Page 21 of Willowbrooke
I could still look for something nearby on the off chance I found a place in my price range…which I knew damn well was going to be impossible.
“And besides,” he continued, “it’ll be nice to have some company.”
With that, he released my hand from his. I immediately felt the loss of his warmth and comfort.
“Pop the trunk,” he instructed as he got out of the car.
Without thinking, I obeyed, and watched silently as he grabbed two boxes and carried them toward the house. I hadn’t even agreed to his offer, but he had made the choice for me.
I followed quickly behind, dragging my suitcase across the gravel.
CHAPTER 5
Suffocating
Leo and I decided what we referred to as the “pink room” upstairs would be the best place for me, at least for a little while. We were planning on playing a bit of musical chairs with the furniture when the flooring restoration started, and the pink room was the last on the plan. Until then, I’d have the whole floor to myself, which felt right from a privacy perspective for both Leo and me.
The first night, Leo lugged all of my boxes into the dining room so I’d have easy access to pull out anything I needed urgently, but the rest would be out of the way enough not to bother either of us, or the construction workers. Laughing at my slow pace up the stairs, Leo wrestled my large suitcaseaway from me, and took it the rest of the way up.
I crashed so hard in that pink frilly canopy bed the first night. Physically exhausted from driving for hours on end and mentally exhausted from the roller coaster of a day I’d had, I was dead to the world within moments of my head hitting the pillow.
The initial couple days were a mix of awkwardness and odd familiarity as we shared the space twenty-four seven. After all, I had worked there for two months; I knew all the nooks and crannies pretty well by then, but I had rarely been at the house after dark. And in the evenings, the house took on a whole new sinister demeanor—one that I tried very hard to ignore.
At night, shadows stretched longer, the smallest noises echoed louder, and my imagination was intent on playing tricks on me around every corner. I couldn’t get the conversation I’d had with Margot out of my mind, knowing that in the last few decades alone, more than a couple people had passed in and around the property.
I thought back to my first impression of Willowbrooke, the day of my interview. I had told Mina I thought the place looked haunted, and I’d meant it. And now I was witnessing firsthand how the space ebbed and flowed between day and night—how it moved around its inhabitants, perhaps waiting for another soul to add to its collection…
Each morning I would wake up to the same fresh cup of coffee waiting on the counter and Leo across from me, readyto hear what we had in store for the day. The counter at that point was a makeshift coffee bar I had cobbled together on a side table I’d brought into the living room from upstairs.
The ritual that had developed between Leo and I from the beginning of the project had long been the highlight of my day, and I’d spent most of my morning commute scripting what I would review with Leo and looking forward to the bitter steaming dark liquid I knew would be ready for me upon my arrival.
While our morning procedure largely stayed the same, without my long commute, we could start work over an hour earlier, which now included us taking our coffee to the living room and watching the tail end of the sunrise over the oceanside cliffs beyond the back lawn. Although Leo had always opened the curtains before my arrival, I began to take on the task myself, while he tended to the coffee machine.
“Val gets the coffee from a local place; they get fair-trade beans directly and grind the beans in-store,” Leo told me one morning a couple weeks into the project, after I had asked about the unlabeled black bag of coffee grounds. Every now and then I’d get glimpses of the Leo that hid behind his self-built walls, keeping everyone and every emotion out, but also keeping himself locked away inside. I’d made a note that day that coffee was something that was important to Leo.
Whether it was the liquid itself, the caffeine boost, or simply the morning ritual of it all, our first sips together every morning were a quiet moment of zen that I never tookfor granted. The brief spark of sheer joy on Leo’s face when he saw the coffee station I’d put together was well worth the effort. It was a lesson that paying very close attention and becoming attuned to his almost imperceptible shifts in mood or emotion would pay off eventually.
Having dealt with Adam’s mercurial mood swings for a long time, I was used to ferreting out the smallest indications of how a person might react, or how their perception of an interaction would play out. Leo’s reactions, or lack thereof, were much more diminutive, but I was slowly learning his quirks. Try as he might, he couldn’t keep me out forever. I was determined to build a friendship between us, yet whether he wanted to count me as a friend or not was up to him.
I tried to ignore the small voice inside that suggested he could become something more than a friend. Those thoughts were the hardest to evade. The hope that came with them was even worse.
It only took a matter of days, staying at the house full-time, for Leo’s walls to very slowly start crumbling. So gradual was the progress, that I doubted he was even aware of it happening.
“C’mon, use your muscles, Pen,” Leo chided as I struggled to help him move a heavy chest of drawers from one room to the other as we prepared for the flooring work to begin. He had been teasing me more lately and had taken to calling me by a nickname when it suited him. I didn’t mind. Mina was the only one who usually called me “Pen” for short.
My family wouldn’t dare use the moniker. It had, after all, taken them years as a teenager to convince them that I preferred to be called Penny instead of my full name: Penelope. It was an old family name which my parents had fallen in love with, never considering their daughter would have to live with the name for the rest of her life, whether she liked it or not.
I hated being called Penelope, but Penny…I felt like a Penny, and when Mina, or now Leo, used the shorthand version, it made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. The implied familiarity from Leo made me nervous…but the good kind of nervous. It was a secret code being shared amongst allies. I didn’t think either of them knew how endearing it felt to me. Maybe I didn’t have to tell them—they could probably see it on my face.
Late afternoon the second day after I moved in, I caught Leo mindlessly scrolling through the stock artwork on the new frame TV, which could mimic the look of artwork when the TV wasn’t in use.
When Leo asked my preferences, it sparked a great debate that culminated in an empty wine bottle split between the two of us, and a disagreement over modern and abstract art versus more traditional styles. I wasn’t a fan of the former, but he disagreed. I suspected Leo didn’t like modern art either, but it seemed he enjoyed playing devil’s advocate and pushing my buttons.
But after the debate, I found that most days Leo choseartwork that was well within my personal preferences, typically classical subjects in a baroque or rococo style. He liked to try a new piece every day.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was growing on him.
Evenings at the house were a little bit awkward. Leo was still cranky since the kitchen wasn’t accessible, so once we’d eaten our second meal of the day, which Leo would order in, I’d make a quick retreat to the pink room, not wanting to disrupt whatever normal nighttime routine Leo had. As far as I was concerned, I wanted him to forget I existed outside normal working hours, so he didn’t feel as though his space was being invaded.
