Page 53 of Falling Backwards
Once I’m closer to her yet, I see the alcove is a little bigger than it looks.There’s enough space to the left of the payphone that someone could tuck themselves just out of sight.I’m sure it was intended to give people some privacy while they talked on the phone, but yeah, it’s a pretty decent hiding space for Maggie as well.
Even not being on good terms with her, I don’t like that she’s having to take advantage of it.No one should have to.
I step in enough to lean against the metal phone stand and cross my arms.“What guy?What’s he doing?”
Maggie folds her arms across her chest too.Her widened eyes move from me to the direction of the rest of the building.“Can you keep watch while we talk?”Her voice is growing unsteady.
I nod, check the room again, and assure her, “It’s just us.”
She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, then back.She chews on her bottom lip and drifts those nervous eyes over me.
“He keeps—um—” Uncrossing her arms, she pulls her dark hair over one shoulder, then starts fidgeting with it.“If I count tonight, I’ve seen him five times in less than a week.He keeps ending up where I am and flirting with me, and—and the way he talks, it sounds like he watches me a lot.I don’t like it.I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”
This information hits me in a strange way.
He watches her a lot and keeps showing up around her?
I narrow my eyes, check the room again, put my attention back on her.
She goes on talking.“I don’t think I have a lot of time right now to tell you all about it, but he came to Lucent the other day while I was working, and maybe that was a coincidence—maybe all the times I saw him were coincidences except for last night, ’cause he was at Lucent again, but he didn’t dine or even go in, he just came up to me out of nowhere while I was alone in the parking lot, and then tonight isn’t a coincidence either.Anyway, I don’t know, but he has made me uncomfortable in some way every time I’ve seen him, and he keeps touching me,andjust a little while ago he said he thought I would be here tonight and that’s whyhe’shere.He works at Mellow Burger, and the other day he overheard us—I mean, I guess when I saw him that time, it really was a coincidence because the girls and I wentthere, not the other way around, but—” Flustered, she abandons her hair and crosses her arms again.“God.I can’t think straight.It’s just—it turns out that while we were there, he listened to us talking and planning to come here tonight, and now—”
“Are you saying you’re worried he’s stalking you or something?”
I can hardly believe I’m asking her such an alarming thing.I’ve never known anyone who had an issue of this kind.But I have to ask because I’ve also never seen her this shaken before.
This is not how I expected our already unexpected conversation to go.
Even more unexpected is the aggravation suddenly burning in her eyes.
“Do not mock me right now.”Her voice is a low burn, too, even as it wobbles.“I know how all this sounds, but I’m upset and stressed and having a damn hard time processing—”
“I’m not making a joke, Maggie,” I all but snap.“I’m asking you an important question.”
She clenches her jaw and counters my even gaze with that glare.
Only briefly, though, and then her expression wavers back into one of distress.Her eyes leave my face and stick on the ceiling of the alcove.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.“I’m just…I’m….”
When was the last time she apologized to me for anything?
My stomach clenches.It happens again as the weight of this situation continues to descend on me.
While she closes her eyes and works on her breathing, I check again that we’re the only two around.I also relax my fists, which I evidently balled up at some point.
“Yes,” she says, “I’m getting worried he’s….”She can’t seem to get the whole sentence out.
That’s enough for me, though.
There are a lot of details I want to ask about—he approached her in our employee lot last nightin the darkonce she was by herself?—but she’s right, we don’t really have time for her to catch me up.I try to decide what needs my attention right this minute.
Not like I have much of an idea of how to help her.My growing urge to go find this dude is both insistent and quite unusual considering what my relationship with Maggie is like.Plus, I’ve never been the kind of guy who resorts to threats and violence; in my opinion, there’s always a better way to handle things.
I end up asking, “You said he heard you and your friends would be here?Does that mean you’re not here by yourself?”
She nods.“Right.”
“Where are Joy and Emma?”
