The only thought in my mind was that maybe Trina’s cleansing hadn’t worked.
11
What the hell was that?” Ryan shouted as he reached out and gently pushed me to the side as if the bogeyman was lurking in the bathroom and he didn’t want me to go anywhere near it.
“I think a lightbulb burst,” I answered, coming up behind him. He thrust the bathroom door open and, apparently not finding what he was looking for, scratched his head in obvious wonder. His head moved in a perfect circle as he took stock of all the light fixtures in the bathroom, finally settling his attention on the ceiling. What was left of the two lightbulbs that had been sticking out of the sockets was now reduced to nothing more than the filaments, wires, and the screw caps. The rest of the lightbulbs lay in shards of glass on the floor.
“Well, they definitely burst,” he announced, cocking his head to the side.
“Thanks for that, Captain Obvious,” I muttered with a small laugh as I tried to renew a sense of lightheartedness after the disaster that was our first kiss and now these blown lightbulbs, which seemed, in a word…suspect.
He glanced back at me and simply raised his left brow as if to say he didn’t approve of my name-calling. I shrugged and played innocent. “Maybe if you’d put the ceiling fixture up, they wouldn’t have burst?” I asked.
Ryan narrowed his eyes so he looked all the more sarcastic. “Maybe if you’d chosen a ceilin’ fixture for me to put up, they wouldn’t have blown.”
It was more than obvious that we were both ignoring the enormous elephant in the room. But it was just as well because I had bigger things to worry about than bemoaning a lost relationship with a still-grieving Ryan, which had never really even had the chance to become anything.
“Hmm,” I grumbled and bit my tongue because I figured he had a point. Instead of arguing, I watched him turn the light switch off and then step onto the lip of the bathtub; owing to his incredible height, he was able to reach the lightbulbs, which he then unscrewed. I started forward, intending for him to hand the remains of the lightbulbs to me, but he glanced back at me sharply and adamantly shook his head. “Go put some shoes on so you don’t cut up your feet.”
“Okay, Dad,” I answered with a mock frown and, thrusting my hip out in a decidedly attitudinal way, returned to the bedroom, where I spotted my sneakers sitting beside the bed. Once I was out of his line of sight, I exhaled, feeling like it was next to impossible to wear the façade that everything was fine when I felt like crying inside.
Putting my shoes on, I tried not to focus on the fact that they looked ridiculous when paired with my gold-sequined halter dress. Just looking down at the dress made a lump form in my throat. Ryan had gone from hot to cold in a matter of minutes. To say I was frustrated was an understatement because I completely understood where he was coming from. Even though I’d never had to suffer the death of a spouse, I could easily put myself in his shoes and, in so doing, I understood his hesitation.
Try as I did, I couldn’t concentrate on much more than the memory of Ryan’s kiss. Much though I didn’t want to admit it, I could still feel the warmth of his lips. His kiss had been so soft and yet so demanding at the same time, like he wanted to yield to his more wild side but also thought better of it. Kissing Ryan had just felt so natural, so right, and yet the situation had ended so wrongly. I shook my head, forcing myself to stop thinking about it, to just accept it for what it was—Ryan obviously wasn’t over his grief—it was pretty apparent that he couldn’t move on. Those had been his own words. So what did that mean for me? That meant that I needed to get over this crush I had on him because it would only lead to disappointment and pain.
Focus on yourself, Pey, I told myself. First and foremost, though, I needed to refocus on the current question plaguing us both—why the lightbulbs had exploded.
The more I thought about it, the more worried I became. It just didn’t make sense—as far as I could tell anyway—that brand-new lightbulbs would just blow up…and for no good reason. Once I laced my sneakers up, I headed into the hallway, where I remembered seeing a broom leaning against the wall.
“How long does it take to put your shoes on?” Ryan called from the bathroom.
“I’m getting a broom!” I yelled back and, retrieving it, returned to the bathroom. Ryan had stepped down from the tub and was now studying one of the broken lightbulbs in his palm as if it had an answer for him as to why it had blown up in the first place. It wasn’t lost on me that there was a definite sense of unease existing between us, which we both were doing our damndest to conceal by acting as though everything was just the same as it always had been. But it wasn’t.
“What do you think?” I asked as I started sweeping the broken glass that was scattered clear across the bathroom floor. Ryan stepped out of my way and headed for the bedroom, where he turned around and watched me sweep all the pieces into a pile.
“I don’t know,” he answered and shook his head, his eyebrows crossed in clear confusion. “Everything looked like it was wired correctly, which leads me to believe it could have been a power surge.”
“Would a power surge actually blow the lightbulbs up though?” I asked, my tone of voice clearly displaying the fact that I wasn’t convinced. “I mean, of course I’ve seen lightbulbs go out before, but actually exploding?”
Ryan frowned. “It would be incredibly rare but it’s possible.”
I took a deep breath, the words “incredibly rare” sticking with me. Given everything that had been happening to me lately, “incredibly rare” seemed too coincidental to believe. Instead, I was beginning to worry that something not of this earth was responsible for the blowout. And, yes, it wasn’t lost on me that a month ago I did believe in coincidence, whereas now I was starting to blame just about everything on those things we can’t explain.
“Where’s the dustpan?” Ryan asked me, interrupting my worry.
I glanced down at the glass I’d swept into a mound and suddenly realized I’d been standing there, doing nothing, like someone had simply pressed “pause” on me. It was because I was fully enveloped in my apprehensive thoughts. As to the dustpan, I hadn’t even considered where it might be. “I don’t know.”
“I think I saw one. Just a second,” he answered and then called out over his shoulder, “I’ve gotta throw what’s left of these bulbs out too!”
Then he started for the hallway and disappeared through the doorway. I glanced up at the empty ceiling socket and shook my head as I wondered what could have caused the lightbulbs to burst. I just couldn’t get away from the idea that something within my house was at fault—that some sort of ghostly energy was the answer. And that would have to mean that Trina’s cleansing hadn’t worked. I felt slightly guilty about the fact that I wasn’t that surprised that Trina’s attempts might not have worked. She just didn’t really scream “voodoo priestess.” So that meant that if there really was some sort of negative energy in my house, my next hope was that Drake was the one behind this poltergeist activity. Granted, I still wasn’t completely sure that Drake was even real, but at this stage, I was beginning to wager he was.
“Here you go,” Ryan said as he handed me the red dustpan, and I nearly leaped right out of my skin because I’d been so consumed by my thoughts, I hadn’t heard him come back into the room. “Whoa, there, Peyton, it’s just me,” he said with a slight laugh. He placed a consoling hand on my shoulder. “I, uh, I hope what just happened between us won’t change your feelings toward me,” he said softly. “I mean, I hope we can still be friends like we were before. I care about you, Peyton, a lot.”