I shut the bathroom door, turn around to the vanity, and look at myself. My eyes are blood shot. I tie my hair up quickly and turn on the cold water then start splashing my face. I need to brush my teeth, but I'm not ready to leave the safety of these four walls. I know once I walk out that door, I'm going to be asked more questions that I don’t have the answers to. I rinse my mouth a few times then jump up on the counter and try to think of anyone who would do this to me. I can’t think of anyone that I wronged or anyone that dislikes me enough to try and kill me, or stalk me to another state and harass me. Then I start to wonder where they have been during the last few months. Nothing has happened since a week before Thanksgiving. Not that I missed them, but why did they go away, and why are they back now?
“November!” Asher bellows from the front door. I hop off the counter and start to open the bathroom door when it is shoved open and hits me in the head.
“Shit!” I cry, my hand going to my forehead where the door hit me.
“Jesus Christ! Baby, are you okay?” I didn’t know if I was alright. I knew my head hurt a lot. Who the heck opens a door with that much force? “Let me see,” he says, pulling my hands away from my face. “Fuck!” he shouts and I know from the look on his face that I don’t want to see it. I now have a headache on top of all the other crap. “I'm sorry, baby. I'm so f**king sorry.” He looks really upset. Jeez, it hurt, but it wasn’t bleeding. How bad could it be? I turn to the mirror and want to laugh. I have a bright red and purple mark in the center of my forehead. I look like Harry Potter. I start to giggle and Asher’s eyes narrow. “This shit’s not funny. I could have really hurt you.”
“I know that,” I snap. “What the heck are you? The incredible hulk or something? Seriously, who opens a door to a bathroom like that?”
“Dad pointed out that you were in here. I didn’t even think. I just had to make sure you were okay.”
Now I feel bad. “Sorry, it just hurts,” I say softly, feeling like a total bitch. He always worries. Even when I'm safe, he worries, so now that I'm in danger I might as well handcuff myself to him.
He kisses the mark. “So, why were you laughing?” he asks, wrapping me in hug.
“I was laughing because I look like Harry Potter.” His eyes come back to my face and his lips twitch. I glare at him. “Now I’m going to have to give myself bangs to hide it so I don’t have to listen to your stupid brothers and the jokes they’ll make about it,” I say, pointing to my forehead.
“They love you.” They did, I knew they did. We had become great friends. I knew if Asher wasn’t around, I could count on any of them to help me out with whatever was wrong. And they were not perverted, just brotherly. For that, I was thankful. Now Sven, he was a different story. He made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was handsome, or if it was just him as a person. Sometimes the way he looks at me or the words he uses makes it seem like he is coming onto me. But I saw him in action when me and Asher met him and the guys at the bar. I know that when he comes on to a girl, he doesn’t hold anything back. He is over-the-top aggressive and women still swarm him like a hive to honey. One day, when he meets a girl he’s serious about, she’s going to have to be really strong in order to deal with his personality.
“I know they love me,” I grumble.
“Is everything okay?” Mr. James asks from outside the door. I step away from Asher and open the door and Mr. James looks down at me. “What the f**k?” he asks, looking up at Asher.
“It’s fine. I just need to put some ice on it and take some aspirin,” I say, stepping around him.
“How did it happen?”
“It’s either because your son is the incredible hulk or he has a thing for Harry Potter,” I say over my shoulder. I laugh when I hear Asher groan.
“It’s my fault,” Asher says, picking me up and setting me on the counter, removing me from where I was standing in front of the fridge. “The door hit her when I shoved it open to get to her.” I watch him go the drawer and grab a baggie then back to the fridge. He fills it with ice then wraps it in a kitchen towel and brings it to me and presses it to my head.
“Thanks, honey,” I mumble.
“You’re welcome, baby. I'm sorry your day sucks.”
“Me too.” He kisses my temple then looks over to his dad, but his eyes stop on the roses that are sitting on the counter.
“Some guy delivered those?” he asks. I swallow and look at Asher’s dad. He hadn’t told him about the card. Mr. James looked at me then at Asher. “What aren’t you telling me?” Asher asks his dad.
“When I pulled up, November came outside and found a card.”
“Where is it?” Asher asks and I can see his body expanding, muscles bunching under his shirt. Mr. James hands Asher the card that is now inside of a gallon zipper bag. The card is open so you can see the inside and outside of it. Asher looks at the front for the second and sees that it’s a picture of New York then he flips the bag over and I can tell that he’s using all of his control to not rip the thing in half. “What does this mean?” Asher grunts out. He sounds wild and nothing like himself.
I pull my phone out and Google the words that are written in the card. “The poet who wrote on my living room wall also wrote this poem,” I tell Asher and Mr. James.