Daily Flash Fiction Challenge

Tere bolted up the stairs and into the house.

“Chris, he’s spying on us!”

“Who?”

“Who do you think? Our neighbor! He videotaped me.” Tere peeked through the blinds. “I don’t want to live here anymore.”

The neighbor had been terrorizing the couple for months in a boundary dispute. He even dug up the trees they planted next to their driveway. Since it was possible the trees encroached on the neighbor’s land, they couldn’t do anything about it.

“Honey, look. We have to see where the lot lines are. The city will have a full report by next week.”

“He gives me the creeps and I can’t live here anymore.”

“Where would we go?” Chris said as he sneaked a peek through the blinds and saw the neighbor videotaping their driveway.

“You are such a coward, Chris. Why won’t you confront him?”

“Well, for one thing, didn’t you say he had a gun?”

“I thought it looked like a gun.” She hurried up the spiral staircase to their bedroom.

“And, for another thing, he could be within his legal rights.”

“To harass me? To videotape me? Us?” she yelled from upstairs.

“What are you doing up there?”

Tere carried her suitcase down the stairs. “I told you I was leaving.”

“You did not! You said you didn’t want to live here anymore. I took that to mean us!”

“Should have done this years ago. The minute I saw you were a coward. Goodbye.”

Tere hurried down the steps. She pulled away from the house in the SUV.

After a few minutes, Chris picked up his cell phone and hit speed dial.

“Yep, it worked. I don’t know how to thank you, neighbor.”

The soon-to-be bachelor disconnected the call, opened a beer and kicked back in his recliner…free at last.