Ten minutes later, Lake brings me food and a few of his clothes.
"I heard you had a visit from Ragnar. He was very worried about you yesterday."
But as I do not reply, he adds, "I brought you some of my clothes."
He lays them on the bed so I can look.
His T-shirts fit almost perfectly. He’s slender, only an inch taller than me. He puts everything into the closet with a warm smile and reassures me once more to relax and not worry.
Lake again mentions the mall trip he’s planning, but there’s no pressure for me to join.
He says I can come down for meals if I want, but if I’d rather stay, he or Jordan, their beta help, will bring food up. Lake also explains he still works part-time, so sometimes he’s not around.
I don’t answer. I’ve talked enough yesterday, and I’m worried it will again leave me with a pounding headache.
Lake just smiles again and slips out quietly.
After devouring the contents of the tray, I go back to circling the room frantically…
What do I search for? Nesting supplies? Silly, because there are none here. Nothing that would resonate with me.
Still, as I wander around the room in desperation, I decide to check the rest of the cabinets. But nothing new is here, I already went through everything yesterday thoroughly enough…
However, while I stroll through the space, I notice one wooden tile is slightly loose. As I lean in to investigate, I discover it sounds different than the rest.
I press my fingernail into the crack and gently pry up the floorboard, and to my surprise, a little compartment is revealed with a small box inside. Wow, jackpot for a teenager! I peek inside. There’s… a lighter, an ashtray, some old keys with a trinket shaped like a penis, a glass globe with Santa in a dusting of fake snow, a box of expired condoms, and a long object wrapped in red holiday paper with a note that reads, "The only dick you’ll ever touch." Oh wow, that’s brutal.
I unwrap the red star-patterned paper, and inside is… a dildo. Kind of toy-like, pink, pretty tacky, but with a suction cup at the base, decorated with little cartoon eggplants scattered all over it.
I can’t help but smirk. A mean little Christmas gift, but apparently never used, still wrapped in its thin factory plastic.
I sigh and put it back in the box. Well… I shouldn’t be snooping. The previous tenant definitely wouldn’t have approved.
What now?
Maybe I should take Lake’s offer and go down to accompany him on a mall trip?
Or not.
Perhaps I should…
What? What?
Determined, I open the balcony door and instead of glancing at the lake or the pool below, I turn my back to it and look upward, toward the house roof.
It’s actually… basically around me, since the room is in the attic and the window is a dormer. Climbing onto the roof only takes a little pull-up on the gutter that runs along the edge, then swinging a leg over the hot metal shingles, which is exactly what I do.
A moment later I’m on the sloped roof. Some people might be scared, but I’m not. I climb higher toward the center. There’sa flattened section in the middle with an inspection hatch, you could probably reach it from the attic. I look around. Standing where I am, no one can see me because of the building’s unusual front profile, a bit like a Greek pediment with the raised roofline around it.
That means I’m hidden from the driveway. Only someone standing at the lake’s edge would spot me, if they were paying really close attention.
I’ve always had a thing for roofs. I know for sure I used to sit on my parents’ roof. And I’ve sat on the roof of a mafia fortress too.
Why?
I lift my eyes to the sky.
A flash of memory sweeps over me. The open space, wide, blue, and light clouds… I close my eyes and feel the wind on my cheeks. It’s a warm day, maybe I could…
