Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
The day cruises. We pack up. I get home tired in the best way—the kind that comes from moving your body on purpose for hours. Tommy grills chicken, kisses my neck while it rests, and pretends he didn’t notice me use his fancy meat thermometer like a spear. We eat on the back steps as the sky goes orange. He tells me a story about Red and a runaway nail gun (every Oleander story is part comedy, part cautionary tale), and when we crawl into bed, I fall asleep fast, the good heavy kind that has no edges.
No calls.
I wake up surprised by the silence again. I shouldn’t be. But that’s how fear works. It makes you suspicious of peace.
Day two’s the same—work, sweat, shower, dinner, a ride after dinner tucked tight behind my man. No unknown numbers. No voicemail breath. The world remembers how to be itself.
By breakfast on day three, I’ve decided I was dramatic. That it was a fluke. That the person found something else to do or the numbers dried up or my block list finally outsmarted them. Tommy’s talking weekend plans—he gets a look in his eyes when he’s scheming; it’s bright and boyish and a little smug—and I’m smiling into my coffee at the sound of him plotting groceries and a ride and “maybe we go north on Sunday, Tiny. I want you to see something.”
“I’ll do the grocery run,” I tell him. “You’ve got that bid to write, and you’ll overbuy bacon if I let you.”
“Impossible to overbuy bacon,” he explains like always, but he slides his list over and kisses me like I just saved his day.
The grocery store is new enough to smell like still-wet paint. Cool air slaps me at the doors and my skin pebbles; I forgot a hoodie and the produce section always wants to be a tundra. Fluorescents hum. A kid in a cart sings a warbly ABC, skipping around G like it did him wrong. I grab a basket and do the list in Tommy order, which means meats first (so he can “format the week,” as if chicken breasts are code) and then veggies he’ll pretend not to like and then household stuff he notices before I do. Paper towels, dishwasher pods. The domesticity of it would have made me cry five years ago. Today it makes me feel rooted.
I’m at the dairy case reaching for eggs when the hairs on the back of my neck lift.
It’s not loud. Not even clear. More like a static behind my ears. A feeling that isn’t a feeling so much as a nudge. I stay bent at the waist, fingers on a carton, and let my eyes flick to the reflection in the case glass.
Shoppers move in reverse: a woman in a sundress inspecting yogurt labels like they’re lying to her, a dude in work boots juggling two gallons of milk, a teenager staring at her phone so hard she might fall in. No one looking at me.
I straighten, check the carton of eggs to verify no cracks, put it in the basket. The nudge doesn’t go.
Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s leftover adrenaline with nowhere to go. Maybe it’s—my phone vibrates in my back pocket.
The sound spikes through me. I jam my hand into my jeans like I can strangle a ringtone. The screen shows Unknown Caller. My thumb hovers. I should block it without answering. I should walk to the manager and ask if there’s security who can walk me out. I should call Tommy.
Do I do any of that? No. Like a fool, I swipe.
“Hello?”
Silence. Then a smile I can hear. “Blue tank top. High pony. Tight jeans, cuffs rolled. White Chucks. You always looked best simple.”
The words turn my bones to ice. All the blood in my body sprints for the exits.
I turn slowly, like fast might give something away. The store’s the store: old men debating bacon brands like politics, a little girl asking her dad if we can get the cookies with the sprinkles, a young mom letting her toddler touch every single box of cereal because choosing is power. No one close enough to say that to my ear without me seeing it.
“How’s the scar?” the voice asks. “Still a line under your collarbone? I didn’t put that one there. Still pisses me off.”
My stomach lurches. I picture my sling, Tommy’s hands steady, Doc Kelly’s voice, the smell of antiseptic. I picture the shower last night, how hot I made it, how red my skin went.
“Who are you?” I hate how small I sound.
A chuckle. Soft. Intimate. “We both know who I am. You could find me if you wanted, baby. But you always have liked to play games.”
I stab the red button, hands shaking hard enough that the phone nearly slips from my fingers. It buzzes again immediately. New number. I decline. Again. Decline. Again. Decline.