Title: "Adversity On Gilman: Part 5 of 12"
Zero stood before Mrs. Jenkins' apartment door for a moment. He took a deep breath, hoping to exhale some of the anger that was boiling inside of him towards this woman. He looked back down the walkway. Carenthia had stood, viewing on from beside his apartment door.
It was time.
Zero turned his head back to the door. His eyes tightened. He raised his fist and knocked on the door. Knock... knock... just two quick knocks. He knew she was home. He could hear her rattling inside of her spotless apartment.
From inside of the apartment, he could hear Mrs. Jenkins call out to the outside as she made her way to the door. "I'll be right there. Who is it?"
Zero didn't respond. He stood in silence, his breathing going in and out in a controlled rhythm. He waited for her to come. As he heard the footsteps near, he had to bite off the boiling in his head. Composure, he reminded himself. He needed to keep it, somehow.
She twisted a lock. Zero heard her adjust another, and then a third lock. Finally, a crack opened in the door. She commented to the unknown outside of her door before she had fully stuck her head around. "Hello. I..." She saw who it was. Her eyes grew, her lips pulled back, showing her teeth as she quickly lowered her tone. "What do you think you're doing here!"
She slammed the door shut as fast as she could. But Zero was one step ahead of her. He caught the door with his foot, causing her to lose any chance of keeping him locked out. He rode his knee into the doorway, overpowering her body against the door.
He tried to maintain his composure, but he could feel it start to slowly slip. He finally spoke to her. "We have to talk." His voice was low, without other option.
Mrs. Jenkins struggled from the inside, trying to push the door closed despite the leg that stood in her way. "No, you're not coming in here," she hollered out to him. It was a mixture of both anger and a slight hint of fear that came from her voice.
Zero slowly put one hand up to the door. He gave it a slight nudge, feeling her body go back in the overpowering strength that he had over her. He spoke inside the leg-wide gap to her. "I'm coming in there, whether you want me to or not." He slowly raised the other hand up to the door, but left them still for a moment.
She had one desperation trump card left up her sleeve. As she felt the slow nudge pushing her back, she cut through with her annoying voice. "I'll call the police."
"I don't really care." His composure dropped at that moment. With one good push, he barged his way into her house. She stumbled back, but maintained her balance before following. If she had fell, it would have just been yet another annoying characteristic of hers to Zero.
She latched onto the door handle and quickly made her way to her sitting chair. She passed away from Zero, but he made no move toward her, other than his chest's pumping up and down in the anger that he was feeling.
She reached for a phone, but knocked it over in her quick movements. As she leaned to quickly pick it up, she blurted out to Zero, "You're trespassing on private property." She fiddled with the phone, but kept her eyes on Zero at the same time. She didn't know what he would do to her. Oh how she hated the man for thoughts unseen.
But Zero stood, roughly seven feet from her, and glared his eyes down at her. He wouldn't strike her. But there were things that needed to end. Finality had to come at that moment. "Which is the same as you've been doing to me." He took a deep breath, which shook Mrs. Jenkins.
Her face quickly looked down at the phone. She gathered it up in one swoop. She raised the receiver to her head and began searching for the numbers to the local police department. "I don't know what you're talking about," she spat out as she reached seven numbers.
But with a sudden swing of his hand, Zero slammed the phone cradle back down, eliminating Mrs. Jenkins' dial tone. Slowly, he brought his face up to hers, no more than a foot away. Constrained, slowly, but with a definite edge, he said, "I think you do."
Mrs. Jenkins' own anger rose up. She threw the phone and raised her finger up, pointing at Zero's face. "You listen here, you... you..." She couldn't quite find the word, so instead she hollered out a frustrated title. "Whatever you are! I..."
Zero threw his head back and his own finger up as he pointed to her, interrupting her with an irritated, angry scream. "No, you listen!" Zero pulled back his hand and ran it roughly through his hair. "You and your gossip has pushed me far enough. I can tolerate it when you're just talking about me. But when you branch over into others' lives, that's where I draw the line."
Mrs. Jenkins sat further up in her chair, reducing the invisible barrier between Zero and she. She was growing angrier and angrier, as well as annoyed with this man who she despised. "Just how do you think you have the right to tell me what to do?" Her eyes cut into Zero's.
Zero returned the stare, constraining himself from striking the woman who was setting out to ruin him and those he knew in any way she could. How did he have the right to tell her what to do? "When you starting messing with people's lives," was his sharp, but cool, reply to her.
A slight hiss cut through her tone in her cold reply. "I haven't messed with anyone's life." She started to get out of her chair.
That was the opening he needed. Better than pulling it from nowhere. He instantly told her the facts. "You've started a rumor about Erica and I which has already had effects." He watched as she stood up and looked slightly up at him.
She stood beside the chair, thinking it would be better not to walk closer to him. But her response had an air of arrogance and confidence, as if she felt she had beat him in a truth game. "I merely confirmed to Caren what she thought she heard."
That caught him off guard. She called Carenthia "Caren"? He threw the memories of Karen out of his head as quickly as he could. His demeanor slipped slightly in front of Mrs. Jenkins. "Don't..." he said, but decided not to even finish his sentence.
Instead, he picked his focus back up on Mrs. Jenkins. He returned with his low, steady tone as he said, "Stay out of our lives." His eyes froze on hers in a twisted game of "don't blink."
Mrs. Jenkins was the first to respond, but there was a moment there of dead silence. The arrogance shown through as she said, "I'll see to it that you stay out of my life. And Caren's..."
It didn't affect him that time. Instead, he felt an odd compassion come over him for Carenthia. This woman, she was the one Carenthia talked to. She was whom Carenthia went to for advice. This woman, Zero figured out, was about to destroy anything positive that Carenthia thought of towards others "not bridge club acceptable." Zero had seen Carenthia in just two small encounters, but could see something good in her.
Zero calmed his body before he spoke. He regained his composure that he had lost earlier. Slowly, he took one step closer to Mrs. Jenkins and looked into her eyes. "Don't ruin her." He didn't so much as blink. He picked back up with the steady, firm dialogue. "She has a conscious. Don't manipulate it."
He stared at her for a moment longer, neither saying a word. And then, with that, he turned and walked towards the door.
Mrs. Jenkins spoke up in a holler as he walked away from her. "I haven't done such a thing. I merely..."
Zero slammed the door on his way out.
Later in the night, Carenthia paced around in her apartment. She had yet to go by Mrs. Jenkins' apartment and see what happened. She didn't care. Actually, Carenthia assumed, whatever Mrs. Jenkins got was what she deserved. All of the arguments from earlier in the day, and Carenthia had started it because of Mrs. Jenkins' words.
In the span of twenty-four hours, she had gone from just meeting Zero, to causing him to be mixed in a fight with his own friend. That thought tugged away at the heart of her. She couldn't be certain whether she was solely to blame or if it was Mrs. Jenkins.
Was Mrs. Jenkins right about everything? The question tugged away inside of Carenthia's brain. Before the past day, Carenthia had assumed so. She had had no reason to doubt Mrs. Jenkins otherwise. But seeing Zero and Matt embroiled in a fight on Zero's floor made Carenthia doubt how much truth there was that Mrs. Jenkins spoke.
Was Zero right? Was there a reason for her to believe otherwise? Wasn't she the one who contrived the whole story in the first place? The look that Zero had in his eyes as the two spoke on the balcony earlier in the day told Carenthia that he was telling the truth. But if he was, then that means someone else was lying.
She reached for a framed picture on her wall of Mrs. Jenkins. But she paused. Instead, she let it hang.
And what about Erica? She was the actual centerpiece for the whole issue. And now, she had inadvertently been drug through the mud by not doing anything other than loving the man she loved. What is supposed to be a serious, private moment, had been spoiled for her.
Had she in fact heard Zero and Erica during a moment when they were talking about Matt? How could she have missed them say his name? But did it matter? The truth was in front of Carenthia. She had been wrong. She had been wrong and let that message slip to a woman she thought she could have trusted.
She turned back around and swung her arm, striking the picture of Mrs. Jenkins off her wall. As the glass shattered, with it went the lost hope she had had in the woman.
Her time was finished there. She had caused more trouble than she ever thought she would. With it, she was endangering all of those in the complex that she didn't even know.
