Page 80 of Play Nice

“Mom would be thrilled.”

The joke isn’t funny anymore. “I’ll let you know when I figure things out. I have to go.”

I hang up.

The thought of going back to Edgewood terrifies me, makes me forget how to breathe, makes me feel like I’m being constricted, squeezed to death by my own skin. And yet somehow the thought of never going back is even worse.

Because I want to go back. Even if it scares me. Maybe because it scares me.

It occurs to me that I now have an excuse I didn’t have before. No one could blame me if I were to ditch the renovation project in the wake of this fire. There’s no pressure for me to finish. When I want to be done, I’ll be done. I’ll have Leda put the house on the market—tell her I need the money for a deposit on a new apartment. She won’t be able to argue with that.

Part of me still does want to finish, to show them, to spite my sisters, to spite Dad. But we’ll see.

Part of me just needs to know what will happen. How could I walk away now? Just go on living with this half-baked supernatural mystery floating around in the back of my mind. Return to my old life, which seems, unfortunately, far less stimulating post-demon.

I had this boyfriend in high school—Kyle Matheson—who loved to go see horror movies. He’d pay for the tickets and the popcorn, and we’d make out in his car in the parking lot after, and he was beautiful and a great kisser, so I was game. I came home late one summer night to my sisters in the upstairs bathroom, Daphne helping Leda color her hair.

“Where have you been?” Leda asked.

“The cinema,” I’d said, flipping my curls over my shoulder for some drama.

“What’d ya see?” Daffy asked.

“An art house film called Cannibal Dinner Party.”

They’d both rolled their eyes. Horror wasn’t the genre of choice among the Barneses, for obvious reasons.

“I don’t know how you could sit through that garbage,” Leda said.

“Kyle likes them,” I’d said, spritzing some perfume to combat the scent of ammonia. “It’s not so bad. They’re fun.”

“I never understood those movies,” Daphne said. “I can’t suspend my disbelief. Like, a bunch of stupid fucking teenagers are, like, there are rumored to be murderous cannibals or ghosts or whatever over there, we should go! Why would anyone do that?”

“Curiosity. Excitement,” I’d said. “I’d go.”

I remember how they looked at me. Like I was crazy. I shrugged and left the bathroom, understanding there was a fundamental difference between us. Some people jump out of airplanes, some people backpack alone across Europe, some people climb Mount Everest, some people swim with sharks, some people fuck hot strangers they meet on the street, some people do heroin, chase a high because they know what it’s worth, despite the danger. And some people sit around thinking, I would never.

Yes, the house scares me. But nothing scares me as much as the idea that I might become one of those tragic, boring, would-never people.

So I pack up my hotel room, drop some things off in my storage unit, and take an Uber all the way to New Jersey. I put it on Dad’s account. I hope he sees where I went.

—

There’s a package waiting on the doorstep when I get to Edgewood.

I take it inside and open it, my back to the wall with the frowning face.

It’s the copy of Mom’s book I ordered. It’s somehow in even worse condition than the copy she left me. The spine cracked, cover frayed. The pages are yellow, and it smells—top note of vomit, base note of BO.

I sit at the dining table and flip through the book, looking for the place where I left off. But I can’t concentrate, can’t focus with the frowning face behind me. I can feel it looking at me.

I change into my painting shorts and T-shirt and then get out my putty knife and some Spackle. I patch the deep gashes in the wall, trying not to think about what made them. Who made them.

I ruin my manicure in the process.

The utility sink in the garage would be useful to wash off my putty knife and scrub the Spackle currently crusting on my cuticles, but I refuse to go back in there after the mouse massacre. I wash my hands in the kitchen sink instead.

I catch a whiff of something rancid, follow my nose to the fridge.