Chapter 9 Jillian
JILLIAN
“I never walk about after dark / It’s my point of view / ‘Cause someone could break your neck / Coming up behind you”
— “Oblivion” by Grimes
I spin around so fast I nearly trip over my own feet.
Elliot is standing in the hallway, holding a takeout bag and, inexplicably, still wearing that same goofy Knicks jersey from last night. His sandy hair also looks like not a single follicle has budged since I saw him.
“Whoa, sorry, Jay!” He takes a step back. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you. I was just coming back from picking up food and I saw you on the stairs. Thought I’d swing by and say hey.”
My heart is slamming so hard I can feel it in my teeth. I press a hand to my sternum and let out a shaky breath.
It’s Elliot. It’s just Elliot.
Not him. Not the Masked Man. Not cinnamon and leather and hello, little fox.
Just Elliot. Maybe the least threatening human alive.
But even as the relief pours through me, something else is pouring in right behind it.
I’m standing here at the threshold of my own apartment, and I’m suddenly terrified to walk back into alone.
The reason I’m terrified is because of him.
Because he’s already in my head. He’s bought real estate in there and he’s redecorating the joint.
No. Fuck that. And him, too. He doesn’t have that right. No one does. The locked room stays locked, goddammit!
“Hey, Elliot,” I blurt suddenly. “That Thai place on Amsterdam. Is it still open right now?”
He blinks. “Uh... yeah, I think they’re open ’til eleven. Why?”
“I’m free.”
“You’re— Wait, what?”
“You asked me out, right? Well, I’m free. Right now. Tonight. Let’s go.”
Elliot looks at me. Then at his takeout bag. Then back at me. “You want to go to dinner. With me. Right now.”
I’m already shouldering my purse, closing my door, and turning around. “That’s what I said.”
“But you said you had a deadline on Fri—”
“Forget what I said. I’m saying something different now. Do you want to go or not?”
“I—yes! Yeah! Absolutely, yes.” He’s grinning so wide it looks like it hurts.
“Let me just, uh—” He holds up the takeout bag.
“Let me throw this in my fridge. Two seconds. Don’t move.
Ha! I mean, obviously, move if you want to, it’s a free country, but like…
I mean, don’t, cool? I’m running. See? Running!
” He takes off down the hallway at a half-jog, Nike slides slapping the carpet, then stops and turns back.
“You’re serious, right? This isn’t, like, a prank or something? ”
“Elliot. Go put your food away.”
“Going. I’m going.” He jogs the rest of the way to his door, fumbles with his keys, and disappears inside.
I make sure my apartment door is firmly shut and re-lock it from the outside. Whatever’s waiting in there—open window, closed window, smashed window, nothing at all—it can wait.
This date is going badly.
Not because of Elliot. Elliot is fine. He’s telling me about his fantasy football league and I’m nodding along while my eyes track every person who walks through the front door of this restaurant.
A couple in their sixties. Not him.
A group of college kids. Not him.
A delivery driver grabbing a pickup order. Definitely not him.
“—and then Rodgers throws this absolute bomb, right? Like sixty yards, no joke, and I’m sitting there in my living room screaming because I started him that week and everyone in my league said I was an idiot for—”
“Uh-huh.”
“—but I had this gut feeling, you know? And my buddy Mav was like, dude, you’re gonna tank your whole season, and I was like—”
The door opens again. A woman with a stroller. I exhale.
“—Mav owes me fifty bucks now, which he still hasn’t paid, by the way. Classic Mav.”
“Classic Mav,” I repeat dumbly.
I pick up my water glass and take a sip. My pad thai is sitting in front of me, mostly untouched. I’ve pushed the noodles around enough to make it look like I’ve eaten some, but my stomach is a clenched fist and nothing is getting past it.
Elliot pauses. He looks at my plate, then at me. “You okay? You don’t like it? We can order something else.”
“No, it’s good. I’m just not super hungry.”
“Oh, okay. Yeah, totally. No worries.” He takes a huge bite of his green curry and chews with his mouth open. “So anyway, do you follow football at all, or—”
“Not really.”
“Cool, cool. That’s cool. I mean, you don’t have to. It’s not for everyone.” He takes another bite. “What about baseball? You seem like a baseball person.”
“Why do I seem like a baseball person?”
“I don’t know. You’ve got, like, a vibe.”
The door opens and a man walks in alone. Tall, dark jacket, thin, confident. My whole body goes rigid and I grip the edge of the table. But then he pulls off a beanie and I see a bald head and a red beard and he waves at someone in the back corner.
Not him. I let go of the table.
Elliot has stopped chewing. He’s watching me with a look that’s trying very hard to stay cheerful but is losing the fight. “Jillian, can I ask you something?”
“Sure. Yeah. Anything.”
“Are you, like… okay? Because you seem kind of… I don’t know. Distracted, maybe?”
“I’m fine,” I mumble. “Sorry. Long day.”
“No, yeah, you mentioned that.” He puts his fork down. “It’s just, you keep looking at the door.”
“Do I?”
“Every time it opens. You’ve looked over there, like, twelve times since we sat down.”
I force myself to look directly at him. “Sorry. Bad habit. Reporter brain. Always scanning the room, heh.”
He nods, but the grin has dimmed a few watts. He picks his fork back up and pokes at a piece of chicken. “This is nice, though,” he says after a beat. “Right? Like, this is good?”
“Yeah,” I say. “This is nice.”
Against all odds, we make it through the rest of his green curry and my untouched pad thai.
He tells me about his mom in Connecticut and his sister’s new baby and a camping trip he’s planning with his buddy Mav.
I say “that’s great” and “oh, wow” and “how fun” at roughly appropriate intervals, but we both know I’m running on autopilot. After a while, even he can’t ignore it.
He sets his fork down and wipes his mouth with a napkin, then balls it up and drops it next to his plate. “You don’t actually want to be here, do you?”
His face isn’t angry or hurt, exactly. Just resigned. Like he’s been waiting for this part all night and it finally showed up, just like he knew it would, just like it always does, because that’s what happens to nice guys like him.
I immediately feel horrible. I’m a bitch. The biggest bitch alive, probably, a self-serving asshole, and there will be a circle in hell reserved for me and me alone. “Elliot, look, I’m—”
“It’s okay,” he interrupts, with an edge in his voice that I’ve never heard before. It makes him sound more grown-up, strangely enough. “Seriously, it’s fine. But I’d rather you just tell me than keep pretending.”
I close my eyes for a second. He deserves honesty. I’ve been using him tonight as a human shield against my own fear, and that’s a shitty, shitty thing to do to someone who’s only ever been kind to me.
“You’re right,” I confess. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said yes tonight. It wasn’t fair to you.”
“Because you’re not interested.”
“You’re a really sweet guy, El. But… just not for me. I’m sorry.”
He nods, once, slow. Then he abruptly shoves his chair back and stands up. “I’m gonna hit the bathroom,” he says.
“Wait, Elliot, I’m—”
He doesn’t wait for me to finish before he turns and walks away. “Be right back.”
I let my head hang down to my chest. “Sorry,” I whisper to no one at all. “I’m sorry.”
I watch him go and then I pull out my phone because I can’t sit here alone with myself right now.
I’m the worst person alive
RAE EVERETT
what happened
I went on a date with my neighbor. the nice one, elliot
omg Jilly Bean. Why??
I don’t know. I panicked. I didn’t want to be alone tonight and he was RIGHT THERE and he asked and I said yes
oh honey
And now I’ve just told him I’m not interested and he’s in the bathroom probably hating me. I deserve it
you don’t deserve it. You were honest with him. That’s better than stringing him along
no, i wasn’t, and i suck, and i shouldnt have done it. but yay, gold star for Jillian
:( why didn’t you want to be alone tonight?
I look at the screen. My thumbs hover.
Just one of those days
Jill.
I’m fine. Really. Just in a weird headspace
you’d tell me if something was wrong right?
of course
The waitress comes by and asks if we want dessert. I tell her just the check. She drops it off and I pull out my card and put it in the little black folder, because the bare fucking minimum I can do is pay for this disaster.
I check the time on my phone and frown when I see that it’s been almost ten minutes since Elliot got up. I look toward the back hallway where the bathrooms are, but there’s no sign of him, nor of any kind of line queued up that would explain what’s taking him so long.
Odd. Even accounting for the fact that he probably needs a minute to collect himself, it’s been a long time.
A small knot forms in my stomach. A low, nagging feeling that something is off. I reach a decision, push my chair back, and head for the hallway.
The bathroom is a single-occupancy unisex, with the door closed. I knock twice. “Elliot? You okay in there?” There’s no reply, so I knock again, harder. “El. Hey. It’s Jillian.”
Still nothing.
I try the handle. It’s unlocked. The door swings inward and I step inside and my brain goes blank for a full second…
… because there is blood on the floor.
Elliot is slumped against the wall between the toilet and the sink.
His head is drooping forward and his Knicks jersey is dark and wet across the chest. There’s a gash above his left eyebrow, deep enough that I can see pink and white underneath the red.
Blood is running down the side of his face and dripping off his chin onto the white tile.
His lip is split open and swelling fast. One of his eyes is already puffing shut.
“Oh my God!” I drop to my knees beside him. “Elliot! Elliot, look at me.”
He groans. His good eye finds me, glassy and unfocused.
“What happened?” I ask. I grab a wad of paper towels from the dispenser and press them against the cut on his forehead. “Who did this to you?”
Even in his daze, he shakes his head frantically and keeps his mouth firmly closed. I know that look. I fucking know that look.
It’s The Fear.
And I know exactly who gave it to him.