The Girl Next Door

by Selene Castrovilla

  THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

  THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

  Copyright Selene Castrovilla 2013. All rights reserved.

  www.selenecastrovilla.com

  All persons and places described in this novel are fictitious. Any similarity to persons alive or dead is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

  Published by ASD Publishing

  ISBN: 978-0-9853441-4-6

  For Scott Viglietta, Debbie DeSurrey, Mandy Yoder,

  and all the young adults taken from us abruptly.

  For Allie and Holden Caulfield,

  for their enduring inspiration.

  And for Howard Stern, for being there in my darkest days, leading me to TM,

  and above all—reminding me to laugh.

  “Life begins perpetually …

  Life, forever dying to be born afresh,

  forever young and eager,

  will presently stand upon this earth as upon a footstool,

  and stretch out its realm amidst the stars.”

  —H.G. Wells

  Chapter One

  Jesse’s dying.

  The doctors are 96 percent sure of it.

  They even have a time line: seven months. They give him seven months, tops. I try to hold on to hope, but 4 percent is a weak reed to cling to while you’re thrashing to keep your head above water.

  I caught Jesse crying one morning when he thought I was sleeping. Gwen, his mom, lets me stay over because he’s afraid to be alone. He doesn’t want to die alone.

  I sleep in his old bed; it’s on a low iron frame with wheels. Jesse sleeps in his new hospital bed; it’s high from the ground, with thick silver bars on the sides and fake wood paneling on the headboard. It’s ugly and depressing, but sometimes he’s in a lot of pain, and he can move his bed into different positions to get more comfortable.

  That morning, I woke to the whirring sound of his bed moving. Then came the slight scrape of metal as he slid the plastic barf tub off the edge of his bedside table and heaved. He throws up a lot from all the chemo crap they put him through.

  After, he gargled with the water Maria, the housekeeper, leaves next to the tub every night.

  All of a sudden he made this kind of wounded noise and I thought he was gonna heave again, but that wasn’t it—he was sobbing.

  You can’t blame him. One minute he’s the star baseball player in high school, class president, and the first junior to be editor of the school newspaper. All down the rows of slamming lockers at Midland Prep you could always hear the name Jesse Parker. Girls wanted to date him. Guys wanted to hang with him to get the excess girls.

  The next minute, he’s being radiated like Hiroshima, even though the doctors said he was probably gonna die anyway.

  They’re torturing my best friend.

  I cracked my eyes open. The sunshine poured in through his window, right on the wall of shelves with all his trophies and awards facing us. A beautiful Saturday morning, Jesse should have been buttoning his blue and yellow pinstriped uniform, putting on his cap with the navy “M” over his curly black hair, lacing his cleats, grabbing his bat, and heading into the park. Instead, the uniform and cap hung at the back of his closet, the cleats were tossed who knew where, the bat was leaning in the far corner, and Jess lay in bed, some days barely able to walk.

  He probably wouldn’t make it to eighteen. He’ll never even get to vote.

  I didn’t know whether I should open my eyes and let him know I was awake—he might get embarrassed. Or maybe he wanted me to wake up.

  I opened my eyes.

  The first thing I saw was the picture perched on the bedside table next to me. The photo of Jess and his friends at senior movie night last November, back when things were normal, sane. It was in one of those clear Lucite frames, and cracks ran across the middle of the thick plastic, right over the faces. Jess’d smashed it to the floor when I suggested he let his friends come to see him. I didn’t bring them up again, but I couldn’t just stick them in a drawer, and that’s how the photo wound up facing me.

  I looked past it and focused on Jess in his bed. He lay with his face in his pillow—not fun for him to do. He told me once that moving after a round of chemo felt like trying to do jumping jacks when you have a stomach virus.

  He was crying pretty hard—I could tell by the way his body whole body shook, even though the pillow muffled the sound. All I could see of his head was the deep purple skullcap with the peace sign that he insisted on wearing, even though it must have made him too hot. But he didn’t need it. I didn’t care if he was bald; Gwen certainly didn’t care if he was bald; Maria didn’t care if he was bald. But he cared. I guess I would, too.

  He sucked in his breath, like he was trying to stop sobbing but couldn’t. He clenched the pillow, and the bedcovers were pushed down to the knees of his pajamas. He used to sleep in boxers before, but he wouldn’t wear them with me there, even though I told him it didn’t matter. We used to take baths together when we were little, so what difference did it make now?

  I slid back my thick comforter and stepped on to the cold, bare wood floor. It was only April, but Maria kept the central air turned up on account of Jesse’s cap. If I could’ve opened the window, we’d have gotten a nice fresh breeze; then he wouldn’t have needed the a/c. But we’d also have heard the sounds of people playing in Central Park and the grassy smell.

  Jesse never let me open the window.

  Goosebumps sprang up across my body as I padded the few feet to him, past the shelves of trophies mounted against the red-striped wallpaper, and past the wheelchair, for bad days, parked beneath them.

  “Jess?” I touched the soft cotton shoulder of his pajamas. He flinched.

  He lifted his head and looked at me. “Samantha, I’m sorry… .”

  “Shhh,” I said. What’s he sorry for? Waking me up? Crying? Dying? I stared into his eyes. Even bloodred from crying, they were gorgeous. His irises were hazel, a mix of brown, blue, and green. Stunning.

  I climbed over the metal bar—my ankle brushed against it and a chill shot through my leg—and flopped next to him. There was a way to lower the stupid bar, but I could never figure out how. “Mom might not like this,” he said, his voice sounding clogged.

  “Shhh,” I said again. I wiped a tear from his pale cheek. The chemo washed out his color besides knocking him out. He was so weak, I helped him roll on to his back. He winced.

  You wouldn’t know Jesse was sick by his physique. He’d lost a little weight in the three months since his diagnosis, but he hadn’t wasted away.

  Jesse’s war was internal. The cancer and the chemo were going head-to-head; Jesse’s insides were the scorched battlegrounds.

  I rested my head against his chest. The fabric of his pajama top was cold, but I could feel the warmth from beneath. Jesse wrapped his arms around me and cried into my long brown hair.

  Chapter Two

  “Samantha, your mother wants you home.”

  The stony voice broke my dream and my eyes popped open. I was in Jesse’s arms, and Gwen was shooting me a look that would freeze Hades. I pushed down the covers a little to make it clear I was fully clothed in my purple flannel pajamas.

  “Shit,” Jesse breathed in my ear. “Hey, Mom,” he said to her, way too chipperly. He let go of me, saying, “I guess we slept late. What time is?”

  “Noon.” Gwen pushed a stray hair back into place, then folded her arms. “It’s noon on a lovely spring day.
”

  “Yeah, whatever.” Jesse didn’t care about lovely spring days anymore. If it were up to him, we’d be in a permanent winter storm. I think he was still stuck in that snowy January day three months earlier, when this all started.

  She sighed and turned to me. “Go home, Samantha.”

  I avoided her glare, concentrating on the way the sunlight reflected on her glossy red nails. “I was home yesterday.”

  “I’m sure your mother would like to see you, not just hear the drawers opening, the shower running, and the front door closing behind you.” A fat lot she cared what my mother would like, unless it agreed with what she would like—for me to be gone.

  “I don’t want to go.” Even with the a/c., my hair felt as hot on my neck as a wool blanket. I slipped the lavender scrunchy I always slept with from my wrist and wrapped my hair into a ponytail.

  “Samantha, I need to speak with Jesse.”

  I looked at Jess, who’d tugged his skullcap a little further down over his ears, as though he’d like to disappear into it. We both knew he was in for it and he gave my arm a little push. “Go have breakfast, lunch … brunch—whatever—with your family. Make ’em happy,” he said and pecked my cheek. Gwen’s face reddened.

  “Okay, fine,” I said. I hoisted myself over that stupid railing again, this time banging my shin. “Ow.”

  “Are you okay?” they both asked. He sincerely, she most likely full of it.

  “Yeah.” I slunk across the room, grabbed my knapsack with my clothes, and headed for the door. “Later, Jess.”

  “Later, Sam.”

  I stepped into the long hallway that connected most of the rooms in the condo—ours had the same layout—and closed his door behind me, but not before I heard Gwen’s voice sharpen. “Are you two sleeping together?”

  I pressed my ear against the door. “Obviously,” he answered, taking the sarcastic approach he’d been using since his diagnosis; it was like he had no time for stupid questions. “You saw us, didn’t you?”

  “All right, mister smart mouth. Are you having intercourse with Samantha?”

  “No.”

  She went on like he hadn’t answered. “Because her mother’s had just about enough lately. That’d put her in her grave.” Somehow I doubted Gwen stayed up nights agonizing over my mom’s health.

  “I’d prefer it if you didn’t mention graves. I don’t really need the visual right now.”

  “Jesse—” She stopped; he always stopped her cold. She didn’t know how to handle him anymore. Jess’s Dad had walked out on them when Jess was only eight. I couldn’t remember what Gwen was like before that because Maria was around way more than she was, but Jess said she used to be nice. But the Gwen I knew was a bitch to Jess, and a complete bitch to me. When she talked to Jess, you could at least spot an occasional chink in her armor, like somewhere under all that steel there was still a beating heart. Before, Jess used to take everything she said; he never talked back, like he was trying to win his mom’s approval. But when he got cancer, Jess quit trying.

  Gwen sighed. It must have been loud, since I could hear it through the wood. “Jesse, I hope you realize the ramifications that your having sexual relations with Samantha would have on me.”

  So much for worrying about my mom.

  Only Gwen could turn this into something about her. Her son was dying, and she was worried about ramifications; she had the warmth of a reptile. “Do you know the trouble I could be in, allowing her to sleep in this room?” Like the cops were gonna burst in any minute and cuff her or something.

  “Mom, for God’s sake, Sam’s my best friend.”

  “So you’re saying you haven’t had sex with her?” He hadn’t had sex with anyone, but he sure wasn’t gonna share that.

  “If we were gonna have sex, wouldn’t we have done it years ago?”

  “I don’t care what you did years ago. I care about what goes on in this room now.” So if Jesse had screwed me on my living room sofa when I was fourteen, that was no problem. “I don’t want to find her in your bed again. Got it?”

  “Okey dokey. Can you take that bucket of barf out for me?”

  I could just picture her nose wrinkling. God forbid her designer dress got a splat. “I’ll send Maria in for it. She has to bring your breakfast … or lunch, I suppose, and your medication.”

  “Never mind. I’ll bring it myself.”

  “You mean you’re eating in the dining room today?”

  My eyebrows arched in surprise, hearing that. With the pain he was in, I’d have pegged it a bed day for sure. Then again, in the right mood, Jesse would crawl across the floor inch by inch.

  Past the wheelchair.

  “Yeah, you’ll have to put up with my company for a while. But don’t worry, soon you’ll have the place to yourself.”

  “Jesse!” Her voice was sharp.

  “Hey, it’ll even be easier to snag another man. Less baggage.”

  “Jesse, I …” Gwen’s voice had lost its edge now. There was a long pause, then she cleared her throat; then there was more silence. Finally she said, “I’m devastated over your situation.”

  “Yeah, I can see that my situation is tearing you apart. But you wouldn’t want to ruin your makeup or anything.”

  Her high heels scuffed against the floor a few times. Quietly she said, “I’ve done my share of crying, Jesse. What good does it do?”

  “None, none at all. See ya in a few, Ma.”

  Gwen’s heels scraped the floorboards some more; I pictured them scuffing back and forth, back and forth. When she spoke again, her voice was back to its usual strength. “We’re not done discussing Samantha, Jesse. I told you the rules before I agreed to this insanity.”

  “Drop it, Ma. I told you, I’m not giving it to Sam.”

  I wished I could be eighteen—it was only a few months away—and then none of this would matter. Not that we were having sex—but at least maybe then Gwen would leave us alone.

  “I only allowed it because of her instability; she looked as though she’d throw herself from the veranda if I said no. Honestly, she’s falling apart. I don’t know what’s going to become of her if—” She stopped, but it was too late. She had the tact of a sledgehammer.

  “Not if, Mom, when I die,” he finished.

  There was another long pause. “You’re not going to die, Jesse. You’re not going to die.”

  “Oh, come on, Mom. We all know what’s going to happen. At least Sam cares about me.”

  Her high heels clicked toward me. “I care about you too, Jesse,” she said softly and very close to the door—in fact so low, and so far from Jess, that he couldn’t have heard her.

  I hightailed it into the bathroom a few feet away, twisting the handle as I shut the door so it wouldn’t make any noise. I was hiding not only from Gwen, but from the question she’d released into the air; the very same question I’d kept carefully corked in a vial down in the laboratory of my soul. I’d been creaking down those basement steps inside me for weeks, stirring memories in beakers, mixing emotions in test tubes, heating my heart over a Bunsen burner. Trying to concoct some kind of happy ending to answer that question with.

  A second later, Gwen clacked down the hall.

  I counted to sixty, figuring that gave her enough time to settle in somewhere in the twelve-room condo. I opened the door the same way I closed it—silently—and tiptoed down the hall, past all the twisted-looking modern art paintings Gwen collected—the surreal life.

  Halfway, I realized I was still in my pajamas. But I continued moving, even though there was no escape, no way to evade those hovering eight words breathing heat on my neck, raising hairs. They followed me out the door, tapping on my shoulder. They tailed me the few feet along the gold carpet, past the nasty emerald-striped wallpaper the condo association had voted for. I felt like I was in Oz. But where was the wizard when you needed him?

  I stood at my door, facing the mauve wreath with halfway-decent fake blue flowers on it. They didn
’t look hideous, but they sure didn’t look real. welcome to the everfields was printed on the wood plaque dangling from it on gold chains. The neighbors hated that thing.

  “Go away, go away,” I whispered to the words at my back, gripping the doorknob so hard it hurt. But they wouldn’t leave.

  What will become of me if Jesse dies?

  Chapter Three

  I’m the girl next door.

  I met Jesse the day we moved in, fifteen years ago. People say you don’t remember stuff from when you were two, but I do.

  Not whole days, but moments.

  And feelings.

  Even then, it felt like he belonged with me.

  My parents had decided that New York City was a better place to raise a child than the hick Long Island town we lived in until Mom hit it big. She writes romance novels—the real schticky kind that everyone claims to hate, but somehow always make The New York Times Best Seller List. You should see how the proper ladies in our building frown on Mom’s work, but at least some of them had to be reading her books; a million copies of “Moonlight Passion in Paris” didn’t get sold to a bunch of men who wanted to read about blossoming crocuses. Anyway, the royalty checks started rolling in, and with them, we rolled into Manhattan—Central Park West.

  I don’t know what Mom and Dad were thinking. Actually I do, because they told me repeatedly over the years. “Samantha,” Mom would say, “New York holds unlimited promise.”

  Dad would wink and say, “Here, anything can happen.”

  That’s right. Anything can happen. Like your father can snap his briefcase closed, walk you to school, give you a kiss on your forehead and wave goodbye, take the subway downtown, get to work early, and a little before nine o’clock get blindsided by a 747.

  But back then, I had no worries, no fears.

  From the beginning, from the day my mom wheeled my stroller across the white and gold marble floor in the lobby and into the shiny black elevator, I had Jess.