“Okay, stop,” I said. Now I sounded full of myself. Like I was some super nurse, and without my presence, all the hospital’s patients would die. That wasn’t true, and it also wasn’t what drove my thoughts. What I felt was closer to FOMO – the fear of missing out – than self-aggrandization.
Before I could talk myself out of it again, I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and emailed my supervisor, asking for the time off.
I let out a deep breath afterward and tried to come to terms with the thought of two weeks of freedom. It felt like so much time. Too much time, honestly. How would I fill all those hours? Going to the gym, certainly. Catching up on all the TV shows I had saved to my playlist sounded good, too. Maybe I could finally learn how to knit.
A soft meow interrupted my spiraling as Fred padded into the room. He leaped onto the foot of my bed and strode right up to me, arching his back when I reached out to pet him. I still couldn’t believe how much he liked the Faceless Man. The fact that he’d sat in his lap last night was wild. Then again, he’d always been my little empath, snuggling close whenever I was sad or had a bad shift at the hospital. Maybe he’d sensed the Faceless Man’s pain and wanted to comfort him.
Yeah, let’s go with that instead of Fred choosing a masked stranger over his mother.
“You ready for breakfast?” I asked.
Fred chirruped in response and jumped from the bed, leading the way to the kitchen. I followed him, tugging on my heavy robe and slippers before leaving my room.
My house was bathed in the golden light of the setting sun, rays glinting off the holiday decorations I really should have taken down by now. Or was that just societal pressure telling me what to do? There was no official mandate saying when holiday décor season ended, and the neighbors across the street still had their tree in their front window. I’d been low-key waiting for them to remove it before I packed my stuff away, and every time I got home and saw the merry glow coming from their house, I smiled, knowing that festive cheer had lived to see another day.
A thought occurred to me as I set about brewing a pot of coffee and preparing Fred’s breakfast. What if my neighbors were doing the same thing I was? Were we stuck in an unintentional standoff, each waiting for the other to make the first move? Would January turn into February, and we’d become the ridicule of the rest of the neighborhood? Paula and George were from the deep south, and if country music had taught me anything, it was that some Southerners took pride in leaving their lights up all year round.
I grimaced. Christmas in summer. Yeah, no. The decorations needed to come down.
I’d do it on my next day off.
I fixed Fred his plate of wet food and set it on the floor for him to devour. While the coffee brewed, I got out my favorite mug, which was soup-cup-sized and had the words “I’ve seen more dicks than a porn director” written on it. It was a birthday gift from Tanya last year, and the entire breakroom full of nurses had cackled when I opened it. Because we saw a lot of genitals.
I shuddered.
So many genitals.
The smell of coffee filled the kitchen as I headed toward the refrigerator. I opened the door and went to grab my creamer but froze. There were two takeout containers in there. Hadn’t there been one last night?
I snagged the creamer and shut the door. Then I opened it again. Yup, the second container was still there.
I pinched myself, and it hurt. Okay, so this wasn’t a lucid dream. Sometime while I’d slept, someone had broken into my house and put their leftovers in my fridge.
Gee, I wonder who could have done such a dastardly thing?
Worried I was going to find a body part waiting for me inside, I removed the new container and peeked beneath the lid. No severed hand, thank fuck. Instead, I looked in on a stack of pancakes covered in fresh strawberries and homemade whipped cream. The same breakfast I ordered every Sunday from the bakery down the street.
I lifted the container and checked underneath, and there, right in the center, was the logo for the bakery.
Carefully, I placed the pancakes back inside the fridge and shut the door a final time, wondering how to feel about this latest invasion. On the one hand, the Faceless Man noticed I had no food in my house and fixed it for me. On the other hand, I’d slept straight through him doing it.
That realization was terrifying. I knew I was a heavy sleeper, but holy shit. Anyone could have broken in over the past several years with much worse intentions, and I wouldn’t have known I was in danger until it was too late.
I was suddenly way more grateful for my new security system than I had been.
Speaking of which.
I turned and went to grab my phone from my room, opening the security app as I strode back into the kitchen. There were several notifications, but they were all from cars driving past or neighbors walking by on the sidewalk. I frowned when I realized the time stamps showed a gap of several hours, stopping around noon and starting up again just twenty minutes ago – around the time I woke to the sound of a door shutting.
Goddamn it, he’d hacked my cameras.
I stomped toward the front of the house, planning to see if they were back on by waving my hand in front of the one outside, but when I opened the door, I froze for the second time in less than five minutes, blinking into the blinding white of my snow-covered neighborhood. The storm had dumped at least a foot on us, and my immediate reaction was to groan because that meant I’d have to shovel myself out before I left for work, which would take up the time I usually went to the gym.
The thing was, someone had already shoveled me out. My front steps and walk were clear, my car had been brushed off, and my driveway was spotless.
My next-door neighbors, a black couple in their late 60s, were out in all their snow gear, almost done with their own storm cleanup. The husband, Clarence, saw me and waved. His wife, Wendy, noticed and waved, too, leaning her shovel against the side of their garage before ambling my way.
I stepped out onto my front porch and shut the door behind me. The wind nipped at my skin, and I tugged my robe tighter as I walked down the stairs to meet Wendy. She and Clarence had introduced themselves when I was moving in, welcoming me to the neighborhood with a homemade lasagna casserole. They had several grandchildren my age, and they’d taken one look at me that day, a young homeowner, exhausted and in way over my head with all the work this place needed, and decided to all but adopt me, helping with renovations, making sure I had at least one home-cooked meal a week, and checking on Fred when I had marathon shifts at the hospital like the one that ended earlier this morning.
Wendy tucked a loose curl into the hood of her jacket as she reached me, a sparkle in her dark eyes. She was tall, like me, and still in great shape, thanks to all the walks she and Clarence took together, paired with their bi-weekly golf games during the warmer months. Theirs was the nicest house on the block, a gorgeous two-story craftsman they’d owned for forty years. They’d mulled over downsizing recently, but neither could bring themselves to sell the house they’d raised their four girls in, and I selfishly hoped they never would.
“Lucky girl,” Wendy said. “That handsome man of yours shoveled you out.”
My pulse skyrocketed. “What did he –” I cut myself off. How strange would it seem if I asked Wendy what he looked like? “Did he say anything?”
She grinned. “Not much. Just that you two had a little tiff, and he was trying to get back into your good graces.” She regarded my pristine sidewalk and driveway before turning back to me with a look of gentle chastisement. “You didn’t tell us you were seeing anyone.”