Next Door. Блейк Пирс

set the coffeemaker up. Chloe watched as her sister moved about the kitchen, a bit creeped out at how much it seemed she had not changed. She could very well be looking at the seventeen-year-old girl who had left home with the hopes of starting a band, despite their grandparents’ wishes. Everything looked the same, right down to the sleepy expression.

      “Have you heard anything about Dad lately?” Chloe asked.

      Danielle only shook her head. “With your job, I thought you’d be the one to hear anything. If there was anything to hear.”

      “I stopped checking a while ago.”

      “Cheers to that,” Danielle said, covering a small yawn with the back of her hand.

      “You look tired,” Chloe said.

      “I am. Only, not like sleepy tired. The doctor had me on these mood stabilizers. It screwed with my sleep. And when you’re a bartender who usually doesn’t get home until after three in the morning, the last thing you need is a medicine that fucks with your sleep.”

      “You said the doc had you on them. Are you not taking them anymore?”

      “No. They were fucking with my sleep, my appetite, and my libido. Ever since I stopped, I feel much better…just tired all the time.”

      “Why were they prescribed in the first place?” Chloe asked.

      “To deal with my nosy sister,” Danielle said, only half-joking. She waited a beat before giving an honest answer. “I was starting to get easily depressed. And it would come out of nowhere. I dealt with it in some…pretty dumb ways. Drinking. Sex. Fixer Upper.”

      “If it was for depression, you should probably get back on them,” Chloe said, realizing as she said it just how intrusive she was being. “What do you need a libido for anyway?” she asked with a snicker.

      “For those of us that aren’t about to get married, they’re pretty important. We can’t just roll over in bed and get laid whenever we want.”

      “You never had problems getting guys before,” Chloe pointed out.

      “And I still don’t,” she said, bringing mugs of coffee to the table. “It’s just too much work. Especially lately. This new one. A serious guy. We decided to take it slow…whatever.”

      “That’s the only reason I’m marrying Steven, you know,” Chloe said, trying to get into the joking mood right along with her. “I got tired of having to go out and work for sex.”

      They both had a laugh at this. It should have felt natural to laugh and smile together again but something about it felt forced.

      “So what’s up, sis?” Danielle asked. “It’s not like you to drop by. Not that I’d know, as we haven’t had that opportunity in almost two years.”

      Chloe nodded, remembering the one time they had actually spent together in the last handful of years. Danielle had been in Philly for some concert and had crashed at her apartment. They’d talked a bit, but not much. Danielle had been hammered and passed out on her couch. Their mom had come up in the conversation, as had their dad. It was the only time Chloe had ever heard Danielle openly speak about wanting to go visit him.

      “That scene this morning,” Chloe said. “It made me think of that morning outside of the apartment. I kept thinking about the blood at the bottom of the stairs and it got to me. I thought I was going to puke. And I’m not that kind of person, you know? The scene itself was pretty vanilla compared to some of the stuff I’ve seen. It just hit me hard. It made me think of you and I had to see you. Does that make sense?”

      “Yeah. The mood stabilizers…I’m pretty sure all of the depression was coming from nightmares I was having about Mom and Dad. I’d have them and then be in a funk for days. Like, not wanting to get out of bed because I trusted no one else out in the world.”

      “Well, I was going to ask how you cope with it when you think of what happened, but I guess I know the answer, huh?”

      Danielle nodded and looked away. “Meds.”

      “You okay?”

      Danielle shrugged but she may as well have flipped Chloe her middle finger. “We’re together for about ten minutes and you already go there. God, Chloe…haven’t you learned to live your life without dragging that shit up? If you recall, when you called to tell me that you were moving to Pinecrest, we decided to not talk about it. Water under the bridge, remember?”

      Chloe was taken aback. She’d just watched Danielle go from dry and sarcastic to absolute furious in the blink of an eye. Sure, the topic of their parents was a sore subject, but Danielle’s reaction was bipolar in nature.

      “How long have you been off the meds?” Chloe asked.

      “Fuck you.”

      “How long?”

      “Three weeks, give or take a few days. Why?”

      “Because I’ve only been here for about fifteen minutes and I can already tell that you need them.”

      “Thanks, doc.”

      “Will you start taking them, please? I want you at my wedding. Maid of honor, remember? As selfish as it might seem, I’d like for you to actually enjoy it. So would you please just start taking them again?”

      The mention of maid of honor did something to Danielle. She sighed and then relaxed her posture. She was able to look at Chloe again and while she was still angry, there was something warm there as well.

      “Fine,” she said.

      She got up from the table and went to a little decorative wicker basket on the kitchen counter. She pulled out a prescription bottle, shook out a pill, and swallowed it down with her coffee.

      “Thank you,” Chloe said. She then pressed a bit more, sensing something else amiss. “Is everything else okay?”

      Danielle thought about it for a moment and Chloe caught her casting a quick glance toward her apartment door. It was very brief but there was fear there—Chloe was sure of it.

      “No, I’m good.”

      Chloe knew her sister well enough to know not to press it.

      “So, what the hell is a block party, anyway?” Danielle asked.

      Chloe laughed; she had nearly forgotten Danielle’s ability to drop a subject and start another one with all the grace of an elephant in a china shop. And just like that, the subject was changed. Chloe watched her sister to see if she ever looked back to the door with that bit of fear in her eyes, but it never happened again.

      Still, Chloe felt that there was something there. Maybe after some time together, Danielle would fess up.

      But to what? Chloe wondered, casting a glance at the front door herself.

      And it was then that she realized that she really didn’t know her sister at all. There were parts of her that seemed very much like the gothed-out seventeen-year-old she’d last known so well. But there was something new to Danielle now…something darker. Something that needed meds to control her moods, to help her sleep and function.

      It occurred to Chloe in that moment that she was scared for her sister and she wanted to help in any way she could.

      Even if it meant digging into the past.

      But not now. Maybe after the wedding. God only knew what sort of arguments and mood swings talking about the death of their mother and incarceration of their father would bring up. Still, Chloe felt the ghosts of her past stronger than ever while sitting there with Danielle and it made her wonder just how haunted Danielle had been by it all.

      What kind of ghosts lurked around in Danielle’s head? And what, exactly, were they telling her?

      She sensed, the way she did a coming storm, that whatever Danielle was suppressing, it would all eventually involve her. Her new life. Her new fiancé, her new house. Her new life.

      And it would all lead to nothing good.

      Chapter