Portal House - Chapter 13

A Promise

PEPPER:

I sat in my car, blowing vape smoke out of the crack in the window. I watched the back door open, but it was just our manager, Jill, walking out with the trash. I could tell she didn’t like me, behind her fake bubbly tone of voice, her “constructive” criticism, and her outdated layers of makeup that didn’t quite match her powdered-donut skin tone. Not that it was too light or too dark, it was just… yellow. Almost as if she were trying to look like she was in active kidney failure.

I picked at my already chipped black nail polish as I waited for Gary, wishing I were someone who put more effort into looking nice. Then I thought back to my mother and remembered how angry she got when I didn’t shave my legs for a week or let her straighten my hair. Even when I settled for braids, she tried to rip every strand out of my skull and would have a tantrum if I asked for the “boyish braids.” She told me cornrows made me look too masculine. I could never come out and tell her that was the whole point.

I shuddered, then grabbed the book.

It was probably a strange thing to read, especially in public. Some journal I found, clearly written by a lady who was losing her mind. It was juicy stuff, but I was fooling myself to think I could read it here and now. It wasn’t even a welcome distraction. My stomach started to gurgle again with anxiety.

Why today? I asked myself, thinking about chickening out.

I looked out onto the road. It was half an hour past closing time. All the businesses around our restaurant had already closed because they didn’t serve alcohol. I’d eaten as much as I could. Gary’s food I’d picked up for him was barely still warm.

I could tell him while he ate, but he might choke. I could tell him afterward, but he’d be tired. He was gonna be tired either way. God, I’m such a coward. I should have told him before work when I was running my hands through his hair, wondering what his lips might feel like.

Oh yeah, he was pissed at me. About Rita. I rolled my eyes at the thought of her and opened up the notebook again to read.

That’s when the passenger door opened, startling me almost out of my skin.

“Did I scare you?” Gary asked with a smirk and a flash of mischief over his light green eyes. He shut the door, grabbing the cover of the notebook to read it.

“You keep a journal? You don’t even write your own grocery lists.”

I laughed at how right he was. “You have better handwriting. And no, I don’t have a journal. Even if I did, it’s purple, and the handwriting is legible, so it’s definitely not mine.” I handed it to him as he buckled and settled into the seat. He smelled like a grease trap, but he looked like a snack.

He skimmed a few pages, then looked back up at me wide-eyed. “What the hell?”

“It’s like a dream journal or something. There’s all kinds of symptoms and stats at the top of each entry instead of the date.”

“Hang on, is this a blood pressure reading? Whose notebook is this?”

“I do not know. I found it in the attic a few days ago when I was looking for rodents.”

I watched him frown in realization. “You heard the scratching sounds, too? Nobody tells me anything, I swear.”

I nodded. “Every damn night. I went up there hoping to kill some rats and got distracted by this.”

“This is crazy. Should we even be reading this?”

I laughed at him as he read it anyway.

Image by Jacked Faction

Then I took a deep breath. “Uh, look. There’s something I need to say.”

Gary sighed, closed the notebook, and set it down in the back seat. “Yeah, I know. Me too.”

Oh my GOD. Wait. There’s no way it’s the same thing. I should let him go first.

Or, I could just…stare into his eyes…

“I can’t stop thinking about you. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I think I’m starting to have strong feelings for you. I just need to know if you feel the same way.”

His face softens. He smiles and looks down bashfully, making my heart pound. I don’t let him speak; I just act. I reach for his hand, bringing it to my lips until he wraps the other hand around the back of my neck...

“Are you okay?”

I was just sitting there staring. I was staring at him the WHOLE time I was thinking about kissing him.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, starting the car. “Just kinda zoned out, can you say that again?”

“It’s just… I know I get really protective of Rita. I’ve always done that, even though she’s older. I just want you guys to get along. You’re my best friend.”

“Yeah.” I flinched at his words. I loved being his best friend, but it was eating me alive wondering whether he was feeling anything more. “I’m sorry, Gary. I’ll try harder, but I also need to stand my ground when it’s necessary.”

“That’s fair. Sometimes she makes it necessary. And you should work on showing more confidence when you talk to her.”

He nudged my elbow as he uttered the word “confidence.” My skin tingled. I looked up into the rearview to check the state of my hair. Messy as hell, but in a kind of intentional bed-head way.

“Do you want to go get drinks?” I asked, nudging him in return, praying he’d accept.

I parked at a gas station, opening my wallet app on my phone. I watched him rub his flawless face with both hands. Then he looked at me with a big grin. “Yeah, I kinda do.”

After filling my gas tank up to the one-quarter mark, I drove us to the strip of dive bars one street over and grabbed my ID.

I walked behind Gary, who got stopped at the door. Of course, he got stopped, though. He looked like he was in his junior year of high school.

“Garland?” The bouncer stared at Gary’s ID, looking like one of the dudes you see at the gym working out at the mirror and grunting like an angry pig.

“Shut up, Johnson, you have room to talk about names,” Gary grabbed his ID card back from Gym Bro Johnson, then shook his hand as he walked into the bar ahead of me.

Bro glanced at my ID, gave me the Bro Nod of approval, and moved on to the next person.

I sat on the torn red barstool, setting my toes behind its bottom rung, then I set the notebook on the bar in front of Gary.

“Okay, what is so fascinating about this notebook?”

I shrugged. “I mean, it’s a journal, so it’s got drama. But honestly, I don’t know. It looked interesting. It’s pretty clear when you read it that it’s a mandatory journal, so it’s not just some Karen writing down what she ate yesterday, or how angry she is that her neighbors are having a barbecue.”

“Didn’t you say it was a dream journal?” He said, looking at the first entry.

“I mean, I don’t know. It’s something like that. Dreams, delusions, who knows. It’s addressed to a therapist, from what I can tell.”

“So this person is dreaming about getting locked out of an empty house while the lights are flickering on and off, and things moving by themselves… and they left this inside our attic?”

I looked at the page and read through the first two paragraphs again.

“Pepper, have you shown this to my sister?”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

He handed the bartender a bill and downed a shot of something clear, chasing it with a disgustingly light beer. “Do me a favor and don’t mention it to her.”

I looked at his face as it got very serious.

“Promise me?”

“Yeah,” I said, closing the notebook. “I promise.”

To Be Continued…

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