Your imagination doesn’t count, Dinah. Stop being stupid. I shook my head at myself. I stepped up the front stoop, our window from the fourth floor glowing warmly.
I already knew Scott would be on the sofa playing video games, his way of unwinding after a long week, though you’d never know he had a bad day. He was always happy and light. Nothing ever bothered him, which I sometimes found irritating.
“Dinah….” Reaching for my keys, I felt a burst of air brush down the back of my neck, sliding around, slipping between my breasts like breath, sending shivers down my limbs. My skin tingled, not from the coldness but with awareness. A tapping at the back of my neck turned my head around.
The street was quiet, lined with empty cars, not a person on the street. I swallowed, but the feeling of eyes burrowing through my winter jacket skated over my skin.
Adrenaline hummed in my ears, my attention back on the door. I unlocked it, wanting to rush to get to safety. I ran inside, jogging up the four flights, not stopping until I burst through our apartment door, my breathing heavy. I bolted every lock before falling against it.
“Hey, babe,” Scott called from the sofa without even looking up, his fingers moving knobs as zombies died on the screen. “You’re home early.”
The only expensive thing we had in the place was the flat-screen TV and the latest PlayStation. Everything else had been given to us or bought used. The dated apartment still had the original beige rug throughout the small one-bedroom, which was stained and faded. Laminate floors in the kitchen and bathroom were peeling and cracked. The cupboards were made of cheap pine wood, all the old appliances were white, and the faucets took centuries to get hot water. It was the type of place no matter how much you cleaned, it still looked and felt dirty. But it was home.
“Yeah.” I nodded, pushing off the door. I kicked off my shoes, cringing at my torn bloody tights, trying to keep my voice normal. “It got slow.”
“Oh, cool.” His eyes on the screen, sounds of explosions and death blared from the TV. “There’s some leftover Chinese in the fridge, and your sister sent us another package… Oh, come on! I totally killed you. That’s bullshit,” he yelled at the game.
Peeling off my coat, I strolled to the box on top of the tiny dining table. Using a chair as my coat rack, I tossed down my stuff. Alice sent us a box weekly filled with treats from her new thriving café. No one, including me, knew who she hired to bake these delicious treats. Newspapers and magazines were hounding for an exclusive interview with him. All I knew about the baker…it was a him. Whenever Scott or I would ask, she would laugh, a naughty glint in her eyes. “He’s someone you have to see to believe. Plus, he doesn’t want anyone knowing who he is. Just wants to be left alone in his kitchen and bake.”
It made no sense to me. Didn’t most chefs live to be renowned and to be claimed the best in the world? In New York, this chef had to be expensive to hire. Alice and Matt were doing well, but not that level of well. I didn’t even understand how they could get a space in Greenwich for both their hat shop and the bakery. The rent alone had to be astronomical.
But my sister seemed to keep a lot to herself lately. Mysterious and cryptic. We had yet to meet Matt’s family or any of their friends in the city.
“Scott…” I growled, lifting off the top, noticing the box was almost empty. “You ate them all?”
“No, I left you one of the cinnamon-roasted chestnut cookies and a lemon poppyseed cupcake with the vanilla-honey butter drizzle.” His attention was still focused on the game.
I knew Alice filled the box with more than a dozen items to keep us going until the next shipment. Scott didn’t have an off button when it came to the delicacies here. He would eat the entire week’s worth, plus mine, in one sitting. And it was starting to show. He was young and ran with me, but his love of the baked goods was turning his average build into a dad bod.
Annoyed, I flipped the top back down with a huff, Alice’s logo scrolling across the light blue box. I usually didn’t pay much attention to artsy stuff. That was her domain. I could appreciate art, but my brain had no understanding of how she could come up with her designs. Her hat shop was similar to walking into a crazy fantasy world.
My finger traced over the design, something about it tugging at me this time. Alice and the Hatter poured out of a teapot into an upturned top hat with a red scarf. Even on a box, the scarf appeared like it was blowing in the wind. My gaze drifted to the scarf. Subtle drawings of a penguin, a boy and girl elf, a reindeer, white rabbit, and other Christmas icons were hidden throughout the scarf. Alice loved the holidays as I had, but she had taken her love to another level. My analytical side thought she might be diving into it to forget the awful time two years ago, hiding behind the innocence and joy of Christmas, while I turned against it.
I loved my older sister more than life itself. She had always been the flighty, impulsive, lost one, while I had every duck in a row. My life had been mapped out and in focus. Now it seemed everything had flipped. She had it all figured out, and I was trying so hard to keep everything together.
“I’m gonna take a shower and go to bed.” I peered down at my leg; another pair of tights ruined. I was not really a girly girl, and things like tights, heels, and makeup were practically strangers to me.
“Okay. I’ll be in soon,” Scott muttered before yelling out at the screen. “Die! Come on, I threw a grenade at you.”
He would not be in soon. Scott could get so lost in the gaming world and let hours pass without notice.
Strolling over, I gave him a quick kiss.
“What happened to your leg?” He glanced down at me, a frown lining his face.
“I fell over a woodpile at work.” I shrugged it off. “No biggie.”
“You okay?” His eyes darted between the TV and me.
“Yeah. I’m fine.” I nodded, turning for the bathroom, already stripping off my elf costume, needing so badly to wash this day off and forget.
“Where did you go before your shift? I came home early, and you were gone.”
“Oh…” I paused in the bathroom doorway, guilt sliding down my throat. “Just had a few errands to run. You know, get a head start on holiday shopping.”
“You hate shopping.”
“Why I want to get it out of the way.” The lie strangled my tongue, and I shut the door. Scott and I shared everything. There wasn’t anything we didn’t tell each other or talk about. Except I didn’t tell him about my therapy session. Or that the night terrors I had as a child were back, along with hearing my name being called, people watching me from the shadows, or the kiss of a man I made up still burned against my lips.
I stared at myself in the mirror, my brown eyes filled with doubt and fear. Terrified, because in my gut I knew I was falling down the same hole as my sister.
I was going utterly mad.
“Dinah. Wake up. Dinah…”
My lids popped open, air grappling in my lungs like I forgot to breathe in my sleep. My heart thudded in my chest, damp sweat lining my forehead.
The clock by my bed blinked 3:21 a.m., and the glow from the streetlamp outside pushed through the blinds, giving the room enough light to recognize shapes. Scott’s soft snores echoed in the room, his legs kicking over to my side of the bed.