Chapter 2

I could hear my mom crying on the other side of the wall. While the bed in my parent's bedroom squeaked and Daddy cursed, she wept. I guessed Mom wasn't going anywhere for awhile and I shook my head at that. She had the guts to cheat on my dad, but not enough to fight him off. Maybe that's what love does to a woman, I didn't know. I thought I loved Mahk sometimes and I even told him that every now and again, but I probably didn't mean it. I didn't love him enough to let him rape me, I knew that much, and I wasn't sure I wanted to.

What I wanted to do was turn on my music and cover my head with my pillow, but I didn't want to stop looking at the closet door either. By the time the noise had mostly stopped in the room next to mine, I was standing by my closet, biting my lip and feeling my heart ready to burst. My hands shook and I sort of slapped at the doorknob like it might give me a shock.

After a few deep breaths, I opened it and winced at the creaky hinges. I hadn't noticed that before. The other door, his door, yawned wide open with the bedroom still there and looking the same. I could see the boy sitting on his bed cross-legged and doing some homework it looked like. He had a book open while he wrote on a notepad and didn't seem to notice me.

"Hey," I said and then louder. "Hey, um ... Jimmy!"

He didn't look up or anything and I frowned because I wasn't sure if I should just walk in or not. I'd be pretty mad if I found some strange girl in my bedroom and then she ran into my closet and disappeared. Did he know about the door? He must know about it, he saw me go through it. Why didn't he chase me though? That's what I would have done. Or maybe not. I mean, I'm not really tough or anything. I'm a girl, yeah, but chasing people, even if they were in my bedroom, would have been a little too freaky for me, I think. I'd just be happy that they were gone.

But Jimmy was a boy and they don't seem to think like girls usually, so probably he didn't want to chase anybody either. He wanted to be left alone, more than likely, and I really wondered if I shouldn't wait until he left and then I could just write a note and leave it for him. I wondered if he had my stuff too, since there used to be shelves and clothes and junk in my closet. I'd sort of forgotten about that.

"Hey! Boy!" I tried again, almost too loudly. I didn't want to attract my dad's attention or wake him up if he was sleeping.

Still, the boy on the bed didn't look at me. I swallowed hard, really hoping I knew what I was doing when I stepped into his bedroom for the second time that evening.

"Hey," I said from less than ten feet away and he about jumped off of his bed.

"What? Where'd you come from?" Jimmy looked even more scared than I felt.

"Hi." I smiled weakly, trying to look as totally harmless as I could.

"Who are you?" His hazel eyes were big and round and he bit his bottom lip.

Jimmy glanced around the room like there might be more of me, and he'd picked up his school textbook. I didn't think he planned on throwing it at me or anything, he held it more like a shield than anything else. His auburn hair looked kind of long for a boy, I thought, and unruly. Some of it had gotten in his face when he'd moved, so Jimmy shook his head, but that just made it worse and I had to give him a real smile.

"I'm Jilly," I told him and for whatever reason most of my fear had gone away. Not all of it and I felt plenty nervous, but I knew this boy wasn't going to hurt me. I could tell stuff like that about other people real easy by the time I'd turned sixteen, believe me.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, standing on the other side of his bed and holding that book like he'd never let it go.

"I don't know," I said truthfully, pulling some long auburn hair out of my eyes. It liked to go everywhere and mostly I just kept it in a ponytail.

"What?" He didn't look like he believed me, or even believed in me, if that makes any sense.

"I, uh ... I opened my closet door..." I glanced over my shoulder and the door had closed, although I didn't remember closing it.

"What?"

" ... and I saw your bedroom," I continued. "It's just like mine, sorta."

"That's my closet," Jimmy said and I nodded. "You can't live in my closet."

"I don't live in your closet!" I giggled and felt a lot better now that we were talking. "I live in my own house, except ... I dunno, they're like connected now or something."

"Where'd you go?" he asked me, as if the boy hadn't heard a word I'd just said. "I looked for you and you weren't in there."

"In where?" I looked at the closet again. "I told you, I went to my own bedroom."

"That's impossible," he said and I had to agree with that.

"Yeah," I said. "Except it isn't anymore, I guess."

"Prove it," he told me and I did.

"Okay," I said, walking to the door and opening it. There was my bedroom, plain as day. "See? It's right there. You wanna come over?"

"Where did that come from?" Jimmy wondered in a whisper and I giggled again. His eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head.

"I don't know! I just found it. Look..." I scrunched up my nose at him. "It's perfectly safe."

I stepped into my bedroom and turned around and he just stood there, staring at me from the other side.

"Come on!" I grinned and waved at him to follow, but he didn't move and I didn't think he could hear me. I walked back into his room after a few seconds and he started to smile, just a little one, but it made him really cute.

"I saw you," he said. "You were waving at me."

"You didn't see it before though?" I wondered and Jimmy shook his head.

"No, it was a closet when you went in before," he told me seriously.

"That's weird," I decided. "You couldn't hear me though, huh?"

"No," he shook his head. "I saw your lips moving, but I didn't hear anything. It's kind of strange."

"Yeah!" I grinned at him and then he gave me a real smile. "You're Jimmy, right?"

"Yeah," he said. "You're name is, um..."

"Jilly," I reminded him. "Jimmy's a funny name. Are we in Nippan or someplace?"

"Nippan?" He looked confused.

"Yeah, you know ... Tokahama? The place with all the groundshakes all the time?" I held up my hands, inviting some understanding. Tokahama was only the biggest city on the planet, he must have heard of that.

"Um ... Japan?" he asked me and I didn't know what that meant.

"Never mind." I laughed. "Everything here is so weird. Hey, uh ... Can I hang out with you for a little bit?"

"Here?" Jimmy blinked at me and then his eyes went up and down and I knew he was checking me out. He'd probably been checking me out before, but this time he forgot to hide it. That was cool though, boys did that stuff and I'd kind of accidentally dressed for it anyway.

"Yeah." I gave the closet a little glance. "My old man's kind of, um ... He's sick, so I have to be really quiet and stuff. It sucks."

"Your dad?" he asked me and I nodded.

"I guess you can," Jimmy agreed slowly and he glanced at his bedroom door. "If my mom catches you up here though..."

"Yeah!" I rolled my eyes. "My mom's a bitch too sometimes."

"What? No!" He looked at me sort of shocked. "My mom's nice and all. I just mean she won't like it if some girl's up here and..."

"I didn't mean anything about your mom." I made a face at the boy. "I just thought, you know, maybe she was like my mom. If she's cool, then ... cool."

"Yeah." He nodded. "Sorry, I just ... My mom's not a bitch or anything."

"Okay," I agreed.

"Okay."

"So ... I can hang out, right?" I asked him again.

"You know anything about human biology?" Jimmy asked with a smile.

"Uh ... Is that like animal stuff?" I frowned because my biology classes pretty much sucked. I'm not like a walking brunette joke or anything, but I'm no brain surgeon either.