Page 24 of Texting Dr. Stalker

Would that be stepping over a line?

Should I go check on her?

“Goddammit, it’s not my place!” Snatching my glasses off my nose, I rubbed my eyes. All the tiredness from working crushed me. All the worry about my neighbour felt endless.

I wished Lily would sense that her friend wasn’t doing so well and pop over. At least someone would be there with her. Someone would be there to listen if she needed to talk or stop her from doing anything stupid if the memories got too bad.

Right, that’s it.

Jerking my glasses back on, I stalked to my back door and wrenched it open.

I had to see for myself.

I have to know she’s okay.

With a churning heart and balled fists, I cut through my manicured garden toward the three fence palings that’d come loose in my childhood and had slowly rotted ever since.

I’d sneaked through this secret entrance multiple times, going to visit Melody and steal a freshly baked cookie or two. I even hid at her place a few times when I’d been in my ‘I hate my siblings’ phase and couldn’t stand my two sisters. I’d begged Melody to adopt me so I never had to share a home with two bickering girls again.

A rusty nail snagged on my shirt, tearing a hole in it as I squeezed through.

My gaze tracked through the wild garden that always reminded me of a picture I’d seen of a Roman hospital back in the day. The land surrounding the hospital had been planted with every known medicinal plant, allowing doctors to pop into the flower beds and grab what was needed right off the stem.

At least the kitchen light was on, showing bunches of drying herbs and pretty flower magnets on the oversized industrial fridge.

This house was as familiar to me as my own, yet now it felt like it’d been touched by evil.

If I’d done a better job of talking to Sailor over the years, I could’ve offered her to stay at mine for a while. She could’ve been close to everything she loved and able to make her concoctions for the market but have space from the actual place where he tried to kill her.

Melody’s probably cursing me right about now.

Pushing my way through the final paling, I sucked in a breath and took a step toward the house. Then froze as my cell phone erupted with an obnoxiously shrill ring tone that I heard even in the deepest of sleeps.

Fuck.

Slipping the phone from my pocket, I cut off the racket and did my best to swallow my temper. “Dr North speaking.”

“Dr North? I’m so sorry to do this after your already long day, but are you able to come back in? There’s been a minibus versus an overloaded truck, and we need all hands on deck.”

My shoulders slouched as I spotted Sailor sitting on the couch, facing away from me. Her hair was just as tangled as before. The TV wasn’t on. The fact she sat there, all alone staring at nothing, ripped the knots in my guts into smithereens.

I couldn’t tell if my concern came from the physician who’d seen her in the ER or as a not-friend-but-childhood-something.

Either way, I couldn’t leave her like that, but…I had no choice.

Not my place, remember?

Exhaling hard, I squeezed back through the fence and headed toward my car. “Sure, I’ll be right there.”

* 9 *

Sailor

Walls Are Closing

THREE MORE DAYS PASSED AND THE WORLD kept closing in around me.

I hated that I couldn’t stop it.

---