Page 41 of The Ghost of You

Ms. Wilmot steps between the two of us. “Please calm down, Mr. Casallero. I know you have the power as the landlord to break a lease but it does require stipulations. Now remodeling this home will take a lot of time and money and quite frankly I don’t think you want to wait. I know you are anxious to complete your move to Florida. And I am not sure we could get a huge profit from selling as a single-family home. I think you can make more selling as a rentable unit. But I need to see the units before I can give you any kind of potential listing value.”

I have no idea why my landlord wants to move away so quickly. But I know I don’t want to look for a new home. I like living here. I feel at home for the first time in a long time. And I also don’t mind the view next door either.

I curse myself for thinking of Noah again. But images of his naked body flood my mind.

“Let me show you the place,” I tell Ms. Wilmot, shaking thoughts from my head.

I let all of us in, and she walks around the unit, taking notes in her phone.

“Now what were you saying about a water problem?” she asks me.

“The pipes—”

“Nothing at all,” George cuts in. “Loose faucet. Easy fix.”

I take a deep breath and cross my arms over my chest as I lean against my kitchen counter. “It wasn’t that.”

“What happened?”

“My shower head broke off and the pipes were leaking everywhere in the shower. My neighbor was able to fix it. He replaced some of the pipes he could get to in the wall but he said they were old and it was only a temporary fix.”

The realtor walks into the bathroom and starts to inspect the shower.

“You don’t need to exaggerate,” George says to me with a glare.

I don’t want to deal with his bullshit. “You weren’t even here. You did nothing to fix it. You don’t know what happened. Besides, this isn’t going to keep you from selling.”

“Well, it looks like whatever visible damage was caused was repaired which is great for selling. But let’s look at the main water heater. I wouldn’t want value to go down during an assessment if it’s something we can fix ahead of time.”

George grumbles to himself as he walks Ms. Wilmot out the front door. I grab my yoga bag and put my things away before heading out to the front porch and sit in a chair.

The two of them come back around and George’s anger looks to have settled into a smug smile.

“Thank you for showing your unit to me, Ms. Cooper. I will speak with a lawyer friend of mine regarding your lease agreement and I suggest you speak with one as well. If this place sells quickly, which I am sure it will in this neighborhood, I want to make sure you are legally covered and don’t lose your home abruptly.”

I stand from my chair and reach my hand out. “Thanks, Ms. Wilmot.”

“Please call me Alice,” she says, shaking my hand and then pulling out a business card. “Call me if you have any questions. I am sure Mr. Casallero wants to get back to Florida so it might be easier to contact me.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll pass the same information on to the other tenant as well,” she says before giving a quick goodbye and heading out to the Range Rover parked on the street.

I turn to go back inside ignoring my landlord but he barks at me. “If you lost me money because of this water incident you caused, I will terminate your lease immediately.”

“You can’t do that,” I answer back, half as a question.

“Just wait and see.” He storms off before I can respond. I watch him walk away to his old Ford Focus.

I grab my mail before heading back inside. I sift through it on the kitchen counter and see a letter from my parents. I fight the urge to tear it up and throw it out. I hate that anything from home sends anger through my veins. I know what that letter will say. ‘Come home. We miss you. It’s time you moved on.’

I can’t look at those words anymore. They hurt more than the memories sometimes. I want them to understand the pain. But it’s hard when even they don’t know the whole story of what happened between Kyle and me before he died.

I crunch the envelope in my hand and toss it toward the garbage. It misses, but I don’t care about picking it up.

My mind feels like it’s going to explode. Between my landlord, my parents, and those damn words Seraphina said, I feel like a jumbled mess.

I need a distraction.

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