tidy up my landscape. And he’d just taken care of me through a house-wrecking breakdown. He certainly deserved a small measure of gratitude for all of that.
But his face still pissed me off.
“Oh,” he squeaked. I cracked one eye open to see him blinking at me. “Uh, okay. Yeah, sure. No problem.”
I sighed, relieved that he wasn’t going to make a big deal of this.
“You want me to, uh.” He glanced at my front door, which wouldn’t shut now that I’d destroyed the doorframe. “Uh, I could try to lock up everything when I’m done?”
I nodded. “You do that.”
“I’ll leave your keys in the window box, I guess?”
Because I didn’t have a welcome mat to put them under.
“Sounds great,” I told him, shaking out my tingling arms and cracking my aching neck.
“When Taylor comes home, you want me to tell her where you went?”
I grunted. “Not sure where I’m going.”
But that was a lie. I had a destination in mind, a place I’d been avoiding for a long time. Longer than I wanted to admit.
Sixteen months, twenty-four days, and – I checked my watch – three hours and six minutes, to be precise.
I felt almost giddy after my showdown with the doorbell, drunk on adrenaline, perhaps. It had been brutally cathartic, taking a sledgehammer to the house that I both loved and hated. Weirdly, I felt clear-headed, like the act of destruction – both the house’s and mine – had sharpened me somehow. And though I normally did everything I could to suppress my emotions, I sensed that I needed to keep pushing at the pain, needed to take it as far as it could go.
Because I knew that the pain was something I needed to feel. Whether I was trying to punish or heal myself, I couldn’t say. I just knew I needed it.
Either way, it was time to face something I’d been hiding from for too long. It was time to go back to Soundtrax.