Three
Alex isn’t talkingto me.
I can feel it. A burning sensation that spreads through my torso like I’ve swallowed battery acid.
There have been a few times in our lives—I can count them on one hand—where Alex has stopped talking to me. When she’s so mad, so hurt, so done that she just cannot bring herself to form words in my direction.
And Alex loves to talk. She loves to gossip. To analyze. To process everything out loud until she’s talked it into submission. Her mother once told me she was convinced Alex would have her own television talk show someday. That she’d get paid to just sit there and talk at people.
So a non-talkative Alex is a mad Alex.
Or worse—a contemplative Alex who’s decided I’m not worth the energy of her words.
It’s Monday morning. The day after the ghost. The day after I refused to listen. The day after she told me “maybe you should listen for once” and turned her back on me in the dark.
Alex was up and out of the loft before I’d even finished brushing my teeth.
No morning tarot card pull.
No “good morning, sleepyhead.”
No standing in the bathroom doorway asking what I want for dinner while I am still half-asleep and vulnerable to agreeing to her experimental cooking.
Just up and gone. Out the door like she doesn’t live with someone who needs her morning ritual to function like a human being.
I’d woken up alone in her bed—she must have moved to my room at some point, the haunted room, because she’s braver than me even when she’s pissed—and found the apartment empty except for the coffee maker still warm.
She’d made coffee. Just didn’t wait for me to drink it with her.
That’s how I know it’s bad.
And she’s left me to deal with Marcus. Alone.
I walk into the office at 8:57 a.m.—three minutes to spare, not that anyone’s counting except Sharon who definitely is—and there she is.
Standing at my cubicle. Arms crossed. Foot tapping. Those ridiculous chain glasses swinging against her ample chest.
I paste on my most professional face—the one that says I’m a competent paralegal who definitely didn’t spend last night seeing ghosts and fighting with her best friend—and approach my desk like I’m walking toward a firing squad.
“Morning, Sharon.”
“What did you do to my Alexandria?” Sharon doesn’t even wait for me to set my bag down. Just launches directly into the interrogation.
To add the cherry on top of my shit morning, clearly Sharon has appointed herself as the Guardian of Alex’s Emotional State and I am the primary suspect in whatever crime has been committed.
“I’m having a great day, Sharon.” I toss my coat onto my chair with more force than necessary. “Thank you so much for asking.”
“She won’t talk to me.” Sharon throws her hands in the air, knocking into her chain glasses in the process. They swing wildly against her chest. “She walked right past my desk this morning. Didn’t even say hello. Didn’t bring me a coffee. Didn’t tell me about her evening. Just walked past like I was a stranger.”
The offense in her voice would be funny if I wasn’t currently dying inside.
That makes two of us,Sharon.That makes two of us.
My desk phone rings. Salvation in electronic form.
I snatch it up. “Dylan Wells.”
“Office.” Dom’s voice. Flat. Final. Then he hangs up.
