Someone is Watching

Chapter two

Downhill. That's where my life went once I returned home. Lily's death was only the beginning of many losses that I received in rapid succession.

First, only four days after getting back, I lost my job. I was a secretary for a fancy schmancy company in New York, but not anymore. The subway ride back to my apartment was terrible. How was I supposed to tell my boyfriend that we now had even less income than the measly amount we already had?

The job sucked, it's not what I went to college for, but it paid the bills and was the only job I could get my desperate hands on without leaving NYC. Now I had no job, and all I wanted to do was go home and sink into a bottle of cheap wine.

Next, my beloved cat, Edgar, who I found starving in the alley three years ago, died. This happened two days after I lost my job. He was overweight and old, and I think his heart just couldn't keep up anymore. I didn't have a place to bury him, and I couldn't afford to cremate him, so I filled his cat carrier with heavy rocks and his body, and dropped it over the side of the pier. Not my preferred way to do it, but I think that's the way he would have wanted to go, right?

My life seemed to be going down the drain. My sister dies a brutal death, I lose my crappy job, I threw a dead cat over a pier, and now I'm depressed. To combat this I decided to put distance between myself and my small, dingy apartment by visiting a friend in Rhode Island. This also may have put distance between my boyfriend, Frankie, and I, but I needed the fresh air and it didn't bother me to be away from him.

One day, only a few days after Edgar went overboard, I was climbing up the 5th staircase on my way to Frankie and I's apartment, when I heard strange noises coming through the walls. I paused and distinctly heard a woman's voice. A very sexy woman's voice coming from my own very apartment.

I'll spare you the details, but it ended with Frankie packing his bag and calling an Uber. Frankie was kind of like my job: I didn't particularly love it, but it helped pay the bills. At least my job could last longer than four minutes.

I don't know how to explain it. I wasn't in love with Frankie, but it still hurt. I was left sitting in my apartment alone, drinking more wine and looking at pictures of Lilian.

Lastly, to complete my downward spiral, I could no longer afford to pay rent. I had no job, and I tossed the only money-maker onto the streets. I had officially lost everything I had in less than two weeks.

I did the only thing I could possibly do, or at least afford to do. I packed my few meager belongings, said goodbye to a few friends, and flew myself right back to mom's house. At least there was food in the fridge and someone to keep me company.

My mother, always wanting to fix things immediately, quickly came up with a solution to my "issue." As quickly as things fell apart, other things began falling into place. All I had to do was move to Seattle.

"Everything is perfect!" My mother said over breakfast. "There's a cute little house that's very affordable, and it's close to a school!" She raised an eyebrow, "you did get a degree for teaching, did you not?" I liked the idea, but I didn't think I wanted to go to the place where my sister was murdered.

"Maybe you could meet some of her friends and find out who Lillian was." She said to her coffee. That stung. I had told her that I felt guilty about not really knowing my sister, but I didn't like hearing it said back to me.

I thought about her proposal for two days. More like I sulked around her house, avoiding sunlight, until I found an old box full of pictures of Lily and me. After going through them for hours and crying profusely, I stuffed some of them into my pocket and agreed to my mother's idea. I wanted to get to know my sister, even if it could only be through her things and the people she knew.