She gazed past her half-closed curtains and out at the rain falling beyond the glass.Whatever frustrated ire should have been directed at Shaun had ended up in the stranger’s inbox.
Oh, Kris.Her stomach cramped as she scanned her original message once more.What did you do?
She wasn’t proud of what she’d sent the stranger, but equally, she didn’t appreciate the timbre of their response.Whoever he was, threatening her and leaving her feeling strangely vulnerable was simply not okay.Sitting there, she realized that was how she felt; helpless in the face of his criticism.
“Maybe he had it coming,” she mumbled, recalling how much his leaflet had pissed her off.
His response certainly suggested that he did.Sure, she’d been wrong to be so curt in her reply.Maybe she’d been wrong to reply at all, but she hadn’t deserved such an unnerving reaction.The world was a dangerous enough place for a woman without receiving threats in her inbox.
The leaflet’s vocabulary had definitely hit a nerve, suggesting not only that she was to blame for her ‘relationship woes’ but also that whoever had placed the flier there could remedy her problems.Its arrogant tone had riled her, but not half as much as its owner’s reply had prompted.
Forcing herself to re-read her original message, she cringed at her crude choice of language.If only she’d just ignored the leaflet and gone straight to bed…
Hey, asshole,
Iamhaving relationship problems, but it turns out, I’m not the problem, he is!
By the way, if you actually wanna help people, how about being less of a judgmental prick in the future?
She’d been an idiot to send the message, but that still didn’t justify the threat she’d received.Nothing she’d done excused that.Not that she knew who’d sent the message.Whoever had responded hadn’t sent their name.
“Crap.”Shaking her head, she rubbed her eyes and stared at her screen.
Whether she liked the reply or not, she had been the one in the wrong first, so that meant she should be the one to apologize.
Her toes curled in her fluffy socks as she quickly penned the message, her every instinct telling her to delete the entire exchange and move on, but somehow, she couldn’t.If nothing else, Kristina considered herself to be a good person, and that meant taking responsibility when she’d fucked up.
My message was rude.I’m sorry.
I don’t appreciate your response, but don’t worry.
You won’t hear from me again.
Scanning her effort, she swallowed down her doubt and hit send before hoisting her bag onto her shoulder.She had less than five minutes before she needed to leave for her first lecture, and she still needed to brush her teeth and grab a glass of water.
Ten minutes later, she’d donned her jacket and was just rushing out of the door when the flaw in her plan to forget the entire sorry incident struck her again.
Howhadthe responder known her name when her original missive hadn’t offered it?And even more bizarrely, how had they known about Shaun?
Dodging a woman with a pram as she hurried along the street, she frowned, yanking her phone out of her pocket as soon as she arrived at the bus stop.She had to look at those messages again, had to make sure she wasn’t imagining the unexplainable idea that a stranger could have known not only her name, but that of the beau who had clearly lost interest in her.
Devouring the first as the bus pulled up, an unsettling feeling expanded in her stomach.Whoever had sent the message had definitely used her full name.
No one called her Kristina, except her mother, and even she opted to use ‘Kris’ when they chatted.
“Morning.”The bus driver nodded as she stepped on board.
“Campus, please.”She forced a smile, waving her phone to pay for her ticket before she slid into the nearest seat.
Panic was stirring in her, rising in small yet potent waves and making it difficult to think.Or perhaps that was her encroaching hangover.Either way, she couldn’t make sense of what had happened.
In the end, she chose to focus on her morning lectures, and using what was left of her willpower, she forced the phone back into her pocket.She’d ask Cindy what she made of the whole thing once the morning lessons were over.Maybe her friend would be able to shine a new light on what had happened.But even if she couldn’t, at least she could help Kris commiserate.
Staring out of the filthy bus window, she sighed.She’d never have sent the initial message if she hadn’t had so much to drink.Somehow, Kris always took things too far, and—
For the second time that morning, her thoughts were cut short by her phone.That time, the vibration alert coming from her pocket indicated she had a new message.
It’s probably Liz,she told herself as she reached for the device.I bet she’s hungover and running late.
