She sifted through her mail on the counter, saw the letter addressed to her, turned it over and opened it.
It wasn’t handwritten, but typed. Not even junk, but personal. A personal attack.
Saying that she was a horrible bitch and a nasty, vindictive person and she’d get what was coming to her.
The only person who ever told her she was vindictive in life was Fredrick.
He was the only one she’d ever done anything to like she had.
She knew the revenge payback she’d done to him wasn’t right, but she felt humiliated that he had been cheating right under her nose.
Everyone else that found out about her pranks thought they were hilarious and creative. What Fredrick did back to her was vindictive.
Maybe not the rearranging of her art supplies. She put that right up there with what she’d done.
Dumping out her plants on the front porch—that was messy and a lot of work to clean up, some of them ruined. Karl had helped her with that.
Kind of the same as the glitter in a way.
But the fish and flies. Yeah. That was horrible.
Thatwas vindictive.
She reached for her cell phone. She should just let it go. There was no reason to let him know she was pissed over this. Or that he got a reaction, but she wanted an end to this.
It rang three times and he finally picked up.
“What do you want?” Fredrick asked.
“I thought we were done and called a truce to everything,” she said.
“What the hell are you talking about now?” Fredrick asked.
“The letter. Everything I did to you, I did at once. The same day. You keep dragging it all out. This is ridiculous.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You keep accusing me of shit I didn’t do.”
“You said you didn’t damage my car, fine. It’s not that. But I got a letter in the mail today. There are words and things said in it that only you’ve said to me before. No one else. I’m over this.”
“I didn’t send you any letter,” Fredrick argued. “I’m tired of you thinking I care enough about you to keep this up.”
“Really?” she asked, her hand going up in the air. “Because you’re the one who put the dead fish on my front porch three weeks ago. We broke up over two months ago. You’re continuing with it, not me.”
“I’m going to lose my crap in a minute, Meredith. I didn’t send you a letter. Maybe putting the fish there wasn’t a good idea, but I was angry.”
“Newsflash. I was too. You cheated on me. You embarrassed and humiliated me. That hurt trumps you being annoyed that I put a few stitches in your pants that you could remove with scissors. You know I have a phobia about flies and why, and yet you preyed on that.”
She wouldn’t admit that she still shivered when she walked past that spot on her porch and looked for any remains of the fish or fly larva.
It was a stupid phobia. It’s not like she thought they were going to eat her alive. At least she knew that wouldn’t happen.
“Whatever,” Fredrick said. “But I’m done and I wish you’d stop calling me. Sounds like you’re the one that can’t let go.”
She put her phone on speaker, snapped a picture of the letter and texted it to him. “Read this. Tell me it’s not your words.”
There was silence on the other end. “Shit.”
“What?” she asked. She knew it was him because the letter listed a date they’d been on and how she’d behaved like a petty bitch in his eyes. No one else knew that.
