Page 17 of The Neighbor
Unsure how to proceed, I shrug again and answer, “I don’t know. I guess it depends on what you’ve done.”
Aaron shakes his head again, obviously unhappy with my answer. Sorry, buddy. I’m not really in a deep thoughts kind of place tonight. Catch me another time and maybe I can help you.
“Not what I’ve done,” he says in a cryptic voice that slices right through me.
Not what he’s done? Then what the fuck is he talking about?
He takes another step toward me and points his finger directly at my face. “I think God sees everything.”
“Okay. Well, it’s been nice talking to you. Have a good night.”
I turn to walk inside my house when I feel his hand clamp down on my left forearm. Shocked I didn’t hear him rush up on me, I spin around to face him and snap, “What the fuck?”
“God sees everything all right. He sees what you do and then it’s just a matter of time before karma gets you.”
After I pry his fingers from my arm, he steps back, shaking his head. “Some people refuse to believe, but God knows. He knows all.”
Instead of making a joke about how he mixed up Christianity and Buddhism, I simply ignore his idiotic ramblings and hurry inside, happy to be done with that conversation. So much for him being simply the grieving widower. It seems he’s graduated to religious zealot, and that’s the last thing I want to deal with tonight or anytime.
Go sell that nonsense somewhere else. Whatever his God sees or doesn’t see has nothing to do with me.
I slam the door shut and lock it, worried he might think he can bring that garbage in here. I feel for the guy, I guess. I don’t know what it’s like to lose a wife, but come on. We live in a civilized world, man. You don’t just sneak up on a guy in the dark of night and start preaching your religious shit. It’s just rude.
Shaken by that weird encounter, I carefully pull back the living room curtains just enough to look through the window to make sure he went back home. He hasn’t, though. He’s slowly walking down the middle of the street like he’s looking for something. Or someone.
As I watch completely creeped out, he turns around and I swear he looks right at me. I feel like my feet are encased in concrete and I can’t move as I wait for him to keep walking, but he stays right there in the middle of the road in front of Marilyn and Harold’s house staring at my house.
What is with this guy?
When he finally turns around and continues his weird stroll through the neighborhood, I close the curtains and hurry from the window. I need a drink. A good stiff drink will help me forget about that encounter.
I pour a glass of vodka, but my hand shakes so much that I get it all over the damn counter. Son of a bitch! Now on top of everything, I’ve got a mess.
Grabbing the paper towels out of the cabinet, I clean up and then immediately down the entire glass. I need to calm the hell down. Aaron is just the neighborhood weirdo, a sad guy who seems to have forgotten how to interact with people without unnerving the hell out of them. He was babbling with all that God bullshit.
The vodka instantly makes my stomach churn as I try to convince myself that I’m right and Aaron has simply lost his mind because of grief. It would make sense. The guy spends day after day alone in that house mourning his wife and probably missing his kids. It wouldn’t be so strange for him to go around the bend after all of that.
Then again, what if it isn’t that at all?
No. There’s no way. He couldn’t know about me. How could he? I’ve covered my tracks so well nobody knows what I’ve done.
Maybe he has the same skills you do.
That’s not possible. The guy is an emotional fucking mess. He can barely get dressed in the morning, much less uncover the truth about me. He’s overwhelmed with grief. I can’t believe he spends time doing anything other than sitting in his house missing his family.
He all but told you he knows what you’ve done. God sees everything. He meant God knows about all those girls.
I pour another glass of vodka and slam it down, needing to get a grip. Aaron, my grieving neighbor who’s at this moment walking around the neighborhood barefoot practically haunting the cul-de-sac, doesn’t know a damn thing about me. I’m not even sure he knows my goddamned name. I’m just the guy who lives next door to him who simply happened to be around when he felt like talking.
Damn creepy bastard! Stay inside your own house and call someone on the phone if you want to talk. Don’t come outside and bother me.
Glancing over at the bottle of vodka, I consider pouring myself another glass because the first two didn’t work to calm me the hell down. I reach for it but stop myself. No. I need to keep my wits about me.
I put the bottle back in the cabinet, along with the roll of paper towels, and head for my desk. If Aaron’s going to be sneaking up on me and starting up conversations, I need to know every damn detail about him.
Except that’s not the real reason why I want to find out about him. I need to know for sure if he could possibly know about what I’ve done. There can be no loose ends. Guessing he probably doesn’t know a damn thing isn’t good enough. I need to make sure he doesn’t.
And if he does, then my creepy mourning neighbor is going to be joining his wife sooner than he thinks.