My eyebrows shoot up and just about fly off my face. “Are you serious?”
“Well…” He fidgets, like he’s embarrassed to confirm. “Yeah.”
I don’t hesitate to respond. “No.”
“But…”
“It’s time for you to leave,” I insist and wave my hand toward the empty hallway outside my apartment.
The hurt look on Nate’s face morphs into anger. “Fine. But this is over.” He motions his hand between us.
Rolling my eyes, I spit out a sarcastic reply as he stomps out. “I’m so sad.”
“You know what? You’re lucky I even went out with you!” He points a finger in my face.
I scoff. “You took me on two horrible dates. One was to a sports bar where you couldn’t stop staring at the waitress’s boobs, and the other was to a so-called ‘toy museum’ where there were headless dolls in fish tanks.”
“I told you that I wasn’t staring at her boobs! She had a stain on her uniform!” He shouts as his face turns red.
“You’re pathetic.” My lips tighten into a thin line.
“Is it so wrong that I wanted to spend time with my girlfriend?” His gestures get bigger as his frustration increases.
This has gone on long enough. I don’t care what he thinks of me. I just want him out of my life. “I’m going to ask you again. Leave or else I’ll make you wish you’d never met me. It won’t be pretty. I’ll do more than just throw a fit at your workplace. I’ll make you bleed.”
Nate’s face pales at my threat. “You’re crazy! This is so over! I don’t want to date a fucking psycho!” He runs out like he’s on fire and searching for a bucket of water.
His words, though spoken in fear, still hold truth.
I am crazy. I am a psycho.
My hands vibrate as I slam my door and lock it up again. With Nate finally gone, I pull out the box I found earlier. Setting it on my kitchen counter, I gently tear open the wrapping. Inside is a velvet jewelry box. The kind of box someone gets from an expensive store.
I snap open the box, and the piece I find inside causes me to stop breathing. I almost become catatonic.
A gold pendant necklace with a small daisy the size of a nickel and a diamond in the middle.
I hate daisies.
Only my father called me that.
Beneath the chain of the necklace is a note typed on a torn piece of paper.
For the pure of heart and body who walk among the unholy.
Love,
Your Shepherd
I slam the box closed and drop it in my kitchen trash.
How did he send this? How could he even afford it? How does he know where I live?
The urge from earlier grows into a need. I have to listen. I can’t ignore it.
I drop my knife on my bed and dig through my purse, retrieving the papers I printed this morning at The Circuit. Then, changing my clothes, I go through my ritual.
Hair up, thick black eyeliner, knives in my pockets, gloves on, boots double-knotted.
