Neighbour

viii

"What happened here?" Lucius asked, looking at the glass pieces on the floor.

"It slipped from my hand." I said as I crouched on the floor and started piling the bigger pieces on each other.

"You need to be careful you know. If things slip out... someone could get hurt." He said as he crouched in front of me, picking up the pieces too.

"Are you trying to tell me something, Lucius?" I asked, getting the hint.

"You need to mind your own business, Maya. Calling the cops on me was not a cool thing to do." He said.

"I was scared!" I said as I got off the floor and stood upright.

"I heard noises and screams and I didn't know what to do! So I did what a normal person would do and called the police!" I exclaimed, frantically.

"You shouldn't be so paranoid. It was just the TV." He said as he continued to pick up glass pieces from the floor.

"I don't believe that." I said. His house wasn't that close to mine that I could hear his TV. I wasn't a fool.

"You don't have a choice to believe anything else." He said and walked straight out of my house.

-

I put a chair against the door in such a way that the handle couldn't turn. Lucius had scared the daylight out of me, I didn't want more uninvited visits from him.

I called Dana, my realtor soon Lucius left and I cleaned up the rest of the broken glass.

"Hello, Dana?" I asked into the phone.

"Maya, dear. Is everything alright?" She asked, addressing the concern in my voice.

"Not really. I want to know the history of Maple Leaf Drive, Dana." I said firmly.

"Well, like I said before, your neighbourhood is new. There is no history."

"Dana, I'm serious. It's important to know it's history." I said.

"Maya, be careful. In the process of counting stars you might fall in a well." Dana said.

"Wha-"

Dana hung up on me.