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ROMILDA TOOK THE FIRST OF HER DAILY PILLS IN FRONT OF HER AUNT, chugging down her glass of water and slipping the drug beneath her tongue before slipping upstairs and cringing as she spat the blue and white pill down into the sink, her hands clasped over the edges of the bowl, her dark hair falling into her eyes as she puffed air out of her cheeks. It was all an act she'd preformed one too many times.
The pipes creaked as she twisted the dial on the faucet, stepping inside the bath and slicking her fringe back with the beads of water, as they logged her black hair into clumps, resembling vanilla beans. It was a rare occasion that Meg had payed the water bill, and that Romy could have a nice hot bath. It was hot, probably too hot, and made the welts on her skin sear as she reeled her knees up against her chest.
She stared up at a vertex of the room, and as the lightbulb reflected onto the plastered ceiling and eluded two faint eyes staring back at her. They were round and white and sterile looking, and though she knew she was fooling herself, she imagined those eyes as her mother's.
The Hockstetters, Diana and Frank, had still looked at each other like high school sweethearts despite being a married couple of a decade or so. It was the kind of marriage that other people keened after, even if they'd met whilst in opposing gangs.
Nevertheless, it had now been roughly four years since the incident — since Romy and Patrick had bid their parents goodbye, as they left for their trip to Las Vegas. Romilda hadn't expected for them to never return, and now, four years later, the memories of her mother and father were beginning to fade. Though, there was a lingering presence. People had always said it: Rom was a carbon copy of her Aunt Meg, which was odd, given that her mother and her aunt were identical twins.
The sauna hot heat of the bathroom had to have been getting to her head, as she could have sworn she'd seen a black hand raising up from the foamy bubbles at the other end of the bath. She rubbed her eyes, and it was gone. The sulky brunette pulled the plug on her bathwater, watching those loose hairs swirling down the plughole. She decided that she'd conceal any further psychotic episodes from her aunt, as Megan had already displayed that she lacked sympathy. Her own twin sister had been unstable for years, and had even been taking antidepressants during her pregnancy with Romilda. They even called Frank Hockstetter a lunatic because he hated even the lightest dusting of dead leaves on the lawn, and raked them three times a day, like clockwork.
As she redressed herself and snatched the rotary phone off of the receiver, stretching and extending her arm out so she could grab the crumpled packet of cherry pez from the counter without dropping the telephone.
Coincidentally, she'd recited Cindy's number after the first week she'd met her (obviously, upon request of the blonde). She dialled the number into the keypad, and after she listened to the dial, the phone was picked up after a short second of static on the line.
