“Fine, big booty—over to his house and demand access to the feed. You don’t need no weirdo watching your house.”
“I—I hadn’t really thought of it like that…” I trail off, thinking of Tom zooming in to see through my windows or something. I shiver. “I’ll be right back, I’m gonna shut my blinds.”
“Good thinkin’, dude!” she calls from the table as I shut the living room blinds. Sure enough, there’s a camera trained to see perfectly into my living room.
“Flip him off for me!”
Even though I feel like vomiting, I do flip off the camera, because fuck this guy. It never really occurred to me that he mightwatchthe feed outside of alerts or whatever… maybe during the daylight. I shiver again, curling my hands up and thrusting them away like somehow it could clear the severe case of the ick I’ve got.
“Oohhh kaaay,” I say, my voice unsteady, as I sit back down.
“Good. Now tomorrow, you’re getting that footage. No creeper is gonna watch my bestie.” She pauses. “Do you need me to come out there?”
Her face is all sincerity, she’s dead serious about this. I can’t help the tears that prick at the corners of my eyes, because maybe I should have told her a week ago… maybe I didn’t need to deal with this alone all this time.
As sweet as it is, I really still don’t need to explain why I couldn’t get her from the airport or take her literally anywhere if she came here.
“No, no, I’ve got this. He’s totally harmless. I promise. Like I said, overprotective, but harmless. He’s one of those ‘provider’ types, so it probably didn’t even occur to him to give it to me.”
“Okay, I’m taking your word for it, but if you don’t tell me you got it back tomorrow, I’m calling in the Army National Guard.”
“Deal. You wanna know the funniest part?” I say, because talking about all of this has somehow made me feel better. I guess that’s just how it works with your best friend. “They also made me two little snowmen.”
“Oh, that’sdarling!” She shakes her head and smiles wistfully. “I don’t know man, the nighttime shenanigans have got to stop, but otherwise, they don’t sound so bad. Snowmen are cute.”
“Yeah, and what’s wild is that they lookedjustlike these snowmen I made as a kid… in my dreams. It was like a recurring one, I’d have it all the time.”
She blinks, her eyes huge behind her big glasses. “Nowthat’swild. Have you ever, like, made art of them or something?”
“Never! It’s almost like… like… they could see into my head or something… that or the guy from my dreams has come to life.” I laugh it off, but now that I’ve thought about it, the idea seems to resonate in a way that makes me feel like it’s not so crazy.
“Oh, wewish!” Fae closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “If the man in my dreams were real, my life would be alotdifferent, let me tell ya.”
“Mine too, girl. It’s the weirdest thing?—”
I cut off when her little girl comes in. I’ve seen her a few times on calls, she’s a pajama-clad, popsicle-smeared tiny clone of her mom.
“Momma, Barbie’s got her hair stuck in the fan.”
Fae shoots me an exasperated look. “And how did that happen?”
Her daughter scrunches her nose and tilts her head. She knowsexactlyhow that happened. She squirms a little bit, and then I hear a shriek from the background. Her daughter’s face goes white, and Fae runs out of the room.
“I’ll be right back!” she calls over her shoulder.
I chuckle because I grew up in a big family. I miss this chaos.
“Bye!” her daughter says and exits the call.
Okay, guess that is done.
Still, I feel better, calmer. I have exactly zero answers, but the beginnings of a plan on how to address things.
I pull up YouTube, letting myself be an iPad kid for a few minutes while I wait for Fae to call me back.
I’m halfway through a power-washing video when I get another message from her.
F: Jesse got hit in the face with the barbie and I think his nose is broken. We’re going to urgent care, I am sooooooooo sorry!
