After Her Read Free Page A

Aerosmith. I don’t know. It sounds like a mesh of crooning gibberish right now. After a moment, I grip the steering wheel with unsteady hands, exhaling a mouthful of wheezed breath.
    For many seconds, I don’t shift the car into drive . I glance at my purse and wonder about the contents of that envelope. I manage to put it out of my mind for a little. As I roll to a gradual stop at the first intersection with a red light, I can't resist my curiosity any longer.
    I unzip my purse to retrieve the envelope after flicking on the car light for a better look.
    I tear it open and peer cautiously inside, fearing someone laced with anthrax or some other lethal substance.
    After dumping the envelope out onto my lap, I notice that it’s crammed with money.
    Lots of money. Four thousand dollars lay scatted between my legs accompanied by a note that repeats exactly what that woman said to me earlier: My husband would love you.
     

2
     
    At dawn, Sasha barges into my bedroom and yanks the curtains open.
    Times like this, reminds me of everything I knew I’d hate about having a roommate. Sasha should be an exception to that rule. We have been friends since sixth grade and we’re already aware of everything that annoys us both about each other. If not for Sasha paying most of the rent, I’d have opted for a dorm. It was her insistence that we move in together in some vain attempt to “be adults.”
    No parents and no curfew , she’d said. This is going to be fabulous! Parents and curfews have never stopped her from climbing into the back of some random boy’s pickup after school. Usually, I had to pry the girl from beneath some horndog boy with curious hands. Or talk her out of piercing some abnormal part of her body.
    At sixteen, she legally had her middle name changed to Angelique and got a tattoo of a Hindu proverb under her left armpit that is supposed to say “Namaste.” Instead, it says “Nasty Mess” in English because the tattoo artist was high and misunderstood her. The only reason she didn’t sue the guy was because she was also high. Three years later and nothing has changed with her. Adulthood isn’t ready for Sasha Hawthorne.
    I open my eyes and glimpse that infamous tattoo as her arm hovers over me, jabbing me. The jingle bell noises of her charm bracelet prickle in my ear and I wrestle myself awake from a lethargic hell. Mornings suck. Sasha knows they hate me. Yet, she insists on barging into my room at dawn. Every. Single. Day.
    “Cass, come on,” she orders. “Get up!”
    “ Ugh! Go away,” I say while burying my face beneath the underside of a lumpy pillow. As sunlight peers in, I roll over in bed and pile quilts atop my head to obstruct the light. Hair lays matted to my left cheek, sodden with cold sweat.
    Blood is the rancid taste beneath my tongue as if I’d bit it in the middle of the night and never noticed. And how could I not? Last night’s sleep was shit. For the first time since I was nine, I had an actual nightmare.
    I don’t remember all of the details, only fragments of images that haunt my brainwaves. Visual tumors that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. That woman. Those eyes. Her face. Vivian . Her name lingers on my subconscious like some forbidden incantation that I won’t say aloud.
    Eyes wide open; I remain immobile in bed, cocooned in blankets. Sasha doesn’t take a hint. She proceeds to tear the blankets from my mattress and tosses them onto the floor.
    “Time to get up,” she repeats when I refuse to move. “You didn’t set your alarm and you’re going to be late for class.”
    Groggy-eyed, I squint at the clock on my cell phone. Four more missed calls. From the same number. I kill the phone, pressing the off button. Not now.
    Sasha continues to rouse me. I stuff my ears with earphones to ignore her. Too bad the damn things aren’t plugged to any music. I hear her roaming around my bedroom, rummaging through my closet and making rude comments around my