Portia Moore - He Lived Next Door

by Unknown

  I gape at Jax, but he says, “She’s right. You have been known to jump into things full speed ahead and then a week passes and it’s like it never mattered.”

  I sit up straighter in my chair, a little offended. “Are you guys saying I’m a flake?”

  They all avert their eyes.

  “Come on, I’m not a flake,” I say defensively.

  “How many times have you changed your major?” Duke asks.

  I scoff. “About half the times you have.”

  “Yeah, but I’m a screw up and had to. I didn’t just get bored.”

  “Changing majors doesn’t mean I’m a flake. Everyone changes their major once or twice,” I say… even though I’ve changed mine about six times.

  “Remember when we were kids and you got me all psyched to try out for the football team and we practiced and practiced and we got picked, and two weeks later you didn’t want to do it anymore?” Jax sounds annoyed. We were twelve—he should be over that by now. “Or the time you decided you were going to be a chef and you spent almost a grand on cooking crap, and after a month, it ended up in a box in our storage locker?”

  “Can’t forget the time he decided he was going to be a video editor and bought a two thousand dollar laptop,” Tiffany says.

  “Hey, I’m still working on it,” I tell them.

  “What are you working on?” Kira asks, glad to hop on the “let’s take a dig at Bryce” train.

  “We know how excited you get about things in the beginning. You’re impulsive, passionate. You’ll never be dull to be around, but we’ve never seen you like this about a girl, especially one you’ve only seen once and barely talked to. With it being senior year and you taking that love poetry class…” Tiff says.

  I stand up, tired of their jokes. They’ve basically called me a toddler who gets a new toy and throws it to the side after Christmas. “I’m offended.”

  They all snicker.

  “Come on, Brycie, don’t be that way,” Tiffany pleads.

  “You all think I’m a flake, and that I never follow through on anything,” I tell them.

  “Dude, no one called you a flake. You’re not a flake. I just wouldn’t sign any business deals with you.” Duke laughs. “Wait, is her mom going to be there?”

  They all burst into laughter, and I wave as I leave the table.

  “For your sake, I hope not,” Jax adds before I make it to the door.

  Joke’s on them—I didn’t leave any money for my portion of the bill. Now that’s a flake.

  After the roast I unknowingly sat through yesterday, I’m nervous to see her. I’m never nervous about dates, but here I am, my palms sweating on my second cup of water. I hate coffee.

  I can’t get the things they said out of my head. Tiffany’s careful tone, Kira’s smug grin. Duke and Max were assholes per usual, but usually Jax will step in and defend me. This time he didn’t—he jumped on “the pile on Bryce” train.

  What if I imagined it? What if Serendipity came on while I was asleep and sent subliminal messages to my brain? What if I created this ridiculous moment that seemed more life-changing than it was?

  “Are you okay?” She asks, quietly.

  I look up and she’s there, the sunlight shining on her, wearing the same bright smile with perfect lips that almost distract me from her warm brown eyes. They’re soft, welcoming, mesmerizing. She’s more beautiful than I remember. This time her light blond hair falls down both her shoulders, and I notice that she has a small dimple on her right cheek. She’s tiny but not in a creepy “she looks like she’s twelve” way. She can’t be over five two. I could pick her up in one arm. My heart thumps, and I feel high.

  “I’m perfect,” I tell her, and she smiles bashfully.

  “You looked like you were zoned out.” With a beautiful grin, she begins pulling out her chair.

  I stand quickly and apologize and do it for her. She giggles.

  “Thank you, Bryce.”

  I love the way she says my name.

  “Long night,” I tell her, embarrassed that she caught me in such deep thought.

  She takes off her coat, which I take as a good sign. If she’d kept it on, that’d mean she wouldn’t be staying long. When she takes it off, she reveals an off-the-shoulder sweater. She has a long perfect neck, and on her shoulder is a tattoo that looks like a book with pages flying out of it.

  “I got muffins,” she says with the best smile in history, setting them on the table.

  “Thanks. I don’t know how I missed you coming in.”

  “You seemed pretty deep in thought.” She pops a piece of the muffin in her mouth.

  I chuckle. “Not really. Just going over my day yesterday.”

  She nods. “Want to tell me about it?”

  “I’d rather get to know you.”

  Her grin spreads fantastically wide, showing all of her perfect teeth. “Actually I’d like to know about you first.” She tucks a piece of light-blond hair behind her ear and frowns. “How old are you?”

  I can’t help but notice she’s eyeing me with fascination. “I turn twenty-two in three months.”

  “Are you in school?” she asks, and I tell her I’m a senior at Roosevelt University.

  “Do you shower or bathe daily?”

  I laugh. “Umm, yeah.”

  She bites her lips when our eyes meet. “Do you hurt small animals? Do you like to cross dress?”

  I really laugh now. “I’m sorry, but what?”

  She covers her face and giggles. “It’s just that—I wouldn’t normally tell a guy this, but since our meeting was sort of out of the ordinary, it only seems fitting—why would a guy w-who looks like you, who seems smart and fairly normal…” She smiles, but it’s small and a small line appears between her eyebrows. “Why would you have to chase down a girl you’ve never even seen before?”

  “I really don’t know,” I tell her, and she looks disappointed. I lean in closer and my heart does a cartwheel when she does the same. “Actually, do you believe in fate?”

  She’s quiet for a moment, taking time to contemplate the question. “I’m more of a fan of free will.”

  I love that answer. “I’m a big believer in fate. In both actually—fate and free will—but I think there are moments when we make connections or have ideas because the universe gave us a nudge to act and those moments are life-changing if we listen.”

  She looks at me a moment, her head tilted slightly to the side, as she pinches off another piece of the muffin. “So you’re saying that moment of us meeting or you hearing me was life-changing?”

  “I heard your voice and out of the millions I’ve heard before, yours snatched my attention. I heard you, and your voice wouldn’t leave me alone,” I tell her, being more honest than I ever have in my life.

  She gives me the warmest smile I’ve ever seen. “Well, who am I to argue with fate?”

  We talk for hours.

  It’s daytime when we meet, and evening creeps around before we leave.

  Her full name is Chassidy Stevens. She’s twenty years old, and a sophmore at Columbia College. Her major is fiction and screenplay writing. She’s an only child. Her parents never married or were even a couple. She spent her childhood between here in Chicago and California. She loves to eat but hates Italian food—blasphemy in my book—but I forgive her because she loves action movies, even proving it by naming off her top twenty. It’s a pretty great list. She minored in dance for a while but realized there were so many more naturally talented people, so she stopped and devoted more time to her love for writing. She likes ice cream but prefers frozen yogurt, and I’m in love with her already.

  “Mom, what are you doing here?” I ask as she makes her way past me into the apartment.

  “Something is wrong, and I want to know what,” she announces as I close the door.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I say, trying to avoid her gaze.

  “Chassidy Marie Stevens…”

  I would normally correct her th
at it’s now Chassidy Marie Bell, but her tone lets me know she’s ready to argue. I’m in too good a mood to fight with her.

  “I carried you in my body for nine and a half months. You were three weeks overdue, and it took me fourteen and a half hours to get you out. If you think that I don’t know when something is wrong, you are delusional.”

  At this point, I notice the too-large-to-be-a-purse bag she’s carrying, and I feel anxiety and panic creep up my spine. “What is that?”

  “Isn’t it adorable? I got it on sale. The girl said it’s the in designer, Tory Butch,” she says, twirling around to showcase it.

  “Tory Burch, Mom. That’s the same designer who made the sunglasses and scarf I bought you for your birthday.” Shoot, I’m getting distracted. “I mean, it looks like you have a lot of stuff in it.”

  She glares at me—disapprovingly, might I add—and I shrink back into my sixteen-year-old self. “That’s because I’m going to spend the week with you.”

  I hear the violins from Psycho play. It’s not that I don’t love my mom. It’s just that, well, she can be controlling and super overbearing and now is the absolute worst time for her to be here.

  “Mom, you know that I love you,” I tell her cautiously.

  “Of course I know that. Why wouldn’t you love the woman who brought you into this world—”

  “After fourteen and a half hours of labor,” I interrupt her, and she gives me a pageant girl smile. I can’t help but chuckle. If I were to describe our relationship to a shrink, I’d describe it as teetering somewhere between nagging mother and overprotective sister. I wouldn’t trade her for the world, and she’s one of the coolest moms I know, but she can be too much sometimes. I take her coat as she slides out of it. “I just don’t think it’s the best time right now.”

  She arches a sharp brow at me. “I bet if Bryce’s mom wanted to stay, you wouldn’t have a problem accommodating her.”

  I scowl. We both know Bryce’s mom would never stay here longer than to appease her son, which since we’ve moved here, has been less than an hour combined. His parents are loaded—his mother specifically, her family owns a brewery—and as nice as our place is, she turned her nose up at it on her first visit, asking when we’d be moving to something more presentable. As if a two-bedroom condo in one of the best parts of downtown Chicago is slumming it. My mother knows this, and tosses her hair.

  “There is no such thing as not a good time for your mother to come help you,” she says, and I sigh.

  “Actually there is,” I say a tad more sternly, ignoring the grimace she shoots me before she heads to the guest room. “I don’t need your help!” I scream in my head.

  “I don’t know why you haven’t made this an office yet. Maybe it’d give you more inspiration to get your books done,” she says, placing her bag on the floor beside the guest bed.

  I massage the tension out of my head. This is why she can’t help me, why I don’t need her here. She tried to be there for me after I lost Logan, but she just didn’t get it. She doesn’t understand. She’s never lost a child before, and she doesn’t know what to do or say. All my life, she’s been a resilient woman. When life hit her with crap—failed relationships, losing jobs, losing her parents—she just bounced back and she doesn’t understand why I’m not doing the same. She couldn’t possibly help me now. When I open my eyes, she’s looking at me as though if she stares long enough, she could rifle through my thoughts like she does my closet.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing’s going on,” I say, my voice rising.

  She folds her arms across her chest, and now gives me her super stare. I sigh and leave the room.

  “You better tell me now. You know I won’t let up on this!” she shouts, following me into my bedroom. She picks up my sweater dress. “What is this hideous thing?”

  “It’s not hideous, it’s a sweater dress, and it’s what I’m wearing to a dinner party tonight with Bryce,” I say, snatching it from her.

  “Who on earth would make a sweater dress?” Her face looks as if she just sucked a lemon. “You either wear the dress and be sexy and cold, or you don’t. There’s no in between.”

  I roll my eyes and sit on the bed. She sits next to me.

  “Come on, honey bear, spill the pot,” she says, pulling me to rest on her shoulder.

  I sigh, and for a moment, I want to tell her. But it seems like so much has happened and she’ll be angry and hurt that I didn’t tell her in the first place. Then she’ll just tell me it will all be okay and women were made for more than popping out kids and if Bryce doesn’t like it, he can piss himself.

  One of her favorite sayings.

  She won’t see my fault in this for pushing him away, and she won’t understand why I can’t get over it. She’ll tell me my life is too good to complain about and go into the tirade of how different things were for us when I was younger, how she worked two jobs for us to stay in a nice neighborhood, how we are overcomers, strong women who don’t get held down by what life throws our way. All of that I already know, all of that I’ve tried to tell myself, and all that makes me feel worse and more pathetic. So I swallow the truth and tell her a partial bit.

  “Bryce and I had a fight.”

  Her lips turn down in a scowl. “About what? Is he not home enough anymore? I knew him being a pilot was just asking for trouble. Pilots are floozy magnets.”

  “It’s not his job. Floozies aren’t our issue,” I say, unable to resist laughing at her use of “floozy.” “He loves to fly. I’m proud of him.”

  The day he became licensed was one of the happiest days of his life. I was happy for him, especially after seeing him drift from career to career—mostly those his parents had pressured him into. Nothing was good enough for them, or more specifically for his mother. When my books started to sell well and I asked Bryce what he would do if he didn’t have to worry about money. Without a second thought, he said, “Be a pilot.” At first I thought he was joking, but then I saw the look in his eye. It was the same one he had when he told me that he loved me. I knew then he was serious and he’d be great at it, because he’s always been great at loving me.

  “Why doesn’t he take you with him?” she says childishly.

  “Because I’m not a co-pilot and it’d be pretty desperate to follow him around like some clingy puppy. I’m surprised at you, forward-thinking woman that you are, for thinking I should do that,” I tease her with a nudge. But when I look at her, I don’t see the irritated sneer she usually has when she refers to my marriage. I see genuine worry, and from her, it’s sort of terrifying. “Mom, we’re fine. Since when did you become team Bryce and me?”

  “I’m not. I’m team ‘I want my daughter to be happy’ and Bryce makes you happy. Besides, you could have picked a worse member of the male species, so I’m choosing to look at the positive side of this.”

  I can’t help but hug her. “Positive side?”

  I’m a little surprised. My mom has never been like that. She’s never been a complainer. She has always just taken life as it came at her, and refused to relent, but she’s never been the type to see the glass as half full. She’s more like, “If the damn glass breaks, clean it up and don’t cry about it.”

  She grins a bit. “I think Adam is rubbing off on me.”

  My eyebrow shoots up. “Adam, the guy who asked you out a million times and when you finally caved in, you said he annoyed you to no end and you’d never see him again?” I recall the hour-long phone call she spent complaining about him after their first date.

  “It was hard to avoid him since he owns my favorite restaurant, and well, the banana cream pie was too much to give up,” she says haughtily.

  I’m shocked, completely shocked. While I gape at her, she catches me up on how many times they’ve gone out—which is a lot over the past four months. She even let him spend the night. My mom dated—well, she hates to use the word date—a man for a year without even letting him know what street she li
ved on.

  But she gushes over Adam. She tells me he’s a year younger than she is-fifty-six-, divorced, and has one daughter. He also has three dogs, which she hates, but as she talks about him, I see a look I’ve never seen on her before. I think my mother’s actually in love. I recognize the look because I used to see it on my face every day. I miss it, and I kick myself for feeling a little jealous of my own mother.

  I’m in the bedroom, slipping on my underwear, when I hear Bryce come in.

  “Evelyn?”

  I can hear the surprise and annoyance in his voice, which is shocking. Bryce has never been rude to my mother or showed any disdain toward her even when she deserved it. Yes, he’s surprised, but if he had had his phone on, I could have warned him.

  “Wow, your enthusiasm at seeing your mother-in-law is radiating off you so much, I could put your joy in a bottle and drink it up,” my mother replies snarkily.

  “You know you’re one of my favorite people,” he says with his usual charm, and I’m sure he’s displaying a devastatingly handsome smile. “Is everything okay?” He sounds worried, and that perks me up a bit.

  “I’m not sure. Is it?” My mother asks, and the perk I had was gone.

  I grab the towel off the bed and make a beeline for the door before my mother starts grilling him. That will ruin the entire night, if I haven’t ruined it already.

  “Hey, sweetie,” I sing, and their eyes dart to me.

  My mom eyes me suspiciously. “I’m sure he could have waited until you’d dried off.”

  “Well I thought I’d butt in before the interrogation began,” I tell her with a wink.

  I walk over to Bryce and give him a quick peck on the lips. He looks stunned, and I realize it’s the first time in weeks that I’ve initiated physical contact with him. I haven’t seen his eyes this close in so long, and I see his longing, but it disappears quickly. His gaze breaks from mine, and it’s almost like a shove in the chest.