Page 36 of Prey

Glasses – check.

Hair color – check.

Name and ID – check.

And so on…

“I’m not a sociable person,” she announced strangely, insinuating that she had no interest in conversing with me.

“Me too,” I stated as I opened the door of the nearest washing machine and piled my clothes inside. “So…do you live here in Hallen Hall?”

She dropped her head down to continue reading, and I was unsure if she hadn’t heard me or ignored me. “Okay,” I muttered to myself. “I can talk to myself.”

I poured laundry powder into the filter, switched the machine on, and sat on a second bench, so I didn’t cramp her style. “Thanks for the ID, by the way. I got a job, so…”

No response.

Weirdly, even though her behavior seemed rude to most people, she was just introverted, and I understood that. Riley Laws understood being shy and socially awkward, and even Annika knew the importance of retreating to the back of the room to avoid attracting attention. When you come from an abusive situation, you learn to read body language and gauge a response from people around you. This was what it was like for me in foster care, bounced from one family to the next until the Kaisers kindly took me in and adopted me.

“Where?” Cheetos asked without looking up from her Kindle.

“Pardon?” Several minutes flew by after I said something, so I wasn’t sure what she was responding to.

“Where did you get a job?” she asked again without looking up from her Kindle, and I wondered if I looked that endearing when I was reading with my glasses on. I hoped so.

“Oh…just a club downtown,” I replied, giving little away because I didn’t want Cheetos and the nice lady at the club to get in trouble since they knew I used a fake ID to get the job.

“An eighteen-plus club?” It felt good to have a reasonably normal conversation with a reasonably normal girl in my age group.

“Um…yes. A kitchenhand. It’s not much, but at least it’s a start,” I smiled, thinking about returning to Savile.

I couldn’t wait to be in that glamorous atmosphere, even if it were on the peripheral. The sound of a band playing, shoes tapping on wood, and the scent of expensive cigars remind me of the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Kaiser. Gunner stole glace cherries and salted pistachios from plates and sneaked them into my hand.

I chuckled aloud, reliving the antics Gunner and I got up to when no one was looking. Cheetos glanced at me over her Kindle but said nothing. Silence fell. The conversation was over, and that was fine by me.

After several minutes, I wondered if my stalker had given me an appropriate explanation of what ‘coffee?’ meant. “I’m just going to head back to my room for twenty minutes,” I told her, and she shrugged indifferently, possibly baffled as to why I felt the need to tell her that.

Walking back, I noted where the cameras were down the halls and the fire exit, the only alternative access to this part of the hall. The cameras must’ve caught him coming and going, let alone students returning to their rooms. There was no way he could’ve entered the hall without being seen, but if he had a keycard into my room, then perhaps they assumed I gave it to him.

I ran to my room and unlocked the door, annoyed at my intense yearning for his reply. I paused before picking up the phone because I knew, without even looking at it, I knew he hadn’t replied. Immediately, my brain fell into a calamity of excuses – he’s busy driving, and you know how dangerous it is to text while driving, maybe he dropped his phone and broke it, perhaps he’s in an important meeting with important people…

Or maybe, just maybe, he changed his mind. As soon as he sent the ‘coffee?’ message, he wanted to take it back because perhaps he had sent it to the wrong person, and it wasn’t meant for me in the first place. But wait, that didn’t make sense either. He broke into my room and left a flower on my pillow.

Oh no. Maybe it was a mistaken identity. Perhaps he thought I was someone else and just realized the terrible mistake he made. No. Wait. That didn’t make sense either because he knew about Shaun.

My fingers hovered over the screen of my phone, but I held back, clenched my hands into tight fists, and decided to separate myself from my phone again. Even short spurts without my phone glued to my hand or in my bag were healthy, breaking thecord of addiction and longing for someone to remember that I existed.

I left the room without my phone again and fled downstairs to the laundromat, hoping Cheetos might still be there. Even silent company was good company, and that gap in my stomach felt emptier by the second.

She glanced up from her Kindle and caught a warmth in her eyes that she was pleased I returned so soon. “It hasn’t finished,” she pointed out.

It took me a few seconds to figure out she was discussing my washing. “Yeah,” I sighed, slumping down on the bench and fixing my eyes on the washing going around and around mesmerizingly.

We didn’t talk for ten minutes, which was fine with me. I wanted to ask her many questions, but she made it clear that she wasn’t eager to share her personal life with me.

A dryer beeped, indicating that it was finished, and without a word, she jumped up, took her warm, dry clothes out, shoved them into a cotton bag, and left. I called out, “See you later... Cheetos.”

“Bye,” she was so quiet and paused a second at the threshold as if she was close to saying more. Even if she told me her name, that would be great, or I’d have to keep calling Cheetos.

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