HOMEWRECKER {18+}

33

O L I V I A

A few hours later, after my conversation with the landlord, I entered the apartment building, heading towards the elevator even though Gabriel and I lived on the second floor.

If there's a working elevator in the building, why not use it? Unless it's a hundred years old, and I might get stuck in there.

I stepped into the elevator, feeling exhausted and tired after all the events, despite being the cause of most of them.

The elevator took me to the second floor and I stepped out once the doors opened, then headed towards Gabriel's apartment door.

Passing by the doors of the neighbors, nearing Gabriel's apartment door and just as I was about to pull out the key to unlock the apartment door, someone interrupted me.

"Sam?"

A voice calling out a dead girl's name startled me as I turned around. It was a neighbor, not the same one who gave me the landlord's number but someone else.

"Excuse me, I thought you were-" The person gasped once they saw my face because I had a hoodie covering my hair and face, but still, mistaking me for a dead person, that's absurd.

Mistaking me for Sam? When we're nothing alike? That's on another level of absurd.

"Sam? You thought I was Sam," I asked the woman while uncovering the hood of the hoodie I was wearing.

"Uh- Never-" The neighbor wanted to get out of this mess, but I wouldn't allow them.

"Why did you call out Sam's name? She's dead." I questioned the trembling neighbor, who seemed scared by my direct words that held no hesitation in them.

The neighbor seemed to give in as she said, "Gabriel never brought a girl home before. Sam was the only girl he allowed inside his home."

"I thought you were Sam because I have never seen you before. I heard that Gabriel had a girl living with him, but I thought those were false rumors because I didn't see him as the type to be moving on from Sam." She said, examining me with their eyes.

"You and her are quite different, nothing alike. She was a very sweet girl with a flattering personality, while you seem to be-"

"We are only friends," I interrupted her because If someone was about to start comparing me with Sam, it would make me lose my mind.

If someone starts to compare my appearances, my achievements and my life with somebody else, my insecurities would drown me.

There are days, I tell myself that I'm enough just the way I am, and other days I can't even look at myself in the mirror without wanting to smash it.

I always put up a confident front, but my back was scarred and torn.

"I don't know if I can believe that. You and Sam are different, but Gabriel might go for someone who's similar to her, unlike you.. or maybe he's using you to forget her since you are so different from-"

"Are neighbors always this lousy? Learn to shut your mouth before your tongue falls off." I spat at Gabriel's neighbor, who was on the verge of breaking down due to my outburst.

I unlocked the door and stepped into the absent apartment, slamming and locking the door behind me.

I had a handbag which contained the notepad along with the recorder which had recorded mine and the landlord's conversation.

I threw the bag away from me, on a small table inside the hall, as I allowed myself to collapse into the floor.

My back connected with the floor as I stared into the dark ceiling of the dark apartment. My body felt numb while my heart felt weak like a wounded child who had lost a home and yearned to find its way back.