The worst part of it all was that the one person she knew she could talk to about all of that was Heather, and Heather was over there, living her…she stopped walking. “Oh for goodness sake.” She reversed her footsteps. “This is stupid as hell. I should not do this. I’m probably going to die. But she’s my bestie, and if I go to see her, I’m not going to see him, right? But maybe that is what I need. To see him without him thinking I am there to see him. Like hey, I’m just here to see my bestie, never mind me.”
She stopped. Indecision kept halting her and then sending her forward. She groaned and ran her hands down the sides of her face. Was she really doing this? Was she really going to go there and…and what? Scope out whether or not he still wanted her and if she wanted him?
It looked like it. It was dumb, yes, but it was far better than her earlier plan, which was basically just go, throw herself at him, and hope for the best.
The house looked even worse. She eyed it carefully. Had she done something by going in it the first time? Like weakened it or something? Or was it just that she knew that she would have to go back in there again knowing just how bad and very dangerous it was?
She took a long look up and down the street and then she went forward. She didn’t have much power on her phone, and so her flashlight was weak, and the light didn’t illuminate much beyond her feet and the area right area right around them.
She scuttled forward a few feet and then she stopped There was nothing there! Just an empty wall! She turned around and went into the next room. Every room just led her to blank walls and no way past them.
She was on the verge of giving up, about to just try to find her way back out, but she spotted a small door, set right under a staircase, that she had not seen before. She opened it to see a narrow hallway. She paused. Was this yet another dead end? It might be, but she had to at least try it. Then she could go home and say she had tried, anyway. She stepped down that hall, her phone growing dimmer with each second. She looked back over her shoulder, but the darkness was growing. She couldn’t see much. She did, as she held the phone up in an attempt to see in front of her, finally spot a second door.
She reached for that knob. It gave a rusty scream and then it opened just as the light on her phone went totally out. She didn’t need the phone; there was glowing but faint light emanating from the wall opposite the door she had stepped through.
Her heart beating triple time now, she went forward and rested her hands against that wall. She whispered, “Come on. My bestie is over there, and the love of my life might be over there. How about I catch a single break?”
She stood there, her heart beating hard. She half-expected a door to suddenly come into focus, to throw itself open and allow her to exit from her world into that one she was trying to get to, but nothing happened. She tapped at the wall, but all she got for her efforts was a face full of plaster dust and what was likely a spider.
It was the last that made a little shriek come flying up from her throat. She shuddered all over and then tapped her fingers against the walls again. Nothing. Just the unmoving all and her, standing there like a big idiot.
“Ugh!” She reached out, hand flapping as she tried to find a way to turn around, to go back. Whatever that light was, it didn’t seem to be leading her anywhere. It was probably some freak refraction of light leaking in from a broken exterior wall, she decided. That what she was doing was futile was clear. She stepped away from the wall, disappointment crashing through her. Tears came to her eyes. She really did miss Heather, but more than that, she truly wanted to see Blake again.
“I’m a fool. He’s so wrong for me. My whole life’s here, and I want that life but…but how will I know we won’t work if I don’t even try? How can I try if I can’t get there? Did I ruin it by coming back? Am I locked out forever?”
There was a low groaning sound from somewhere. Her skin prickled and the hair stood up on her arms and at the back of her neck. Uneasiness hit. Was she about to get killed in some sort of implosion?
She took a hasty step back. The floor felt weak and soggy, like her shoes were about to go through it at any second. “Shit!”
She poised to run but before she could, the wall before her crumbled away. Christy stood there, staring at the sight of a long and empty field. Her breath jerked in and out of her mouth. Her legs trembled. Her body shook so hard she was afraid she was about to just fall right on her face. Instead, she started walking forward and back into Blake’s world.
