“C’mon then.Follow me home, kitty kitty.That bush can’t be comfortable.Look at all its spikes.”
The garden alongside AJ’s cottage was a thing of whimsical dreams, especially in the dark and bathed in moonlight.I had no idea the names of the flowers blooming there, but they were delicate and beautiful, and Kitty rubbed against them as she followed me down the path.The greenery looked lush and healthy, and a flashback of AJ and me in this yard when we were ten or eleven came at me so fast, it left me flat-out gasping:
“Do you know my dad?”AJ had asked me.
I shook my head as I crouched by the fir tree behind her gran’s house and fiddled with my shoelace, which had come undone again.No matter how many times I tied the dang thing, it always unraveled.Mama would be mad if I was late when she came to pick me up at the library, and if I had to stop twenty times to tie my shoes, I’d be late for sure.
“He’s gone,” AJ said, “but I thought you might’ve met him before he left.”
“I don’t think so.”
She shrugged, and tendrils of her golden hair bounced on her shoulders.
Centering myself in front of her door, the memory dissipated, Kitty rubbed against my boot, and I knocked softly.When AJ opened it slowly, looking like a spooked lamb, Kitty slipped inside and disappeared.
“Please forgive me,” I said, but my eyes were already scanning the inside of her cottage behind her, and the scared look on her face told me something more was wrong than it had been earlier.Very wrong.“What happened here?”
Glancing over her shoulder, she shrugged just like that day all those years ago.
“Has someone been in here?”I asked.
“I’m not sure.It could’ve been the wind.”
“Did you leave your windows open?”I asked as I stepped forward over the threshold, and AJ stepped back to allow me in.
“No.The air’s on.”
“So then how did that vase end up on your floor?”I said, pointing at a crystal vase that had fallen off AJ’s hall table and splintered into chunks that now lay in a pool of water on the hardwood.The bushy, yellow flowers that had sat in the vase looked like they’d been ripped apart and strewn all over the place, which led my eyes to a four-seater dining table that had been upended.“And why is your dinner table layin’ on its side?”
She chewed the inside of her lip and focused on the door behind me.
“AJ?”
Sighing, she turned to walk into her living room, and I followed and watched her kick off her shoes, plop onto her couch, and tuck her feet beneath her.“I think it’s that guy I told you about.Cody.”
“You think he broke in?”
She shrugged again.
“AJ, say somethin’.Stop shruggin’.It tells me nothin’.”
“Yes, I think he might’ve been in here.He’s mad that I broke things off with him.Well, not mad exactly, more like unhinged.”
“What does that mean?”
She shook her head and pointed to the opposite end of the couch.
“Hold on,” I said.“Have you checked the rest of your house?”
“Of course I did.There’s no one else here but you and me.”
“Okay, good.”
Awareness of how much I didn’t fit into her beautiful home itched under my skin as I sat.Except for the vase and upended table, her place was clean and organized.The six-year-old AJ I remembered had left her mark all around me in sweet colors and light wood tones, framed photos of wildflowers on her walls, and accents of plush, soft pillows and fabrics.It didn’t feel expensive exactly, more like homey and girly.I sat, but I couldn’t relax.By just sitting on her overstuffed, light-colored couch, it felt like I was painting her world with my dark influence.
“We dated for a couple years,” she said, “but I broke it off because things were goin’ nowhere between us.He wasn’t invested in our relationship.He acted like I was just a fill-in girlfriend until the woman hereallywanted to marry came along.His parents are rich, and he told me once that they expect him to marry a rich woman.I don’t know.It all seemed so stupid to me.You love who you love.Who cares if they’re rich or poor?
“Anyway, after a while, it seemed like maybe he’d bought into all that stupidity.He was always lookin’ at other women.He even flirted with them when we went out.Like, right in front of me.So finally, I broke up with him.”
