I had survived eating part of an old Twinkie, but I wasn’t sure I was going to survive tonight. The box wall remained. Clarissa had finally snuffed out her candles and gone to bed, but not before binge-watching an entire season ofPet Weddings: Furrever in Love, and squealing over every single episode.
Dogs are cute and all, but after the third Chihuahua wedding, I wanted to throw my shoes at the TV. I didn’t though. I didn’t even get past my vague suggestion that maybe we could watch something else because Clarissa’s happy face turned into a blank stare, and it scared me more than anything I’d ever seen before, even that killer clown movie my friends made me watch in eighth grade.
I didn’t understand myself. Today, I’d completely rebelled against Elena’s demand to not eat something potentially dangerous, but when it came to real confrontation, I froze. There was just something about Clarissa that kept me on edge, wondering if this was her real personality or if I was about to unleash it with the wrong move.
Last night, I couldn’t sleep either. I kept hearing movement in the box wall and the tell-tale sound of it sliding open, and then I’d stayed up speculating about what she was doing and whether she was consciously doing it. Plus, the smell she’d brought with her clung to everything. Always there. Always reminding me I was awake and things would never be the same. And now I was so tired that my head was tingling and pulsing. I couldn’t stop thinking about the future with dread. Somehow, I needed to find a way to tell her we couldn’t live together anymore.
I should have taken Lauren’s suggestion of creating a two-week trial with any new roommate before we signed a six-month lease together. Although, even two weeks sounded like a bit much. I was on night three, and it felt likeyearthree.
I wiggled my toes under the blankets.Come on, sleep. We’re friends. We can do this. I’d put on my trusty eye mask. My body was relaxing. I was almost there. But then my bladder decided I needed one more trip to the bathroom. Dang bladder. Dang second glass of water.
I got up and crept down the hallway, tracing my hand along the wall until I reached the papery feel of the box border. My hand followed it to where it met the bathroom wall, and then I pushed that last section out of the way. Every time I had to move aside a portion of Clarissa’s box wall to reach the bathroom, I felt like I was trespassing. I was Mary Lennox breaking into the Secret Garden. I was Belle fromBeauty and the Beastsneaking into the forbidden West Wing. I was… way too tired and my brain was firing off the most random things.
Carefully closing the bathroom door behind me, I flipped on the light and just about jumped out of my skin. Clarissa was standing in front of me, blinking against the sudden bright light.
“Hey, sorry. I didn’t realize you were in here.”
She didn’t respond at all, but she did start to move. I quickly dodged out of the way and flattened myself against the towel bar while she pulled the door open and walked out. Sleepwalking. She was sleepwalking. Hopefully she’d just sleepwalk her way back to bed. I locked myself in and used the bathroom before carefully opening the door and checking for her. She was still up, but at least she was standing by her bed this time. As much as I hated the thought of plunging myself back in the dark right then, I turned off the bathroom light and exited the boxed wall by touch, moving it back into place the best I could.
Tomorrow after work. I was talking to her about all this tomorrow. It wasn’t her. It was me. I couldn’t live like this, with sickly sweet candles, bad TV, and box fortresses.
I realized I was shivering, and not just from leftover fear. She’d messed with the temperature again. Just another thing we didn’t agree on. I went around the corner into the living room where the thermostat was and pressed buttons until the box lit up with a green glow. Sure enough, the air conditioning had been jacked down to sixty degrees, where it was sure to run all night. In February! I pushed it up to sixty-three, hopefully a small enough change that she wouldn’t get up and change it.
With a yawn that just about cracked my jaw, I stumbled back to my room. Only, I bumped into a body inside the doorway and let out a scream. Clarissa was everywhere. This was likeWhere’s Waldoin reverse. Where wasn’t Waldo? Okay, I had truly lost it and I was so not in a state of mind to problem-solve right now. Part of me was ready to retreat and go sleep on the couch, but I’d never fall asleep without a door to close and lock behind me while Clarissa wandered.
I could do this. My heart beating a mile a minute, I reached out to her shadowy form and put my arm around her, hoping I could guide her back to her room.
I was rewarded with a high-pitched moan and rough arms pushing me back. If I hadn’t had my feet planted she would have knocked me into the dresser.
“No, no,” Clarissa grunted. She swung her arm out and it smacked me across the face.
I held my cheek, frozen with shock and the pain radiating from my cheekbone.
My shock turned to fear when she started yelling incoherently. With shaking hands, I knocked a couple things off my dresser before managing to grab my phone. Purely on instinct, I backed out and retreated to a spot behind the kitchen counter where the moonlight shining in almost seemed friendly. Even so, I grabbed a flashlight out of the cupboard and kept it on my lap while I scrolled through my contacts.
Who the heck should I call? My parents lived three hours away, and bless them, weren’t rational after eleven. I was still tempted to wake my mom and just have a good cry, but I knew she’d also insist on calling the police, and I wasn’t quite there yet. Clarissa hadn’t meant to hit me. She wasn’t awake. And I was fine. Well, physically I was fine. I probably wouldn’t even bruise. Mentally? I was freaking out a little.
Lauren was in the middle of her honeymoon. I couldn’t bother her with this, and she’d only fret about not being here. She’d end up calling someone in her family, and while I loved the Harwoods, they were… people of action. Anything could happen and not in a good way. Scrolling through the names of other friends and relatives, I set them aside, one by one. Who wanted to listen to someone else’s roommate problems in the middle of the night? On top of everything else, realizing how few people I was really close with was not helping me feel better.
I scrolled past Carpool Noah in my contacts three times and every time I shook my head. He would pick up if I called him, no doubt, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t want to trust him with this. I’d asked him if we could be friends like we were before, but was that even possible? No, I wouldn’t call Noah. I’d call the police before Noah.
I paused when I scrolled past Denver’s name again. It would serve him right, telling me I could call him anytime, like a bad pickup line. This was not the type of call he’d be expecting at… I glanced at the top left corner of my phone… 1:28 a.m. It didn’t matter. I was calling him. I had to talk to someone. It might as well be him.
I almost hung up after it rang twice and Denver didn’t answer, but he picked up on the third ring.
“Jen, did you mean to call me?” His voice had a sexy, throaty quality to it that totally would have made some other girl very happy. I was just happy he existed at all.
“Yes, this is not a butt-dial. Um, my new roommate is sleepwalking, and I don’t know how to get her out of my room.” Even as I said this, I crept around the counter and tiptoed over to check. Maybe that wasn’t true anymore and I could barricade myself inside my room until morning.
I shined my flashlight in. Nope. Still there. Clarissa was now sitting on my bed, staring out with that same glassy-eyed look.
“What did you already try?” Denver asked.
I told him about my attempt to guide her out of my room and how that went.
Denver groaned. “Stay away from her. This is not good, Jen. She could murder you in her sleep. Sleepwalkers can do that. I’ve seen the documentaries. She could strangle you.”
I let out a squeak. “You’re really bad at moral support, you know that?” I didnotbelieve sleepwalkers were murderers, but now my mind was going there, and I could add cold sweat to the list of my problems.
