“It helps the fuzzies?” I ask, referring to our conversation in the shower.
She scoffs. “It’s a different kind of noise. It’s like my thoughts have a chance to breathe. Maybe it’s the city noise and the fog. It just like, soothes all the worries.”
“Why were you staying at Reed’s?” I ask, though I think I already know the answer.
“Ah… it was when my stalker came back,” she answers. “It just… It freaked me out to begin with. I hadn’t heard from her in years.”
“Are you not freaked out anymore?” I ask, and I don’t know why it bothers me.
Bonnie looks back at me. “How much did James tell you?”
I hesitate before answering. Not because I don’t remember, but because I don’t want to blurt anything that she didn’t tell him.
“He told me his thoughts, though I’d rather hear what you think about her,” I say carefully.
Bonnie’s jaw tightens as if she’s swallowing, and she avoids my gaze as she makes her way to the table with the puzzle on it. “Do you ever do these?” she asks me.
I follow her with my eyes at first. “I haven’t put together a puzzle in years.”
She sits at the table and grabs a couple of pieces, quickly matching them.
For a moment, I simply watch her.
Pain stretches behind her eyes. I wonder if she’s working through what to say to me, how much to say to me, what she’s willing to admit. Our history is so entwined, admitting everything might make any normal person tell her this is too much.
However, she’ll never be too much for me.
“I started seeing her after I joined Young Decay,” she says, staring at the puzzle as she speaks. “Just… glimpses of a shadow. The hair on the back of my neck would stand. Sometimes, I’d feel like I was being watched at home or across the room at the bar, even followed on the street. It never really felt threatening, but I just… I knew someone was there. Then, one day, she left a message on my mirror in red lipstick, and I knew then that I had been right all along. I wasn’t completely crazy.”
“What did the message say?” I ask, even if I remember the night I wrote it.
“It just said,You were stunning tonight, rockstar.”
Her lashes lift to me, and I nod like I understand why she questioned me earlier today. “Now the weirding you out with that nickname makes sense,” I say, pretending to be surprised.
“You were right, though,” she says. “A lot of people do call me rockstar. Even my mom called me that a few times.”
Her expression falters as soon as she mentions her. I want to reach across the table and hold her hand, tell her there was nothing she could have done to save her.
“I’ve never seen my stalker’s face,” Bonnie goes on as if she never mentioned her mother. “If she’s at a concert, she leaves a sign in the audience with her symbol on it. Someone normally holds it up, but it’s never her.”
“How do you know it isn’t her?” I ask, placing another puzzle piece.
Bonnie hesitates, and I wonder if she isn’t spilling everything because she doesn’t entirely trust me yet.
“I just know,” she says with a shrug.
“Does she scare you?” I ask.
Bonnie sits back in the seat, still avoiding my eyes. “I once thought she did.” She exhales heavily, a visible chill running over her skin. “Still, I don’t think she wants to hurt me.”
She shivers again, and I curse myself for not realizing earlier that she has to be chilly out here in this little outfit.
I unzip my hoodie and take it off, then stand so I can put it around her arms.
She frowns when she looks at me. “What are you—”
“Stand up and keep talking,” I tell her.
