Page 18

T he next morning, I left early, before either the kids or Sloane awoke. I didn’t want to disturb them and I knew I would linger if I saw their faces.

I had a full day of chasing down lost revenue, and trying to brace for the inevitable.

The pandemic was weeks out and I felt it in the tightening air, and heard it in the background noise of every radio host who couldn’t stop talking about the outbreak overseas being a hoax.

The truth was too stark for most of the United States to accept.

A virus in China and Europe with thousands already dead?

No one over here took it seriously. Not yet.

That night, I barely touched dinner. I microwaved something I didn’t taste and dropped straight into bed after my shower.

The silence of the rental house was unbearable.

I thought I’d appreciate the quiet after a day of numbers and stress, but it felt like a punishment.

Sloane and the kids had left for the impromptu trip and I had until the next morning before I needed to check on Rufus.

I'd thought about just staying at the house, but Sloane didn't offer and I didn't ask; it seemed presumptuous.

I glanced at the clock and watched time crawl. I didn’t realize how much I’d miss them until they were gone.

Thankfully, a storm rolled in at some point and the steady sounds of wind and rain lulled me closer to slumber. I felt myself drift. Despite the cold, clammy sheets pressed against my skin, and the painful longing for the comfort of Sloane’s scent, I did eventually sleep.

And dream.

I stood in our home and it was rotting from inside. Not in the walls or the foundation… no, this rot came from deeper within. It floated through the air, like mold on the soul. The place still stood, but it was hollowed out, its insides eaten alive by everything I had done.

The worst part? Sloane was gone.

No note. No trace. Just… gone. Like she’d never even been there… simply erased.

The hallway stretched: long, unnatural, unending.

Each footstep felt like trespassing. I passed the mirror in the entryway and I didn't dare look at the reflection.

In that surreal nightmare logic, I knew that it would be Old Me staring back.

His shadow writhed with wrecked lives, his weak and trembling hands struggled with the zipper on his jeans that he could never close.

I ran through the house looking for Sloane, but all I found were empty rooms stripped of her laughter, her light, and her scent.

The place we'd built together had become a carcass and I was its maggot.

I screamed soundless apologies that nobody was there to hear before a cackling laughter thundered through the house, shook the broken glass of the windows, and reverberated into the darkest pits within me.

Angie .

I whispered her name in the dream, fearful and timid as if saying it too loudly might conjure her. I ran faster then, but I'd stopped looking for Sloane. I knew she was gone, forever gone from this accursed place. No, I ran from Angie.

But she found me anyway.

Her smile scythed through the darkness and her voice coiled around my guilt, but I couldn't understand the words that slithered off her tongue. Disgust crawled up my throat as she drew nearer. I turned to vomit.

I woke with a gasp. Sweat coated my body as I turned over and dry heaved. The bedroom in the rental felt sterile, unfamiliar, and cold. The silence of the rental tried to return, but the rain outside still fell in a steady patter.

What in the hell?

No one ever tells you about this part. After the rubble settles from what you've destroyed and you’re still breathing?

Still waking up despite every wish to just disappear?

The quiet becomes a living thing that feeds on your regrets.

It whispers every what if you tried to bury.

In my previous life, Old Me had convinced himself that he'd chosen the right path.

But this time? I knew what a complete fucking idiot the Old Me had been, and reliving through his mistakes was giving me cataclysmic PTSD.

I should have stopped when Angie had said hi to me. I should have admitted to myself that she was nothing more than an insecure wound I never should’ve opened.

I reached for the bottle of water on the nightstand, remembering how the Old Me in my previous life would have been reaching for a bottle of scotch. Or bourbon. Or anything, really .

There were several years when the Old Me hadn't been picky, just needed to wrap himself in a drunken blanket for any chance of sleep.

I wasn't an alcoholic, not in the clinical sense, but Old Me had developed a severe dependency not long after this point in his life.

Yet one more thing that nearly a decade of therapy had helped me with.

The doorbell rang. I froze, water bottle in hand.

No one knew I lived here other than Sloane, who was in another state.

I got out of the bed, threw on a shirt, and walked to the door.

I pressed my ear against the wood, but heard only the sound of rainfall on the other side. I opened the door a crack.

There was no one there. Weird.

Then I looked down and saw it: an envelope, white and pristine, sitting on the welcome mat. I flipped it over to see just one word written in red lipstick:

LEVI

Fuck me . I stared at my name: sharp and accusatory lines bled into the paper. I turned the envelope over. My fingers trembled as I opened it. Inside, a single photo slipped out and my breath caught as I realized what it was.

Sloane.

I could tell it had been taken through our living room window.

The distinct white border of a Polaroid camera framed the image.

Sloane was sitting on the couch reading.

Her face was calm, untouched by makeup, her legs tucked under her.

She looked peaceful. She looked serene. She looked.

.. watched . The photo reeked of invasion, obsession, and malice.

How the fuck had somebody gotten so close without anyone seeing her?

On the back of the photo, scrawled in the same red lipstick, was a warning that made my world tilt:

If I can’t have you, no one will.

Angie.

This crazy bitch . I looked up and nearly jumped out of my skin. Across the street, she was standing in the rain under a flickering streetlight.

Are you fucking serious?

Her blonde hair was slicked back, she wore a long black trench coat she'd buttoned up to her throat, and her blood red lips curdled into a too-wide grin.

She stood next to the cherry red sports car her daddy had bought for her, its lights off and engine idling.

She raised her hand and waved as if we were old friends; as if she hadn't been the driving catalyst for Old Me to destroy his life.

How did she find me?

I stood frozen on the porch.

Your company truck is in the driveway, you fucking idiot.

I should have slammed the door and called the police, or at least tossed the note out like the trash that it was. But something held me back; a gut feeling that if I made any moves then things would get a hell of a lot worse.

Without taking her eyes from me, that manic smile still scrawled across her face, she slid into the driver's seat with a methodical and eerie calm. She revved the engine, winked at me, then drove off into the night like a shadow melting into the road. I watched her taillights vanish.

Cause that's not freaky as fuck.

I retreated back into the rental, my heart thundering against my ribs.

Each floorboard whined under my weight as I paced and I knew I couldn’t sleep now.

My pulse hammered in my head. My guilt clawed the walls of my ribcage as it gnashed its teeth and howled through my thoughts.

My sin stalked the streets smothered in red lipstick.

I paced from room to room as if I was trying to outrun something that I didn’t have the courage to name, but I knew what it was: fear.

Fear of the unknown variable in this new life. This Angie… she was not the woman I remembered, not the woman from my previous life. She was some darker thing now, calculated and cruel, a warped reflection of the Angie I knew.

I was desperately trying to recall my time with her in my previous life, scraps of memories that could have hinted she was this unhinged, when I saw my phone buzz on the counter.

I'd blocked her number. I know I did. It was one of the very first things I made sure to do when I decided to get this new life in order. I picked up my phone, saw that it was an unknown number, and answered it anyway.

Road noise, rainfall, and obscenely heavy breathing came through the other end before Angie's voice, eerie and euphoric, drawled my name out. “Leviiiii. Haven't you missed me, baby?"

I could never miss you , is what I wanted to say. But I didn't respond, didn't engage. She made her little pouting noise, the one that the Old Me had thought was so damned adorable and preceded him giving her anything she'd wanted .

After I gave her nothing but more silence, she said, "Oh… I have missed you. I have missed you so much. I'm glad I could finally see you, but you looked like a ghost, baby.”

Yeah, bitch. You fucking scared me half to death.

Angie breathed a giggle into the phone as I stayed silent. I was caught in the tight space between fear and fury, my thoughts snarling too loud to form words.

“I liked that shirt on you,” she said. “Sloane never appreciated your body the way I did. She never looked at you the way I did. You do remember that… right?” The last word was enunciated before the line clicked.

I stared at the phone, my chest tight with indignant rage.

Fragments of our past arguments flashed through my mind; memories of how Angie’s entitlement oozed from shrieked demands and shouted desires.

Her tantrums had always been those of a spoiled princess who'd been denied a shiny thing.

That's just who she was: a bratty, vain, selfish, spoiled princess.

Or that's who she had been… in my previous life. But now? I didn't know what the hell Angie was other than goddamn creepy. She was watching me. Fuck me, she was watching Sloane.

Clutching my phone, I went into survival mode as I locked every door and window, closed all of the blinds and curtains, and turned on every outside light.

The problem was, she wasn't just outside; she was squirming inside my head.

I reminded myself who I was and what mattered, all that mattered in this new life was Sloane, the kids, and our future.

Eventually, the roaring waves of adrenaline settled and were replaced by unnerving ripples of nausea.

I stumbled to the bathroom, gripped the edge of the sink, and stared into the mirror.

My reflection looked unfamiliar and sickly: drawn, gray, taut.

My eyes were ringed with exhaustion, regret, guilt, and anxiety.

My phone rang again as the blood drained from my face. I clicked on Block but a few minutes later it rang again.

This wasn’t just an obsession. This was a warning. A promise. A sick game I was already losing, but I needed to win in order to protect my second chance.

Fuck this bitch. It's on.