Chapter Twenty-Five
TWENTY-FIVE
Greg did his best to put on a good face the next morning. After all, he didn’t want any lingering tension to remain between them. But arriving downstairs, stepping into the kitchen, he was pleased to see that Faye seemed back to normal. Better than normal, in fact. She was working hard at what could only be described as a breakfast buffet.
A shot of freshly brewed espresso rested by an Italian press on the counter. A fruit salad—watermelon, strawberries, and honeydew—filled one of her pottery bowls. On the table before him, beside a stack of pancakes and waffles that rose to the ceiling, were three omelets and ten breakfast burritos.
“Good morning,” Greg said, surprised.
Faye spun around, wide-eyed and beaming. “Good morning.” She smiled. She was wearing an apron, holding a spatula in one hand. “I thought I would make us breakfast.”
For three days, Faye fed Gregolem.
Between classes and Etsy orders, she filled him up with every manner of edible item. She ordered Thai food and Indian food, made him scrambled eggs with hard kosher salami, chased him up the stairs with bowls of ice cream, and at night left full-sized candy bars, along with family-sized bags of Doritos, hidden within the covers of his bed. But after three long days of begging him to take just one more bite, the only thing she had managed to do was make Greg violently ill.
“Ugggggh,” Gregolem moaned from the bathroom.
Faye stood outside the door. “You okay in there?”
“I think... I might be dying.”
He wasn’t dying. Dying was a privilege reserved for living creatures . No, what she was doing was sending her Gregolem back to the primordial sludge from which he had been created. Nothing less. Nothing more.
Turning from the door, she did a happy little hip-hop and a skip back down the hall towards her living room, until she came face-to-face with Hillel. Four paws planted firmly on the ground, head cocked sideways with his tongue hanging out, he was looking at her all judgy.
“Oh, don’t give me that,” Faye said, crossing her arms against her chest. “He would have likely crushed your sweet little hairless body beneath his massive paws eventually.”
Hillel responded by refusing to move.
Faye sidestepped the creature, taking a seat on the couch. She was not going to be made to feel guilty by a Chinese crested.
Faye listened to the groaning for a few more minutes, until all at once, it ceased. The entire house went quiet. Faye perked up, one hand over her mouth. This was it. She waited with bated breath to hear movement, to hear something—but nothing came.
She had gotten rid of Gregolem.
She thought she would be happy. And yet, sitting on the couch in her apartment, silence abounding, the strangest thing happened. A wellspring of feelings, hot and uncontrollable, rushed up from her core. Despite her best efforts not to cry, her cheeks flushed red. Because she would miss him. She would miss playing Scrabble with him, and eating snacks at night, and all the conversations they shared about books and Jewitch magic. Suddenly, all she could think about was how she had just made a terrible mistake.
Faye jumped to her feet and rushed towards the bathroom door. “Greg.” She began to pound the wood with her fist. “Are you there?”
The toilet flushed, followed by the sound of running water. Seconds later, Greg exited bathroom.
“Whoa,” he said, surprised at the sight of her. “I didn’t realize you were right there.”
Faye stammered. “I... I...thought you were gone.”
“Are you okay?” Greg asked, squinting in her direction.
“I’m fine.”
“You look like you’ve been...crying.”
A long and very awkward moment of silence settled between them before—Baruch Hashem and Blessed Be—Hillel came prancing down the hall.
“He was worried about you,” Faye said, quickly, using the hairless creature as her excuse. “Hillel. He thought you were...sick. He was an absolute wreck, honestly.”
Greg bent down to pet the creature. “I’m okay, little guy,” Greg said, sweetly comforting him before rising again. “Just too much of everything .”
Greg looked so unbelievably sweet. She was losing her resolve, forgetting all the reasons why she had to get rid of him. So she reminded herself of what would happen if she continued to play the weakest link in their relationship. He would stop obeying her. He would become destructive. He would go berserk. This was no time to get complacent.
She shook off the feelings, returning her resolve to the task at hand.
There must have been something she had done wrong in her reversal spell. Perhaps she had misunderstood the AI’s directions. Or maybe she was not supposed to satiate Greg with food, but with something else...like sex.
All at once, she began unbuttoning her blouse.
“What are you doing?” Greg asked, his eyes drifting downwards.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she said, pulling one boob from her shirt like she was planning on breastfeeding him. “Let’s have sex.”
Greg squinted. “What?”
“You, me,” she said, nodding towards the bedroom. “Eh?”
His entire face froze in a look of abject horror...or fear. She couldn’t entirely be certain.
Granted, it was quite possibly the most unromantic request for sex ever. There was nothing attractive, at all, happening between them at that moment. Greg had just appeared from the bathroom after being sick. The bra she was wearing was older than Nelly’s grandchildren. But Faye was desperate. And Greg was a golem. So really, the time for both good decision-making and modesty had passed.
“Come on,” she said, nodding towards the bedroom. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“Faye.” His chin dipped back. “I don’t want to have sex with you.”
Now she was the one insulted. “Excuse me?”
“I mean,” he stammered, but attempted to close her shirt all the same , “of course I want to have sex with you. Obviously, I’m totally attracted to you.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“The last time things got heated between us,” he reminded her, “you completely freaked out.”
“I remember.”
Like she was the one with amnesia.
“And,” he said, definitive as ever, “you were right, okay? Having sex is a terrible idea for both of us. I respect and care about you too much to do something that might hurt you in the end. Once we figure out who I am, once we know for certain, we can reevaluate these feelings. Believe me, I hope we get the chance.”
Fabulous.
She was being rejected by a golem.
Because, clearly, she was a sea Gorgon that not even a soulless vessel wanted to tap.
“Fine,” she said, throwing her hands up. “Fine. You do you. ”
She spun away from him, back to her bedroom. Slamming the door behind her, locking it firmly, she buttoned up her blouse. And then, forcing herself to get a grip, she gave up on satiating the golem...and resigned herself to disassembling him instead.
Well, that was odd.
Standing in the hallway, rubbing the back of his neck, Greg tried to make sense of what had just happened with Faye. He also debated his options—talk to her, or leave her alone—but frankly, she seemed all types of unhinged.
He thought back to the book he had been reading. Perhaps these oddities in her behavior were a misguided attempt to gain control in an uncontrollable situation. It would make sense. She had been through so much in her life. Not just from her mother, and Stuart, but then, to be revictimized by The Paper Boys.
No wonder she was acting weird. She was triggered. All those bad feelings of her past, all those memories, coming back to haunt her.
He stared at the closed door. Faye had returned to locking herself in the bedroom. And while he hated leaving her alone at night, he consoled himself with one simple fact. Everything he was doing was for her benefit.
Finding his supplies in the wicker basket where he had hidden them, he texted Nelly that he was heading out to Jumbos—the second bar on their list of potential meeting spots for The Paper Boys—and would be in contact soon. He was not at all surprised when Nelly texted back immediately.
Good , she wrote, followed by a series of little lightning emojis. Cause those Nazis ain’t gonna stun themselves.