Page 15 of The Chosen Two

I grab my phone from its charger on my nightstand, note that it’s nine thirty, then I head back downstairs. On my way down, I get a text from Jake.

Hey, sorry. I know it’s late there. Things are really insane here. I should be able to call for a couple minutes in about an hour, if you’ll still be up. Love you.

I text him back while I sigh to myself.

Yup. I’ll be here. Call whenever. I really do need to talk to you.

For a minute, I consider calling Eliza. She told me to call her. But I don’t want to get stuck in the middle of filling her in and miss my chance to talk to Jake, so I lose myself in some trashy TV instead. Two and a half episodes later, my phone vibrates my pocket.

When I answer, I can barely hear anything over the music booming in the background. Then my husband’s slightly frantic voice comes through. “Miranda?” He shouts so loudly that I have to pull the phone away from my ear.

“Jake? Jake? Are you there?”

After a few seconds, the music drops a few decibels.

“Can you hear me now?” he yells.

“Umm, a little better. Where are you?”

“Oh, Callie and her band took us to this club. It’s so loud. I don’t really like it. But you know, we’re supposed to woo her and all. I didn’t even like this kind of place when I was twenty-one. Now? Forget it.”

I smile to myself. At least I don’t need to worry about him falling in love with the Las Vegas scene.

“I really need to talk to you about that...job offer. Now, actually. Things have been really crazy here, and—” I stop because I hear Ryan’s voice. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but I know what’s coming anyway.

“Hey, I have to go, Miranda. I’ll call you tomorrow when I can. Don’t take any job offers until we can hash out the pros and cons, okay? Love you!”

Then both the music and my husband cut off. The phone is silent. I look at the built-in bookshelves surrounding our television and see the globe we bought when we visited the world’s largest globe in Maine on our babymoon when I was pregnant with Jessie. I go over and turn the world until the United States is facing me. I put my thumb on Las Vegas and my pinky on New Jersey, measuring the distance. Then I trace the line between us back and forth before I kiss my finger tips and place them on Las Vegas. “Sweet dreams. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite…, you dick.”

Past midnight, I drag myself upstairs. I may as well attempt to sleep, I guess. Who knows when destiny will ring my doorbell again.

***

Not having had the most conducive sleep conditions, the next morning is a blur. I manage to get everyone up, fed, and in my car without anyone being late for school. My only other stop is to pick up a giant latte before going home to do some laundry and crash on the couch. With coffee in one hand, I switch my first load to the dryer and throw in my second when my phone rings.

“Hey, Eliza.”

“You didn’t call last night! I need to hear the latest. Why am I looking up Jinn, Miranda Gold?”

“Oh, right. So, are you familiar with the concept of The Chosen One?”

Silence. Then, “Go on…”

Surprisingly, Eliza remains quiet while I tell her all about the pharmacy and then the college kid showing up at my front door and how I’m supposedly a Guardian and how he expected me to go meet him at a random address today and how I blew it off because there’s just no fucking way that was going to happen. “Maybe there’s a statute of limitations or something, and I can get out of this?”

“God, I hope so. I don’t want you to pop a hip out fighting a sphinx or something. No offense, but you’re kind of I-slept-on-it-wrong years old. I mean, remember the time you slept on an extra pillow and couldn’t turn your head for three days. How exactly are you going to be fighting, like, Cerberus?”

“Um, I mean, thanks for that… Well, I’m going to go. Maybe if I look through this folder, I can find a customer service number or something. You know I hate to be a Karen, but I think I’m going to need to speak with this kid’s manager.”

“Ok, Honey. Good luck finding a loop hole in your destiny.” She’s so cheery about all of this, but I’m not super encouraged.

I plop my phone down on the kitchen table and collapse into a chair to read my file. Whoever these League of Docent fuckers are, they really have followed me closely my entire life. The file includes my newborn picture with my birth announcement, and my school photos from kindergarten through senior year of college are stapled to photocopies of my report cards and my annual physicals.

Passing my medical history, I find typed reports on everyone I have ever been close to—family, friends, boyfriends, and roommates. Even though my entire life is in this folder, there is no form I can file with a complaint department. No Return My Birthright Authorization Request. No customer service line. I can’t even find a piece of company letterhead indicating who collected this information.

If most pages weren’t clearly older than George, I would have wondered if he had collected it all himself somehow.

Speaking of George, he obviously thinks there’s been some kind of horrible mistake as well. Some pages have notes in the margins. The handwriting looks way too neat for a twenty-four-year-old, but they all end with the initials G.K.

---