Page 31 of Your Only Fan
Linc scrunches up his face and looks out of the windshield.
“Are you though? Or are you becoming more addicted?”
Ding, ding, ding! We’ve got a winner.
Of course, I don’t tell him that.
“I’m fine. I can control myself. I’m just getting him out of my system, one screw at a time.”
“But you’re not, are you? You’re becoming attached. You’re becoming invested.”
“And where’s the problem in that?”
Uhm, where do I even start? I know what the problem with that is. But I’m in denial. Sort of.
I’m not in denial, actually. I’m just trying to ignore the glaringly obvious and instead focus on the positives.
Like the fact that I’m getting to see a side of Ezra I haven’t seen before in any of his videos. It’s like he becomes more real.
I mean, I get it, he was real before that, and I’m aware of that, but…
It’s like I get to see a part of him no one else ever does. Like we’re special. Connected.
“He doesn’t even know who you are!” Linc shouts, jolting me out of my thought-diarrhea. “What happens when he finds out you used him?”
“Hey! It was your idea to meet him.”
“Once,” Linc huffs.
I can tell he’s not just being concerned about me, he’s being a friend, looking out for me. Even if that means giving it to me as it is instead of pretending it’s all peachy and full of butterflies.
“What you’re doing… someone’s bound to get hurt. And then you’ll hate yourself.”
“It doesn’t—”
“What do you think he’s going to do when he finds out who you are?”
Report me to the dean? Get me fired? Blast me online as a pervert? There are so many things, and each one is as scary as the next one.
But what’s scarier?
Not seeing him again.
Which is why I can’t stop. I don’t have the willpower.
“He doesn’t have to find out,” I say.
I’ve been careful. I know what I’m doing. I make sure to deepen my voice when we’re together, and I don’t risk taking the hood off until he’s gone.
“Everything comes to the surface, Ike. Sooner or later, he’ll find out,” he says.
A goosebump flows through me.
Those words? I don’t like them. They sound… negative. They sound unreal.
Perhaps if I don’t ponder over them for too long they will never become real.
“So… large hazelnut latte again?” I ask even though I know that’s his order and he never changes it.
