“No, not exactly. Well, I had fun with Dean, and there’s been some other fun. But it’s not like we’re sleeping around or falling in love. It’s just what it is.”
“Fuck, that sounds delicious.”
That makes me chuckle and I pop a few chocolate raisins in my mouth. Meggy gets this dreamy look in her eyes as she bites on a piece of candy.
“What the hell are you thinking about?” I ask her as she gets a devious look in her eyes.
“I’m imagining all the fun to have with Dean,” she answers while she breaks off a piece of another candy with her teeth. I understand why that brings a smile to her face, as the reality of sleeping with him was at least as good as any fantasy can be. I give her my widest grin.
Before we can get any deeper into the subject, we both get startled when we hear a loud thud over by the front door. I’m not expecting anything or anyone and I can’t place the sound. Jumping up, we both rush inside to walk to the front door. We walk past Shelby who’s still solidly sleeping and don’t bother getting her up.
I open the front door and see nothing out of the ordinary. There’s nobody in front of the door, I see nothing that’s changed, there’s nothing on the floor. Even the street in front of the house is quiet. The entrance door in the fence is open though, but that could be because of a number of reasons. It’s not like it’s always closed, so I could have left it open myself or Shelby or Meggy didn’t close it when they came over.
“What the hell?” I say to Meggy. “You heard that too, right? It came from over here, right?”
Meggy just nods, as she apprehensively looks around on the dark porch. We both find nothing, staring into the calm night.
“That’s so bizarre,” I murmur to myself as we turn around to go back inside again. Then I see something sticking out of my front door. There’s a knife there, with a note. “Keep away from what’s mine” is written in angry capitals with what I hope is red lipstick. A shiver goes down my spine as I realize that Celia has been here and has stuck a knife in my door.
“Go inside, wake Shelby,” I order Meggy in a voice that sounds more secure than I actually am. “I’m telling the boys what happened.” I leave the knife in the door because I’m hellbent on getting the police involved this time and they might need to dust for fingerprints or something like that. Do they even still do that? Or is that just something out of old detective movies and shit? I don’t know anything about this sort of thing, but I do know I no longer feel safe and no longer want to protect Celia. There’s a pregnant lady in my house and it’s unpredictable what Celia is capable of in the midst of a psychosis. But this chick has got to get some help and enough is freaking enough. I text the boys in our group chat to get over now, because Celia left a knife in my door and I’m going to call the cops.
Not even ten seconds later O rushes out of his front door. He’s wearing grey sweats and nothing else, making my mind go to places that have absolutely nothing to do with stalkers and knives. He crosses the lawn bare footed and twirls me so I’m in his arms facing away from the knife. Like not seeing the knife will change the fact that it’s actually there, because if you can’t see it then it mustn’t be real.
“I’m calling the cops this time O,” I state firmly as I let him hold me, letting him take my fear simply by being close to him.
He just nods in defeat. “Yeah, let’s do that Mor. Let’s go call them inside and wait for them there.”
He ushers me inside and closes the door behind him, the knife safely on the outside as we walk to the living room where a grand total of zero knives are. There’s one still very much asleep pregnant lady on my couch though, with a hovering Meggy beside her who gives me an anxious questioning look. O grabs his phone as I start waking Shelby up. It’s easier to tell them both at once. This is going to be a long night.
An hour later the cops come over. Charlington’s so small we don’t have our own police. There’s Larry, who watches the neighborhood and who can give out fines if he has to, but shit that needs to be documented is done by the Kinseltown Police. They probably got lost on the way over because they never come to Charlington. If something like that would’ve happened, it would’ve been so out of the ordinary my mother would’ve been on the phone with me instantly to tell me about it. It just doesn’t happen.
Dean takes Shelby home after she’s woken up and I fill her in on what’s going on. Meggy’s still here when the police arrive. Even if she isn’t involved in this incident, the little adrenaline junkie that she is wants to stay just to see what all the fuss is about. And let’s be real, that one time the cops do come over to Charlington, I’d want to be where they were as well.
Miss Frieda and Miss Patterson are standing on the lawn, trying to see whatever is going on, getting some new ammo for their gossip, but so far, they’re getting a bunch of big fat nothing.
Two policemen question Meggy and me about what happened and then question O about his history with Celia. They proceed to take the knife out of the door after taking a hundred photos and bagging it along with the note in one of those ziplock thingies you saw in crime shows. They actually dust for fingerprints, which I absolutely stare at like a total geek, but they find none. There are some partials on the knife, but nothing on the door. The thought of Celia throwing the knife in my door is downright scary.
“Do you reckon they’ll do anything about it?” I ask O, who sadly has put on a shirt that one of the boys brought over for him.
“They need more proof to actively do anything other than just our witness reports. Her mom is denying there’s anything wrong with Celia, so she won’t push her to go get the help she needs. She’s always been a little hesitant about it, and doesn’t want to admit there’s anything wrong with her perfect baby.”
“Well, denial will get you very far in life,” Meggy says sarcastically. “Just pop some pills if that’ll make you better.”
“Yeah, but that’s the whole problem though, right? She probably doesn’t feel like anything is wrong. Imagine feeling fine and doing your thing, and then people start telling you you’re wrong, you’re not fine and you should take some pills to feel less like yourself,” I say as I shudder. Something like that happening to me sounds like the stuff of nightmares.
O’s eyes land on me with a weary look, and he puts his hand on my knee and squeezes softly. I do get where he’s coming from when he told us not to call the cops. I really do. But enough is enough and leaving knives in my door draws the line. I don’t want to wake up to a decapitated horse head in a few weeks.
Meggy stands up with a sigh. “I hate to be that girl, especially in Charlington of all places, but can one of you boys please bring me home? I’m spooked.”
“Sure, I’ll do it,” Jonah says as he stands up. I walk with them to show them out and as they hug me goodbye, I ask Meggy to text me when she’s home and whenever she gets scared. I eye the front door, which now has a little slit in the wood from where the knife was stuck. I guess I’ll have to fix that before my parents get back as well. I quickly close it so I can’t see it anymore and at least pretend it’s not there just for a moment.
That leaves me with Gil and O. O’s looking at me very seriously, a crease between his eyebrows and his mouth in a sharp line when I get back from showing Meggy the door.
“What?”
“I’m going to say something and you’re probably not going to like it, but I need you to listen to me anyway.”
This sounds serious. What the hell is he going to say?