Page 388 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

Raymond. I need to call Raymond.

Or the NYPD.

The restraining order—is it still active?

My gaze fixes on the dashboard, entirely paralyzed by a single, flashing thought: If Hunter tracks me down tomorrow, or next week,

And Andrew isn’t around…

what happens to me then?

The GPS breaks the silence⁠—

“Continue on Waldwick Avenue.

“In one quarter of a mile,

“turn right onto Franklin Turnpike.”

Silence follows again.

The after-war hush,

debris settling.

It stays that way for a long moment.

Then—

“That phone’s for the hospital,” Andrew says out of nowhere, as if the last five minutes never happened.

His eyes stay on the road.

My eyes stay on the road.

“The old number’s still on paperwork, transplant stuff, Ma’s doctors, insurance… all that.” He grinds down on his teeth. “I changed my number after I met you, alright? Didn’t want nothin’ fuckin’ up what we were startin’. But I couldn’t toss the old one. Couldn’t risk it with Ma.”

He glances at me to see if I believe him.

“What if somebody calls that number with an update? What if—I dunno—there’s a match or some message and I miss it?” He breathes out tired. After everything. “That’d be my luck.”

Sounds like a reasonable answer.

For a woman who didn’t scroll his texts in the middle of the night.

Unfortunately for both of us,

I’m that psychotic.

The Civic rolls to a stop at a red light.

And we idle there—two hot psychos.

His head swings to me. “Anything else you wanna come at me with?”

I think about the pillow-panties…

The fifty grand under his bed…