Imogen #2
just the faint patter of rain against windows and our breathing relaxing to normal speed. Darkness descends upon the lake as the sun sets behind the trees, bathing the room in shadows. Rory’s draping an arm around me, his thumb drawing invisible circles across my shoulder.
I kiss his fingers and crawl across the floor in search of clothes, snagging my undergarments.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Rory asks, lifting onto his elbows. The last bit of sunset highlights parts of his body, tight and carved like stone—other bits hidden.
“I’m just getting dressed,” I chuckle, slipping on my bra. Any minute, Amelia and Wes could walk in. It was risk enough letting Rory take me here, on the living room floor.
He tuts, but his grin is wolfish as he watches me dress.
I toss him his jeans and hear the clink of something falling from his pocket. But the spot is too dark to see. I finish dressing and flip on a corner lamp, easing us into light.
That’s when I see it. The thing that clattered out of Rory’s pocket. If it weren’t for its vibrant red color, I wouldn’t have noticed it. Wouldn’t have thought to even identify the sound.
On the floor next to Rory’s phone is a single key, cut into the shape of a unique rose design, painted red. It’s the exact key my mom made years ago for me and Amelia so it would match hers.
It’s the key to this house.
The comparison happens in an instant. It isn’t my key.
Mine hangs on the ring by the front door, weighed down with my car, apartment, and mailbox keys.
It isn’t Amelia’s. Hers are always with her, a cluster of pink keychains that are impossible to miss.
And it isn’t Mom’s. Those were found on the path to the dock, dropped the night she died and attached to a small foam buoy, in case they were ever dropped in the water while boating.
This key is all on its own. Just like the spare key that we keep under the front porch lantern.
The spare key.
I’d forgotten it until now. I didn’t think of it when I heard footsteps my second night here.
I didn’t think of it yesterday when someone came into the house.
The doors had been unlocked both times, and I told myself that was explanation enough.
I never considered that someone could’ve simply taken the spare.
That having it outside was only making us vulnerable.
Like it may have for Mom while she was still alive.
But here it is, lying on the floor of Mom’s house, slipped from Rory’s pocket.
Fear blooms in my chest, and I don’t know what it means or where it comes from. My mind fractures with questions about Rory.
I’m jerked back into the room when he speaks.
“You okay?” he asks, zipping his jeans. He grabs his sweater from the floor.
In horror movies, the girl who gives in never makes it out alive.
She drops her guard, exposing skin under her armor, and that’s when the killer strikes.
I used to roll my eyes at that clichéd logic because it felt so cheap, so sexist. But right now, staring at that key glinting scarlet against the wood, I can’t shake the sense that I’ve stepped straight into a trap.
I take a breath. “What’s that rose key? On the floor.” My voice is gentle, eyes suddenly stinging.
I know exactly what it is. But I want him to tell me. I want to hear his version.
“Oh,” he laughs lightly, scratching the back of his neck. “I found it outside when I was walking over. Thought it might be yours. It was on the driveway.” His explanation comes out too fast, nearly stumbling. “Is it yours?”
Leo’s words crawl back into my head. About Mom having a serious conversation with a young man with dark hair at the Village.
And I think about yesterday. About Rory walking away from the house right after the trespassing incident, like he happened to be in the right place at the wrong time.
Always with a neat excuse. Always perfectly reasonable.
Until it isn’t. Could this really all be a coincidence?
I suddenly feel like I don’t know the man standing in front of me.
I step back, buttoning my pants, my speechlessness speaking for me. I don’t even know what to say.
“Imogen,” Rory says carefully, watching me. “Talk to me. What’s going on in your head?”
I swallow, thoughts flooding so hard against me they could topple me.
“I just… wanted to know about the key. I don’t know.” I shake my head. “I think I’m tired.” I lightly laugh, putting up a front like it’ll protect me. The truth is brimming, pushing against the inside of my lips. But I don’t want it to come out. What will happen then?
I continue, slow. “You didn’t, like”—I close my eyes, finding the words—“come in here, right? Yesterday. Or even before.”
“What are you talking about?” His expression shows shock, confusion.
“Did you ever see my mom, before she died?” I try. My throat dries. “Did you, like, hang out? Did you ever come over?”
“What are you asking?” He frowns, guarding a real answer.
I stumble, unsure how to answer him. I’m asking a lot of things, I want to say. Can’t you hear me?
Eve’s words from earlier ring in my head, too. She said Mom was having trouble sleeping. She mentioned something about noises in the house. “Bump-in-the-night–type stuff.” Could that have been Rory? Is it possible? Would he have reason?
If I let my true thoughts out, I’ll become the “difficult girl”—a label I’ll never out-apologize.
The one who lets grief seep under her skin and shape monsters.
I’ve spent years trying not to be that girl.
The “too much” girl. The one who can’t be easy, or chill, or good company unless she suppresses her emotions and smiles like they don’t exist. But I am grieving, and it might be messy and dragging me down, but I’m carrying it the only way I know how.
If I keep quiet about my suspicions, if I let my need to be desirable outweigh my instinct, then I won’t ever find what I’m looking for.
“I need to know what’s real,” I say instead. “I need to know you haven’t ever used that key.”
I think back to the past couple days, wondering if I’ve heard the “Door Open” chime at an odd time, besides the other night when I found it ajar.
If Rory used the key, Robot Woman would have notified us.
I’ve heard it each time Amelia or Wes came and went, or myself.
But never at a time I couldn’t explain it.
Could I have missed it while in the bathroom? In my room with the door closed?
“For what?” he asks, defensiveness meeting disappointment. “I told you. I found it outside tonight. I didn’t even think much of it. That’s why I didn’t give it to you when I first came in.”
I sift through all our conversations. His hesitation in defending me with Rachel. Was he the man behind Mom on the dock that night?
Then there’s his ex-girlfriend’s mysterious death… Has it all been right in front of me?
“What happened to your girlfriend?” I ask softly. “The one who died.”
He flinches, eyes narrowing, a mix of hurt and anger flashing across his face. “Imogen… What are you—” He stops, running a hand through his hair. “You ask that like I had something to do with it. Or whatever happened to your mom. Do you hear yourself?”
“Tell me,” I nearly shout, interrupting him. A tear rolls down one cheek, spit cloying in my mouth.
“Lacy died in a car accident!” he shouts, shaking his head.
Lacy, I presume, is the girlfriend. But I didn’t know her, or what really happened to her. Does it even matter?
He backs up, speechless for a moment.
“Look. I don’t know what to think,” I try, unsure of how I’m feeling about any of this. “There’s this key in your pocket, you walked away from my house yesterday after the break-in, you—”
“You’re twisting all these things I’ve done into something they’re not,” he says. I almost believe him. “You know what?” He looks at me, hard, sad, defeated. “I feel sorry for you.”
Rory grabs his cell phone off the floor, leaves the rose key, and slams the front door.
A small piece of me wants to chase him, to explain, to make excuse after excuse. But the safest thing for me to do right now is stay away from him—take space until I know up from down. Until my world isn’t spinning, until I’m out of the funhouse.
I turn toward the living room, walking to the windows in thought.
I wipe my eyes, bury my head in my hands, and the tears keep coming.
My brain hurts. It’s overflowing with nonsense.
Every what-if collides in my head and I want to turn my brain off.
I want to disappear, shrink into the walls, anything to escape the weight of the chaos. I’m suffocating.
The vintage door knocker continues to thwack as it sways and clangs outside, jolted from the slam.
There’s nothing now but my own blaring thoughts. I close my eyes, wishing the world could pause.
From the silence of my crisis comes a sound. It’s not from outside, but inside the house. From the neighboring dining room. At first, I think I’m imagining it, my mind playing tricks from the serving of stress.
I hear a shoe delicately hit the floor behind me. And when I look up, eyes meeting the window’s reflection, even through blurred vision, I see them.