Oma had knocked on the bedroom door at lunchtime. Then again at dinner time. I didn’t get out of bed or even answer verbally. Pulling the covers more tightly around myself, I chose to ignore her. Tiredness had surrounded me, made my skin crawl and my bones ache and my eyes heavy and bleary. Knowing that I had acted out of character with Lucas—at least, what I thought was out of character—and finding out all of the other things I had found out about my life and Point Worth, made it impossible to exist for the time being. Sleep was the only thing that I could manage.
Finally, sometime around midnight, I felt the house go still. Darkness, though I couldn’t really know, seemed to envelop the entire house. Quiet descended upon Oma’s house, and everything was dead for the night. I rolled over onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. Reaching over, I took my cell phone from the bedside table, surprised it was still working since I hadn’t charged it since the day before. The alerts on the screen told me that I had missed calls from my assistant, manager, and agent—but just one from each. I also had ten texts from Lucas, two from Andrew, and even one from Oma.
Upon listening to the voicemails left, I quickly ascertained that my team back in California had a new project they wanted me to consider. I deleted the messages and shot off a text to my assistant, Jessica, that I wanted to be left alone until I reached out to them. The texts from Lucas were what one would expect from someone they just had hours of sex with over the course of a night and morning. Proclamations of missing me, still smelling me at his house, all kinds of vomit-inducingly nice things. Andrew’s texts were profuse apologies, which were almost laughable. And Oma’s was a quick text asking if I was going to eat dinner at least. I didn’t respond to any texts.
When I laid my phone back on the bedside table, after a few seconds, it lit up gently, signaling a text or call, casting the ceiling in an eerie blue. I ignored it. My eyes were getting heavy again. And then I felt the foot of the bed being weighed down by something crawling up onto the bed with me. As I felt whatever it was curl up by my feet, I couldn’t think of anything else to do.
“Don’t get under the covers,” I said as I drifted off. “And we will get along fine.”
I heard something breathe out gently, contentedly. I took that as acquiescence. And then I drifted off to sleep.
When morning came, I woke up with the sun, rising as though summoned by that heavenly star itself. My eyes popped open and I immediately looked down at the foot of the bed. I was alone. No critter was there, waiting for me to wish it “good morning” or scratch it behind the ears. Which was a good thing, because, unless it had been a cat or dog, that wouldn’t have been in my wheelhouse. Even strange cats and dogs gave me concern since there was no way to know if they were friendly enough to pet. It’s not until you’ve been bitten that you know a being’s true personality.
I slid out of bed and went about getting bathed and dressed once again. Not that I wanted to put much effort in, especially since I was in Point Worth and not Hollywood, but I knew it would make me feel better. I noticed that my hamper was empty of dirty clothes, but I paid it no mind. Things were weird in Oma’s house and I was starting to just go with it. What I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me. And what didn’t kill me in the middle of the night could sleep at my feet without me knowing what it was. That was fair enough.
As I bathed, primped, and dressed, I plugged my phone into the charger on the bedside table and cued up some music. Scissor Sisters began to blare and I smiled to myself as I waited. When the loud knocking began at my door, followed by the bellowing of Oma, I grinned wickedly to myself.
“Go away, old woman!” I bellowed back.
The knocking went on for a few moments longer as I busied myself about my bath and the rest of my routine. Once I was clean and primped and dressed in fresh underwear, jeans, and a sweater, I finally shut off the music. The pounding on my door and the bellowing from my grandmother had ended quite a bit before that, but I hadn’t lowered the volume of my music. I had hoped that it had startled her awake and it had done exactly what I’d hoped. Finally, I turned the music off on my phone, leaving the room in deathly silence. I couldn’t hear Oma at all.
Before leaving the bedroom I was using, I made sure to tidy up, make the bed, and leave everything as it should be. Mostly because Oma had made a comment about being more thoughtful about the messes I made and not making messes in the first place. That was probably her way of telling me a secret without actually telling me directly. I wanted to test that theory. See if the scurrying I’d heard during the nights would stop. Just call it a hunch. When I got down to the kitchen, Oma was in front of the stove and had a scowl on her face, which she aimed in my direction when I waltzed into the room, a sweet smile on my face.
“You’re a dick.” She hissed.
“Good morning, crazy.” I chirped as I went to the fridge and swung it wide.
I surveyed the contents of the fridge and grabbed the carton of orange juice before heading over to the cabinet to grab a glass. Pouring the glass of juice for myself, Oma watched me for a few moments as she continued to cook at the stove.
“Pour me a glass, would you?” She asked simply.
I looked over at her, maintaining eye contact, as I finished pouring the remainder of what was in the carton into my glass. Then I chunked the carton in the trash.
“Fresh out,” I said simply. “I’ll get some more when I go into town later.”
She squinted at me.
I lifted the glass to my lips and took a long, refreshing drink, then smacked my lips as I stared at her.
“What the hell has crawled up your ass?” She snapped, poking at the bacon in the pan before her. “Going out of your way to be ugly when you were already born that way?”
“Too much.” I shook my head. “Can’t finish all that.”
I tipped the glass slowly, letting it dribble into the sink. Oma glared at me as the O.J. waterfalled from my glass and down the drain.
“Okay, you little shit…”
“What’s in your house, Oma?” I stopped her.
“What the fuck are you talking about now?” She snapped. “Have you been taking your…Paxil? Paxil. That’s what it is, right?”
“Don’t you turn this shit on me.” I glared at her. “There is something in this house—besides you and me—and you’re hiding it from me.”
“You been taking them pills?”
“You been taking pills?” I snapped back.
She rolled her eyes and poked at the bacon.
“Something crawled into bed with me last night.” I set my glass in the sink. “Just like every other damn night I’ve been here and wasn’t too tired to notice. So…what is it? You have a cat? A dog? A raccoon or opossum or something?”
“Who the hell keeps an opossum as a house pet?”
“Crazy old country women from Ohio who think that the guy they set their grandson up on a date with turning into a wolf at the full moon isn’t that big of a deal??!?”
Her eyes were rolling around again.
“You just aren’t going to let that go, are you?”
“You have some douchebag try to grab your junk, turn into a wolf, and then get plowed into by a truck and see how long you hold onto that nut, lady.”
“Who the hell hit him with a truck?”
“Not that that should be your first question, but Lucas did.”
She thought about this for a moment.
“Well, I guess he had it coming.” She shrugged.
“Oh,” I laughed in disbelief, “you are crazy as a shit house rat, aren’t you?”
“Someone’s getting’ the Point Worth back in their personality.” She quipped. “Keep talkin’ all folksy and maybe people will start to think you’re actually from around here, no matter how much you’ve tried to act like you’re better than all of us.”
The heat poured off of me as I braced my hand on the sink edge. A shattering sound rang through the air as the glass in the sink practically exploded. Oma jumped back from the stove, putting distanced between the sink and herself. Glass ricocheted off of my knuckles and felt like pinpricks but I didn’t so much as flinch at the sound or the feeling. Internally, I couldn’t help but wonder why the glass had shattered. However, I was not going to be distracted by Oma’s nonsense or trickery.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“What is in this goddamn house, Oma?!”
“There ain’t nothin’ in this house except my crazy damned grandson breaking my shit!” She growled back. “Your goddamn hand is bleeding.”
I glanced down. My hand merely looked a little scratched up.
“Don’t deflect.”
“You need to take your pills!”
“I am not crazy, Oma!”
“You just tore your damn hand up, Robbie.” She grumbled. “And you’re worried about raccoons and opossums?”
“My hand is far from ‘tore up’, Oma.” I held it up for her viewing. Just a few small scratches. “What’s been crawling into bed with me?”
“I have no idea, ya’ asshole.” She turned away from me to poke at the bacon in the pan some more. “But you need to take them pills.”
“Fine.”
Without another word, I ripped a few paper towels off of the holder next to the sink and blotted at my hand as I walked towards the doorway.
“Now where the hell do you think you’re going?” Oma hollered after me. “You ain’t even had breakfast!”
“I’ll eat at the café.”
So, I went and got my coat, wallet, phone, keys, and left.