The Next Best Thing

Chapter 11

"MITCH!"

She assumed he must not have been able to hear her with his door closed and her shower still running. It made her so angry she choked back a scream with her sobs. It wasn't his fault, but no money from Jake, Gadge being a dick, Will cancelling their date, and smashing the full bottle of perfume she'd bought to celebrate things getting better had shaken her like a dropped can of Dr. Pepper. Mitch not hearing her just cracked her open. Emma Dotrice was not okay.

"Okay. Okay," she tried to calm herself. "You can tantrum and die later. If you can get out of here, and not have to go to the hospital to have glass picked out of your feet, this day won't be the worst day of your life. Not even close. Okay."

She ripped the pillow case off the wall intending to lay it down flat as close to the door as she could. Her plan was to stretch out to stand on it, then jump to the glass free zone of her hallway. She bent over and tried to spread it out like a picnic blanket with a waving motion, but the edge of it hit the wet of perfume and shower drips and dragged to fold on itself like a batter curl. She thought she could try again, reaching out one of her feet to pull it closer to her. The pillow case turned into a wet mop covered in glass with no spot safe to stand on. Every part of her body clenched with rage.

It now seemed the towel wrapped around her was the obvious choice. Maybe if she'd been thinking clearly she would've thought of it first. She hesitated to drop it right away because if Mitch had heard her, he might burst into his bathroom to catch the sight of her hopping starkers down her hallway. She decided to count to sixty. He had one minute, and then she was going for it.

He only needed ten more seconds.

He knocked on the door and she heard him open it.

"Am I crazy or did you call me?"

"I did, but I'm okay now, thanks. Just go away."

"What happened?"

He could probably hear that she'd been crying. She didn't want to be rude to him, she just wanted him gone. "I saw a spider."

"You didn't scream like that for a spider."

"I really fucking hate them though," she said bitterly.

"Are you okay? Wait a sec. Where did my razors go? Emma, did you...?"

"I just needed to borrow one. I'm sorry."

"Unbelievable."

"God, I'll replace it, okay? I forgot I needed one. Can you just get out?"

"So you crawled through the hole in the wall to steal back the razors you bought me and what? Did you get stuck? Are you hurt?"

"No," she huffed and twisted to look at him through the hole. "I accidentally knocked a five hundred dollar bottle of perfume off of my counter and there's glass everywhere."

"Huh. Well, is your front door unlocked? I'll come and help you."

"No it's not. Look, it's okay. I'm just going to throw my towel on the floor like a carpet."

"Why don't I give you one of my towels then you can keep the one you have on, you know, on."

"Okay, sure."

"You know what though?" Mitch said hesitantly. "Maybe not my towels. My dad got these for me when I went off to college."

"Fine. I don't need it. Please just shut the door and give me privacy."

"I know, I'll get you a pair of my shoes."

Emma's knee started to bounce as another scream built up inside of her, and that was just because he insisted on getting her the shoes. When he called out "head's up!" and the first of two loafers flew out next to her face, straight down the hall nearly to her kitchen, she just about lost her mind.