As anticipated, the drinks felt like I was traversing the nine levels of Hell and fighting the urge to commit a felony that’d end with me locked up for twenty to life. Fortunately, I’m still a free man, just with less will to live.
Over the span of two hours and forty-three minutes, I spoke a total of eight words.
Nodded twelve times.
Made noncommittal sounds at least twenty.
And according to the TV I watched for the entire duration of the “chill hangout,” our city’s football team was up one point at halftime and down three by the end of the game.
I shift the car into park a couple of houses down from Mina’s. I’m slowly parking closer and closer without care that I might get caught. If she discovers what I’ve been doing, it’d just be a happy accident.
The engine turns off, and I check my phone before getting out of the car. She’s sleeping peacefully in her bed, ready for me to come home. Joyce will be at her boyfriend’s again, so I help myself into her apartment with the key I had made.
A few times I’ve left the key to my front door on my kitchen bench for Mina, but clearly her morals kick in at some point because she’s never taken it, opting to go the hard way through the window every couple of days.
Mina’s curled on her side, head shoved into the pillow, snoring softly. She’s managed to wrap herself in the duvet in a makeshift cocoon. We’re going to need to work out howto organize our sleeping arrangements if she’s this much of a blanket hog.
I go through the motions that have become muscle memory. We have our nighttime routine down to a T.
Carefully, I untangle her to pry the hot water bottle out from under her arms to reheat it. She’s like putty in my hands, happily compliant and dead to the world. Mina barely does more than huff minutes later when I settle the freshly heated bottle against her stomach, and she stays soundless when I refill her drink bottle and the painkiller container on her bedside table.
The pill container she hasn’t needed to fill up in over two months and doesn’t even realize.
Then, with her tucked against my side, I go through her follower list and remove every man who’s followed her in the past two days. This part is rather tedious, but it’s a necessity, and like every other time I’ve done this, seeing Jack’s comments on her author profile has me questioning whether my career is worth it.
Why the fuck won’t he leave her alone? He did his due diligence. He knew what he wanted to say. How to say it to make it hurt. The reasoning behind it makes no sense. But that’s on trend with him. He lacks logic.
Jack has a month to cut it out completely because I’ve decided Mina also has a month to come clean. No more midnight sneak-ins. No more breaking and entering. No more online relationship. We’re making this real.
Starting tonight.
I thread our fingers together and raise our hands up onto the pillow. Perhaps it’s overly ballsy, but the room lights up with my camera’s flash, and the picture of our intertwined hands is immortalized on screen.
And on my social media.
Beneath the photo, the caption has two words: “My girl.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Mina
I’ve googled some dodgy shit in my time. For writing, of course. Like how to build a bomb. How long it’d take for someone to die from a stab wound to their armpit. And what type of ropes are best from an anti-forensic perspective.
My current search history would send me to prison with no way out.
My girl?
My. Girl.
Who the fuck is his girl? It sure as shit wasn’t me in that goddamn photo.
Jesus fucking Christ, I feel like I’m going to have a brain aneurysm from stress ever since he posted a photo of him holding hands with some girl two nights ago. It’s constantly at the forefront of my mind, and I’ve been wholly incapable of talking to Leo ever since because I’m afraid he’ll say something that will have me googling more things I won’t get away with.
Because what the ever-loving fuck is he talking about?
My.
Girl.
