Page 16 of Don't Watch Alone
Then there is a knock at the door. It’s way too soft for it to be Jade.
I open it anyway.
No one.
I glance across the hall. The blinds shift. A shape moves inside that apartment. Like they are watching me.
I slam the door and lock it again.
Then another knock. Louder this time.
I snatch it open—ready to swing my fist.
“Boo!”
I jump so hard I almost fall over. “Jade, you bitch!”
She laughs. “Why are you so jumpy lately?”
I don’t answer. I just drag her inside.
“You know damn well why.”
She drops her bag. “What did that creep do now?”
I tell her. Everything.
She’s dead silent.
Another knock interrupts us, but this one I’m expecting.
“Pizza,” I say, already heading to the door.
Jade tosses her jacket over the arm of the couch and pulls two VHS tapes from her bag.
“Prom Night and Hotline,” she declares.
“Hell yes,” I say, forcing a grin. “Scary movies and greasy food. This is the cure for everything.”
I hand her a Coke, and we settle in front of the TV. The pizza box is already open on the coffee table, the paper plates are ready, the scent of pepperoni and garlic thick in the air.
Prom Night comes alive on the screen—grainy, warped from use, butstill captivating. Jamie Lee Curtis owns every second of it, especially the school dance scene, her body moving like she knows something the others don’t. It’s hypnotic and eerie, that too-happy beat pounding through the speakers just before everything starts to fall apart.
“I need her dance moves,” Jade says, laughing through a mouthful of crust.
I smile, chewing on a slice, but I can’t quite relax. There’s a tight thread held tight inside me. And when the sound comes—barely there, a soft shuffling through the apartment walls—I freeze.
I mute the TV without thinking.
The silence that follows feels huge.
“What is it?”
I don’t answer right away. I just stand up, careful not to draw attention to the way my shoulders have stiffened like something’s about to happen. I walk toward the door, pressing my ear against it, listening.
More silence.
Then, just as I’m about to ignore it as my imagination, the door across the hall closes quietly.
