The Men Next Door

Ch 38 - Brooks

I never thought I'd spend so much time thinking about hair.

But that was all I thought about on the flight home from Santa Barbara, with Cam's tangled strands draped all over my shoulder.

The color was identical to Kathy's, down to those hidden threads of red that took on a new, fiery life every time the sun touched her head through the plane window. And the style, too — so similar that the women could've passed as sisters if one hadn't been self-medicating for the past 14 years. I didn't have to think twice about who the stranger was when I spotted her in the back of the funeral home, and after she opened her mouth, well... I no longer had to wonder why Campbell shrugged off every compliment about her appearance.

All the details I loved to dote on came straight from her mother.

The freckle under her left eye, the cupid's bow on her top lip, the way one eyebrow arched a little more than the other... her features might as well have been copy and pasted from Kathy's face. And when each mention of their likeness was a reminder of the pain that Cam wanted to leave behind, my best-intended praises felt a whole lot like needles pricking at her nerves.

As if she needed any more encouragement to flinch and pull away.

So when she tied her hair back and pulled her hood up as the plane touched down, I didn't tell her how cute the little tufts peeking out from the sides of the fabric were. I didn't try to run my fingers over the ends when she yanked the hair tie back out in the cab, and I didn't tuck a single piece behind her ear when she looked down at the elevator floor and told me she needed time alone. Instead, I just watched her turn and walk toward her door, marveling at how two women with such similar genes could turn out so different.

And then I let her be.

Or at least, I tried to let her be, until the auburn-adorned brush on my bathroom counter had me thinking about hair all over again.

Kathy. God, what a shame.

I knew things were bad from the bits and pieces Cam had shared, but I didn't expect her mother to be as atrocious as she was. How could anybody expect that? Not even Campbell saw it coming. The impromptu family reunion had shaken her up more than her grandad's death, and given how fragile she'd been in the days leading up to the funeral, I didn't know how much more shaking she could take.

Should I have left her alone?

That's what felt right when she asked me for space in the elevator. Showing her that I trusted her. That I knew she was capable, even in the lowest valleys. But then I imagined her stuck in place, in a full-on panic like the night we got copies of the will, and everything felt all kinds of wrong. What if she'd passed out again, and I was just staring at a damn hairbrush one room over?

Besides, it had been hours since she closed the door behind her, and I couldn't keep recleaning my already-spotless surfaces to pacify my mind, and if the worst she did was tell me to fuck off, then...

My legs had led me halfway to her door before I finished the thought. I hadn't even stopped to put shoes on, and my lips twitched up as the memory of wandering over in pajamas took center stage. So much had changed since then. Too much, almost. But some things never did, and a few minutes, a handful of gentle knocks, and an unanswered text later, I was once again convincing myself that Cam was asleep behind the thin walls.

That was where the similarities ended.

This time wasn't like that sweet, chilly morning at the end of October, when she made fun of my flannel joggers and I stuttered my way through an all-too-intimidating question. There was no door unlatching behind me as I took the first step back toward my apartment, and no groggy Campbell inviting me inside when I turned to investigate the familiar sound. Instead, there was the telltale squeal of packing tape, and the clank of something metallic against the tiled kitchen floor, and a hollow thud that rivaled my pounding heart.