Page 11 of One More Chapter
Do you know whatisa big deal though?
The fact that someone is inside the house.
The garage door leads through a laundry room, straight into the kitchen, where I can hear the faint scuffling of feet on the floor further into the house. Taking tentative steps, I edge into the kitchen on high alert, then run into a metaphorical wall of shock.
It takes me all of five seconds for the chemistry in my body to realign itself because it’s finally near its other half.
I clutch my chest, willing my breathing to steady.
Before I even round the corner, I know who I’ll see.
Penelope Barker, in the flesh, standing in the middle of our first home together.
I only see her upper half over the half-wall that splits the kitchen and the dining area, which flows into the living room, where she is currently folding a throw blanket to lay over the back of the couch. I give myself a full minute to just stare.
At the girl I let slip through my fingers.
I step slowly into the dining area, figuring she’ll hear me. When she doesn’t, I stop behind the couch.
“Fancy seeing you here, PJ.”
“WHAT THEFUCK?!”
She screams.Screamsbloody murder as she turns around and throws the closest object in my direction, which just so happens to be her phone. Luckily, a combination of my baseball reflexes and Penelope’s weak arm allows me to catch it against my chest before it beans me in the head or shatters completely.
I cannot wipe the smile from my face. So what if she’s breaking and entering? I’ve been looking for a way to have her in my life again since I messed it up the first time, and all of a sudden, she’s in my living room? I’ll take what I can get. Even if sheisas red in the face as she is in that wild mane of hers.
“Hi,” I say with a small wave of her phone.
Her brows immediately bunch together, her breathing grows shallow, and I see fire in her eyes.There’s my feisty girl.
“What—and I cannot stress enough—thefuck, are you doing here?”
“Moving in! You?”
I sling my backpack onto the kitchen table before joining her in the living room.
“No.” She shakes her head, slow at first, quickening as her eyes grow wider, her smile more maniacal. “No. No, no, no, noyou’renot moving in.I’mmoving in.”
Um. What?
My face scrunches in question as I freeze.
“How is that possible?”
“Because,Anthony, myhousebasically exploded, and your mom said this place was available. Or are you still Tony?”
She crosses her arms, indignation twisting her expression.
“No, uh… Tony was me trying on a new persona last year. It did not stick.” The reminder of my first year in a new school,post-break-up, flushes over me in a warm wave. I extend my arm as far as it will go to offer her phone back, then sheepishly stuff my hands into my pockets. “And mymomalsosaid that the place was available. That I could stay here while my house is being built.”
“I feel like we have been bamboozled,” she says, color sapping from her cheeks.
“Looks like it,” I say, chuckling humorlessly, as I make a mental note to give my meddling mother a call.
The silence between us is so loud, I can hear the distinction between her heart and mine, thumping on opposite beats. Then, she laughs. A loud, open-mouthed cackle, devoid of humor. It’s a little insane, but I guess so is this situation. I can’t even imagine what she has to be thinking. If I’m seeing this as a gift from the heavens above, she’s got to see this townhouse as the doorstep to the gates of hell.
Suddenly, she plops down to the middle of the floor.