LaPanda S. Mason

          Novella peers through the peephole looking at Taylor. He is looking at the door so hard, you would think he knows she’s standing there. She wanted to come to the meeting; all she had to do was put her face mask on. It had been sitting in her closet since the beginning, but she’d never put it on. There was something about him that was making her like him.  

“Don’t you go in his apartment!” she says to Beast. “What if you get caught?” She waits a few minutes before opening her apartment door. She peeks into the hallway before stepping out and pulls her door up slowly. “No, you stay here. I’ll be right back!” She pushes the pit bulls nose out of the doorway so she can close the door. She tiptoes across the hall and picks the door to Taylors apartment. She goes in and looks around making sure not to touch anything. Everything is still in boxes and bags so there’s not a lot for her to see. She goes into his bedroom and into the bathroom. She takes out her cell phone and takes pictures of the rooms. She sits on his couch, all the while his front door is still open. She hears a car door close and men laughing and talking. She gets up from the couch and looks in the hallway. Taylor is walking up the stairs backwards and talking to his friend. She crept back to her apartment just as he opens the glass door and steps in the building.  

Beast has been with her for the past six years. He was a pit bull that she had gotten when he was a puppy. So, he made sure he protected her. He was white with black spots and a black nose that happened to be shaped like a heart.   

“I know! I know! I shouldn’t have gone in there.”  She plops down on her bed and falls back. Beast jumps on the bed and lays his head next to hers. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me Beast.” 

The door to apartment 1A closes as soon as Taylor enters the building. He stops for a minute and looks from his apartment to hers. He knocks on her door and waits a minute but there is no answer. He walks to his door and before he puts his key in, he looks at her door again.