Next-Door Nemesis
Alexa Martin
For the readers: may you always find a home in the pages of this book
Chapter 1
If I hear live, laugh, love one more time, I’m going to die, scream, rage.
I know my mom means well, but my phone’s almost out of storage thanks to the abundance of uplifting memes and Bible verses she won’t stop sending me. Maybe I’d appreciate her unrelenting positivity if I was still in LA, enjoying my oat milk latte from the adorable café I wrote in almost every day. But for some reason, the never-ending text stream hits a little different when I’m fifteen feet away, sitting in my childhood room, and notifications keep interrupting the shame spiral I’ve been living in for the last two months.
I swipe away her latest text message and nestle deeper into the frilly comforter of my childhood past. I make sure the volume is all the way down—after all, who needs sound when every single word is ingrained in my brain?—and hit play on the video that has quite literally ruined my life.
To say the camerawork is shoddy would be a massive understatement. The video bounces and bobbles around as the image blurs in and out until a woman standing in an empty parking lot wearing nothing but spike high heels and a silk robe comes into focus.
A woman, of course, who happens to be me.
Jazz hands!
Honestly, it’s borderline offensive that after all the time I spent in Los Angeles, all the scripts I wrote, all the internet content I produced hoping to hit my break à la Issa Rae, this is what has millions of views. You flip out and threaten to bury your lying, thieving ex one time and it goes viral?
What are the chances?
It just really sucks that instead of my brush with viral fame catapulting me to television-writing superstardom, it’s what ended my career.
My phone dings with another text from my mom at the same moment the video hyperzooms in on my tearstained face. This is where it really gets good. And by good, of course, I mean downright horrifying.
I lift my finger to swipe away another one of her messages. I love my mom and her hopeless positivity, but after moving back into my childhood home a month ago—exactly thirty-one days after my life took a drastic turn toward the absolute worst—with no signs of getting out, I’m in the mood for self-pity.
“Collins Marie Carter!” My mom’s thick midwestern lilt rings out from the other side of my much-too-thin door. “Don’t you ignore that!”
I shoot out of bed and accidentally send my phone sailing through the room. “Holy shit, Mom!”
Just another perk of moving back home as a twenty-nine-year-old woman.
Privacy? Never heard of her.
“First of all, watch your language,” she says, still right outside my door. “Second of all, that’s the third text I’ve sent you this morning and you haven’t responded to one.”
I scramble around my room trying to find something to wear before giving up and grabbing an old T-shirt off the ground and pulling on the bike shorts busting at the seams. Because really, what’s even the point of trying when your life is completely ruined?
“Mom.” I throw open the door and try to harness every ounce of patience I have. “You know how much I love you, but I think with about forty percent fewer texts and fifty percent more space, we’ll all be much happier.”
“You need to stop watching that darn video; it’s not good for you.” She gives me a disapproving once-over and continues to speak as if I didn’t. “Also, didn’t you wear that yesterday? I know you’re depressed, but you’ll never feel better wearing the same dirty clothes and never brushing your hair.”
If there were a chance brushing my hair and changing my clothes could turn back the cruel hands of time and convince me to never date Peter Hanson, I’d have a fresh updo and be wearing a fucking evening gown. Alas, formal wear is not the key to time travel and I’d rather be comfortable while I continue down this path of self-loathing.
“Just let me be miserable for one more week.” Or fifty-two. “And I promise to try to rejoin society again. It’s still too fresh. I still get recognized in the streets.”
Being looked down on, on the bitter, hard streets of LA is one thing, but getting the cold shoulder in the suburbs of Ohio? Absolutely not. A person can only handle so much.
“I’ll give you thirty more minutes,” she says, clearly not understanding the meaning of compromise. “I’m hosting Friday church group and I can’t have you wandering around the house like a sad, godless puppy. Plus, I told the ladies you’d be joining us.” She shoves the bedazzled Bible I didn’t notice she was holding into my hands. I’m surprised I don’t dissolve into a pile of ash. “Just in case you need to catch up.”
“While sitting in the kitchen and gossiping under the ruse of good intentions does sound like a blast, I’m going to have to pass.” I return her Bible, only slightly concerned that lying while holding it resulted in one more brick in my pathway to hell. “I promised Dad I’d help him get things for the yard today.”
My dad, Anderson Carter, is perhaps the most precious human to ever human. A recently retired pharmacist, he’s living his full gardener fantasy. Seeing this six-foot-two-inch, 320-pound Black man fiddling around the yard has been the only highlight of returning home. Unfortunately for me, once I told him that, he became relentless in his pursuit to recruit me into this vitamin D–filled hobby of his. I wasn’t thrilled when I finally gave in, but now that it’s saving me from an afternoon listening to the Karens—no shade, there are literally three different women named Karen in the group—drone on about how wonderful their boring kids are doing, I’m going to have to buy him lunch . . . if my bank account will allow it.
“Oh darn. Well, maybe next time.” My mom pouts and the fine lines of aging pull on the corners of her delicate mouth, which has never muttered a single curse word. “At least Dad’s going to get some quality time with you.”
She may not curse, but those lips are well-versed in spewing passive-aggressive jabs.
“We watched an entire season of House Hunters last week; quality time doesn’t get any better than that.” I can almost see the wheels turning in her brain to come up with a retort, but she stays quiet because even she knows it’s true. Nothing can bond two humans more than watching incompatible couples argue about a house they can’t afford and screaming at a television about gray laminate floors.
“Fine, but if you’re set on abandoning me and Jesus, can you at least make sure Dad doesn’t forget to get the white oak tree while you’re at the nursery?” She steps to the side as I squeeze past her.
She follows close behind as I try to keep my eyes trained on the carpet they replaced last year and ignore the barrage of inspirational quote art littering the walls. The collaged picture frames filled with every single one of my school pictures break up Bible verses, proof of days when I loved overly teased bangs and scrunchies working overtime to keep me humble.
As if I have any pride left.
“Sure, Mom.” I pull open the cabinet and grab the “World’s Best Dad” mug I gave my dad for Father’s Day when I was in third grade. I pour in some of the hazelnut coffee my mom is still trying to convince me doesn’t taste like sludge and hope that today will be the day I learn to love it. “Text me the name, though, because I definitely won’t remember.”