Before Now

by Hope E. Davis

  Remi returns to the couch, leaning back into John with her food in her lap. Buffalo wings are one of her favorites. The two lovebirds begin talking about his day at work. Most days are fairly uneventful, but some days, like today, he has interesting stories to tell about things he observes while visiting restaurants.

  Listening quietly, Remi enjoys her food, glancing every now and then at the clock. She needs to head to bed soon if she’s going to wake up early tomorrow and be well rested for work.

  Remi hates cutting their chat time short, but she needs her beauty sleep. After finishing her dinner, she stands up, taking her empty plate and John’s to the sink. She sets them in gently, planning to clean them in the morning. John yawns loudly from his spot on the couch.

  “You staying tonight?”

  “Of course,” he responds with a smile, heading to Remi’s bedroom.

  She follows shortly after, the phone call completely forgotten.

  REMI

  NOW

  She must have dozed off again, because before she knows it, she jolts awake, panting. She had the strangest dream about being locked in a…

  Remi glances around at the darkness surrounding her, brushing a hand over the cement floor. There are cracks every so often, but they’re small, as if the floor has been re-cemented recently.

  It wasn’t a dream.

  Now she’s starting to panic. Seriously, what is this place? And if she’s here alone, where is Rayna? Last she remembers they were together.

  Breath in. Breath out. Deep breaths. Freaking out isn’t going to help the situation any, she lectures herself.

  Once her breathing returns to normal, or as normal as it can be considering the circumstances, Remi stands up and begins to feel her way across the room once more. As she heads in the direction where she thinks the door might be, her foot collides with something. It makes an odd sound as it falls.

  Kneeling down, she runs her hand over the floor until it connects with something cool and cylindrical.

  Water! Remi immediately picks up the plastic bottle and begins drinking. The water tastes funny, but her throat is so dry she doesn’t care. Halfway through the bottle, she realizes she should probably save some, who knows when she’ll get water again.

  There’s condensation on the outside of the bottle and the water is still cool to the touch. Remi realizes this means it was obviously placed there recently, but by whom?

  “Hello?” she calls out again, her voice stronger this time. “If this is a joke this isn’t funny!” She carries the bottle with her as she shuffles towards the door. It’s still closed tight. She tries pushing on it just like before. It doesn’t give. Remi feels around the edges again, only to realize there’s no hinge. Maybe it isn’t a door after all.

  Her eyelids start to feel heavy, which is odd because all she’s done is sleep all day. If it is even still daytime. There must be drugs in the water.

  “How dare you drug me!” she slurs out in what might be a yell, but comes out garbled. “Good luck getting in with me sitting here,” Remi threatens, sounding drunk and sliding down to sit leaning against what she’s been calling the door.

  She’s asleep the moment she hits the ground.

  RAYNA

  NOW

  The light filters through the navy blue curtains and Rayna groans as it brings her back to the world of the living. She groans again and rolls over. Her head is pounding. This hangover is going to be a bitch.

  She reaches her hand out to her boyfriend Zeki’s side of the bed, only to find it cold and empty. Her eyes immediately snap open in panic before she remembers he’s on a business trip and won’t be back for a few days.

  Rayna looks down and realizes she’s still wearing her clothes from the night before. Even her shoes. She sits up to slip off her sandals, scrunching her eyes when she realizes they’re not her sandals. Why am I wearing Remi’s sandals? she wonders. Ugh, no matter, we must’ve switched them when we were coming home last night.

  While she’s sitting up, Rayna decides to also slip off her cutoff jeans before burrowing back under the covers. Now she’s much more comfortable.

  She closes her eyes, intending to go back to sleep, but her mind starts to go wild as it always does when she lies down. That’s one thing Remi and Rayna have in common besides their looks: both are plagued with active minds that never sleep. Most nights they’re plagued with nightmares and strange dreams.

  Honestly, that’s probably one of the few things that have kept the two girls together over the years, even as their paths have diverged. In college, they chose to live together to keep costs down, and oftentimes they would both be up in the night and unable to fall back asleep. When that would happen, they would both end up on the couch, either reading or watching late night sitcoms—depending on who got there first.

  Rayna smiles. Sometimes she misses the days when she and Remi lived together. They had different lifestyles, which of course led to bickering, but they were sisters and best friends through and through. In fact, Rayna is secretly happy Remi came home with her last night. Remi rarely takes her up on the invitation to use one of her guest rooms.

  Zeki and Rayna had purchased a three bedroom, two and a half bathroom house just outside the downtown area. It wasn’t her first choice location, but most of the money was Zeki’s, and Rayna didn’t really have a say. Not that she cared to argue about it anyways. Zeki is her dream man, according to her list, and she has convinced herself she would do anything for him. A house is a house to her, it’s just tough because she doesn’t have a car.

  When they first moved here, Rayna continued to Uber to her job waiting tables until she got fed up with the surge pricing and difficulty getting a ride during rush hour. She brought up the issue to Zeki, who was quick to convince his girlfriend to quit her job and try to find another that didn’t have commuting during rush hour.

  It’s a weird feeling not having a job, and Rayna isn’t exactly sure it was the right decision. After all, she’s now fully reliant on Zeki to pay all the bills. It’s easy for him though, as his bank job easily makes four times what Rayna did.

  Despite how low Remi thinks her to be, Rayna really does miss working. Granted, she doesn’t enjoy the type of work her twin does, but she likes to keep busy. Not working for the past three months is secretly killing her.

  That’s another thing: not seeing people every day is tough, especially with the frequent business trips Zeki takes. Rayna really misses being in the city. The suburbs are lonely.

  At first she tried to make friends with the neighbors, but none of them want to be friends with a twenty five year old. They’re all much older, or in their thirties with kids, and definitely don’t give off a vibe of the type of people Rayna would like to hang out with. Then after an embarssing cooking misshap at the last potluck, no one dares to talk to her. Rayna pinches the bridge of her nose at the embarrassing memory.

  They would love Remi, though.

  She pushes the thought away angrily. Sometimes she can’t believe Remi is her sister, much less her twin. They’re completely opposite personalities.

  Except last night. Rayna giggles. She got her sister successfully drunk for the second time in her life. And man, it was a laugh.

  At first, Zeki tried his best to help Rayna fit in, suggesting yoga classes and local groups some of the neighbors belong to. Zeki is a smooth talker and somehow seems to know everything going on in the neighborhood. Even as some of his plans to have her attend local events like barbecues failed, he would still send or leave her random messages telling her how beautiful she was. Then she messed it all up.

  She feels herself drifting off into dreamland, reminiscing about the last night Zeki took her out to a nice sushi spot. She’s almost asleep when she hears something that sounds like someone pounding on the front door.

  Rayna puts her pillow over her head, willing the person to go away and the pounding in her brain to stop. But it continues.

  “Grr,” she growls as she gets out
of bed and stomps across the room. She grabs her purple silk robe from where it hangs on the back of the door and slides it over her shoulders, knotting it at the waist. “This better be good,” she huffs to herself.

  She stomps down the hallway, trying to be quiet as she passes the closed guest bedroom door. Remi is sure to have just as bad of a hangover, if not worse.

  She walks through her mess of a living room, thinking about how she needs to tidy it up, and soon.

  She arrives at the front door and tears it open, coming face to face with Remi’s boyfriend, John. “What do you want,” Rayna growls. She and John are not friends. Especially not after what happened last night.

  “I just want to talk to her. Please.” His eyes look a little sad. She almost believes him for a moment. Almost.

  “Not gonna happen,” she responds as she slams the door in his face.

  “Fine, then I’m gonna sit out here all day!” he yells through the door.

  “It’s a free country!” Rayna shouts back before she turns on her heel and heads for the bedroom. When she reaches the bottom of the stairs, she realizes she’s close to the kitchen. And therefore, close to the Tylenol.

  She heads into her wreck of a kitchen and digs through the medicine cabinet with one hand, the other one pressing on her temples. Zeki has offered to hire a maid service to clean, but Rayna feels if she didn’t have any cleaning to do, she would feel even more useless than she already does. After digging through the cabinet for what feels like forever, finally her hand finds the Tylenol.

  She picks up the bottle, noticing the pills expired last month, but shrugs and dry-swallows four. Expired Tylenol can’t be that bad, could it?

  Heading back for the stairs, she makes a pit stop at the fridge, grabbing a large bottle of V8 and swallowing a couple gulps. Dry swallowing the pills while hungover was not a good idea.

  Rayna feels her way back up the stairs, keeping her eyes closed. She figures she’ll feel better after some sleep.

  Without another thought, she throws herself on the bed, falling asleep, her robe still knotted tightly at her waist.

  RAYNA

  BEFORE

  Rayna sits on the floor, slowly packing her shoes and trinkets into the cardboard box in front of her. She’s never been good at packing. In fact, she’s pretty sure shoes and trinkets aren’t supposed to go in the same box together, but she’s too tired to go ask Remi how to pack.

  Today’s the day that Rayna moves out of the apartment she and her sister have shared since college. It’s extremely bittersweet, but Rayna knows that it’s time.

  It will be different living with Zeki. And she’ll no longer have someone to sit up with in the middle of the night when her nightmares get bad. But Zeki didn’t give her a choice.

  A few weeks ago, on Saturday night, Rayna was sitting in her room reading the latest Vogue when she heard a commotion in the living room. When she went out to investigate, she was not prepared for what she saw.

  A drunk Zeki was trying to embrace Remi, his hands under her shirt. Remi tried to push him away. “Zeki get off of me!” she said harshly.

  Zeki drunkenly mumbled something that resembled, “oh, baby, don’t be like that.” But Rayna didn’t give him a chance to finish.

  “What the hell is going on here?!” she yelled angrily, her voice much louder than that of her younger sister.

  Remi finally managed to escape Zeki’s grasp and moved across the room. “I was leaving to go meet John for dinner and I opened the door to find him passed out on our step. I tried to help him in and he thought I was you and started making a pass at me!” The anger and hurt was evident in the tone of her voice.

  Rayne raised her eyebrow at Zeki, who was obviously too drunk to defend himself. He stumbled, unable to stand on his own now that Remi had moved across the room. Rayna rolled her eyes and helped him hobble to her bedroom, flashing her sister an “I’m sorry” look over his shoulder. Remi nodded in understanding.

  Zeki remained too drunk to discuss anything for the rest of the evening. And Rayna wasted her Saturday night waiting for him to sober up. Taking care of a drunk person while completely sober is the worst.

  The next morning, Zeki apologized to Rayna, but he also told her angrily that if she didn’t still live with her twin this wouldn’t be a problem. And as much as she hated to admit it, he was sort of right. After all, practically no one can tell them apart.

  Their relationship has been great ever since. They’re headed back to where they were before, but the honeymoon stage is definitely dissipating. Rayna felt the only way to fix it was to cave to his demands and move in with him, to which he quickly agreed.

  “You almost done?” Her sister’s brokenhearted voice interrupts her thoughts.

  “No,” Rayna sniffles, blinking back tears. She usually isn’t this emotional, but she can’t help it.

  Remi senses her distress and comes to sit on the floor, embracing her. “It’s not like you’re moving states away. I can still come visit on weekends. And you know you’re welcome here, anytime.”

  Rayna nods. “I know.” It isn’t just that she’s going to miss her twin, she also worries about how Remi will afford this place on her own.

  As always, Remi knows exactly what she’s thinking. “I put an ad on Craiglist. I’ll find a roommate quick, I’m sure. This is a great location.”

  She’s right. “I want to vet anyone you even think about allowing to live here. I don’t want you meeting people on your own either.”

  Remi holds up her hand. “Scout’s honor. I’ll have either you or John meet every person with me and I’ll make sure it’s in a public place.”

  “You’re not even a boy scout,” Rayna says sarcastically, her sorrow replaced by her usual sassy attitude.

  “Maybe I signed up.” Remi wiggles her eyebrows with just as much attitude.

  Rayna looks at her sister, pushing her shoulder playfully. “When? You barely have time for your twin, much less a scout troop. Do they even allow girls anyways?”

  Remi nods. “They do now, but honestly, probably not twenty five year olds.” Both girls collapse in a fit of laughter.

  “When does the moving truck come?” Remi’s back to her somber mood in a blink.

  Rayna glances at the clock on her phone. “Thirty minutes.” She surveys the room and the mess which still occupies every surface. She should have started packing earlier, but she’s a procrastinator. And she always pays the price.

  Remi looks at the box of random items sitting in front of her twin and raises her eyebrow. “Want help?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Remi smiles, then quickly crosses the room and begins slipping her sister’s outdated CD collection into a box. “Why do you even still keep these? Everything is digital these days.”

  She shrugs. “I guess I keep hoping they’ll come back into style like record players did.”

  “I don’t think record players ever truly came back into style.”

  And just like that, they’re bickering as they almost always do.

  With Remi’s help, they pack a large portion of the items very quickly. Rayna has to admit, although her nitty sister often drives her nuts, she does everything well that she puts her mind to, and with uncanny speed. Remi even manages to strip the bed and stand up the mattress before the movers arrive.

  The movers are two young gentlemen, one of whom is very attractive. Rayna can’t help but think that if she were single—she quickly smacks that thought out of her head. She’s moving in with her boyfriend today.

  The men load everything quickly, and honestly there isn’t much. Rayna is only taking the furniture and items in her bedroom and bathroom, leaving all the kitchen and living room furniture for Remi. Zeki’s place is already furnished, and she couldn’t stand to deprive her sister of any of her kitchen wares.

  The moving truck pulls out, heading across town to Zeki’s place, where he’ll be waiting to meet and unload. He’s probably the most excited abou
t this out of anyone.

  Rayna turns back to the apartment to head inside and say goodbye one last time, only to find her twin standing silently behind her. They embrace without a word. Remi has tears running down her face. The girls don’t need words, everything has already been said. They continue their hug for another moment, then Rayna pulls away to call an Uber.

  Both girls sit silently on the curb, waiting for the Uber to arrive.

  When it does, they don’t say anything more.

  Rayna steps into the car, watching out the window as Remi’s form on the curb fades into the distance. She knows this isn’t the end, but something tells her this won’t be the fresh start she wants, either.

  REMI

  NOW

  She doesn’t know anymore if she’s awake or asleep. The room is too dark to tell. She isn’t sure what day it is, or how long she’s been in here.

  Remi has yet to see or hear anyone enter or leave the room. At some point she acquired another water bottle, probably filled with the same spiked water. She knows she’ll have to drink it at some point, but she’s trying to hold off, to keep her bearings. It’s tough, and she’s starting to get really thirsty. Her stomach rumbles, reminding her it’s also been awhile since she ate.

  She stands up and reaches above her, trying to feel for a ceiling. She isn’t short, but even with her arms outstretched she can’t feel the ceiling—so this probably isn’t her sister’s cellar like she originally thought.

  Trying to keep her thoughts off her hunger and thirst, Remi walks around the outside of the room, placing her feet heel to toe as measurement. The room is twenty-four of her feet on the long sides, fourteen on the short sides. She’s basically in a large rectangular closet. She crawls along the floor, noticing the occasional small cracks she noticed before, across the room and back. She looks for anything, a nail, slivers of glass, something she can use to defend herself when whoever put her here comes back. She finds nothing.