Dance Of Desire by Sweet and Special Books Page B

of sight.

Chapter Nine
    FINALLY, Cassie reached her door.
    She quickly shoved her apartment door open, as if to startle a possible intruder, and her hand darted in to find the light switch.
    CLICK!
    Her entire apartment was bathed in bright light. Cassie’s eyes darted to every corner and minutely swept every inch of the floor and wall and ceiling before she fully stepped inside and reluctantly shut the door behind her.
    It felt like she was shutting herself within.
    She swallowed hard. The air in here felt heavy, humid, thick with… something.
    My imagination is running away from me again, she told herself. Stop it!
    That did not stop her from straining her ears to check for anything. But nothing was out of the ordinary. She justified that the air felt heavy because the apartment had been closed all day, with the windows locked and the air conditioner off so the air inside had had no circulation.
    It’s just muggy humidity.
    The phone suddenly rang. Cassie started at the sound, jumping clear off the ground like a frightened cat, her heart pounding. Then she laughed at herself.
    “Calm down, stupid, it’s just the phone. Ugh, stop ringing like that!” She grabbed up the receiver. “Hello!” she practically shouted.
    A pregnant pause answered her query.
    And then, “Cassie? It’s Mom.”
    Cassie almost slumped to the floor in relief. And then she felt her eyes getting rapidly warm. It felt so great to hear her mom’s voice!
    “Hi, Mom! How are you?” She walked to the windows then unlocked and opened them. The gush of cool night air was refreshing and seemed to lighten up the place, giving Cassie some comfort and assurance. She shook her head and relaxed even more.
    “I’m fine, baby. Missing my little girl, though.”
    “I’m not a little girl anymore. I’m grown up, remember.”
    “Well—”
    “I know. I’ll always be your little girl. Always.”
    Light, bubbly laughter warmed Cassie’s heart through the phone. “Exactly, young lady. I’m so glad you’re finally out of that transients’ motel, though. How’s your first apartment?”
    Different parts of Cassie’s inner person were screaming.
    “Horrendous!”
    “Haunted!”
    “Terrifying!”
    “It’s… remarkable,” she answered. That seemed a neutral statement from a grown woman on her own who wasn’t going to cry to her mother at every mysterious creaky sound. Or nightmare. Even mega-nightmares she couldn’t even remember. “I haven’t been sleeping too well here, though,” she ventured, not too childishly, she hoped.
    “You’ve stayed in hotels with us and yeah, you have always been very listless when you are not sleeping in your own bed here. I guess you’ve never outgrown that, huh? But it will pass. You’re just adjusting to grown-up life on your own.” Her mother sounded wistful, and also like she was trying to convince herself to be calm and let her daughter be a full-fledged adult.
    A part of Cassie wanted to sob in hysterics and asked them if they could come and get her right now? That it wasn’t working out and she wanted to leave this place, board the bus, and just come back later for her stuff—with them.
    But grownups should not bitch about being on their own when they had been bitching about wanting to grow up and be out on their own as soon as possible.
    So they talked a little longer about classes and her new friends. She skipped the details of what happened—not that she fully knew what had happened—when she and her friends had gone out to their first classy nightclub together.
    “No, I didn’t drink much.” Not much as the other girls, she was sure. But her mom did not know that, and she did not want her to worry. It wasn’t’ going to happen again. Not if she could help it. Especially since everything started since that night.
    Again, could the drink be the culprit? Maybe, that magic man slid a powerful drug on it and she was suffering from withdrawal ever since?
    She also didn’t mention the