They fell silent, waiting for me. I picked at my lip, trying to figure out where to start.
I think I’m catching feelings for my stalker. Who, by the way, has now decided to stop stalking me.
“I met someone,” I said, and reached for a sparkly aquamarine margarita—an homage to the blue aliens we were reading—and downed it one gulp. Then I reached for another. They shared a look. “Off the app.”
They all sat up.
“Oh my god!” Olly sat forward. “Who was it?”
“When did it happen?” Eames asked. “Was he hot?”
“Why didn’t you fucking tell me?” Lithie asked.
“Yeah, that,” Eames and Olly said at the same time.
I swallowed, taking another drink. Then, after a deep breath, I said, “I met him in a graveyard without ever meeting beforeand I was planning on fucking him. I didn’t know his name or his face.”
Eames froze, a jalapeño popper between his lips. Olly’s mouth dropped. Lithie looked to be short-circuiting, eyes blinking, mouth opening and closing. The soft hum of sad white-girl music, as Olly called it, played in the silence.
Lithie was the first to break the silence.
“You met a stranger in a graveyard? Oh my god.” Lithie ran her hands down her face. “Oh mygod.”
“You always do this shit!” Eames said, dropping the popper back to the plate. “Remember in college when her professor had been sexually harassing her and she just showed up one day. and was like, ‘Oh, by the way, I’ve been in a months-long litigation while still being forced to go to class with my abuser. Do you want mushrooms on the pizza?’”
I grimaced. “You didn’t need to be burdened with it.”
“Stop,”Olly said.
“This is my fault.” Lithie sighed. “It’s so obvious. It’s like what Clarissa Pinkola Estés said in that book?—”
“Women Who Run with the Wolves,” Olly supplied.
“Right, that—anyway, she says the feminine energy can’t be suppressed, only repressed. And if you repress it too long?—”
“You fuck strangers in graveyards?” Eames asked.
“You explode in a ball of uncontrolled sexual chaos.” Lithie threw her hands out at me, the uncontrolled ball.
“I’m not a ball of uncontrolled sexual chaos,” I said, a little too meekly.
Was I?
I’d agreed to meet not just a total stranger, but someone who had beenstalkingme.
They all gave me a look, faces twisted like, um,ma’am.
I settled into the couch, folding my arms. “Maybe I’m a bit chaotic,” I conceded.
“Okay, so you’re alive and unharmed,” Lithie said. “Right?”
“Yes.”
“And we’ve learned our lesson,right?”
I shrugged, like,yeah.Void had been silent for days and, despite my history, I couldn’t imagine doing that again with someone else.
Didn’t want to.
