Loved By the Gargoyle (Gargoyles of the Underworld #2)

Mia

Grocery bags twisted over my fingers, cutting off my circulation as I juggled the heavy weight of fruits and vegetables and made my way towards the door to my apartment. My thin arms trembled halfway up the stairs, but I hadn’t wanted to make several trips out to my car to get these.

I was paying for that decision now as my entire hand went numb with my efforts.

Whispering a curse, I maneuvered some of the bags onto a single hand, leaving the other one free to dig into the pocket of my pants for my house key.

Another mistake on my end.

I should have taken the key out first.

Once I dug it out, I shuffled towards my door, the key nearly slipping from my fingers when I caught sight of a folded slip of paper tucked into the frame.

The breath left me at the sight of the note.

My heartbeat sped up in a way that had nothing to do with exertion of carrying so much weight up four flights of stairs.

I snatched the note up, crumpling it into my palm before I hurried and opened the door, tripping into my house and promptly closing the door behind me.

I couldn’t be sure how fast I moved. Within seconds, I’d kicked my shoes off and slipped my feet into my house slippers, dumped my groceries onto my kitchen counter, and hurried to take a seat on my couch, the paper firmly in my grasp.

It felt like unwrapping a gift to reveal a surprise underneath.

My fingers were firm, eager, as the note slowly unfolded from the complicated nips and tucks it was secured in.

Once the full page was spread out on my lap, familiar, looping scrawl greeted me, and the smile it brought to my lips wasn’t one I could hide.

Leaning back on the couch, I pulled my feet from my slippers and tucked them under me, finding a comfortable position before diving into it.

M,

It was with much joy that I received your last letter. It saddens me to say I have not yet been to The Cauldron, though the way you have described it has piqued my curiosity and I wish to rectify my mistake immediately.

I paused, chuckling, and dove back in.

My palette is not as elevated as your own.

When you questioned what food I favored, I realized I eat for sustenance, not for pleasure.

Food is merely a way to fuel the body, not to be enjoyed.

Perhaps I must change my point of view and find a meal to devour slowly.

Perhaps, with the right company, I might even find myself enjoying it.

Signed,

X

That was it. That was all the small slip of paper contained. Still, I read it over and over again until every single word was burned into my brain and I could recite it without looking.

The handwriting had grown familiar to me in the past few months.

A little messy, confident, bold… The penmarks dug grooves deep into the paper, nearly tearing holes through it, but at the same time the scrawl was rushed, like the person on the other end wanted to get every thought down on paper quickly.

And yet, there was a contradiction in the words themselves.

Those were always so careful. Almost like English wasn’t their first language and they were putting down a foreign verbiage that was almost too respectful.

The letters were always respectful.

I remembered the first one that had been stuck on my door’s frame.

I’d opened to leave, and the piece of paper had come fluttering to the ground at my feet.

Curiosity had me picking it up, looking left and right in the hallway of my floor to see if there’d been anyone there.

When there seemed to be no one around, I opened it to find a single word etched onto the page.

Hello,

X.

It was pretty ridiculous, and I thought it had been a joke from another tenant. Someone bored, trying to find friends, maybe. And there was no harm in responding back, so I’d scribbled my own hasty greeting underneath it, stuck it where the crack of the doorframe and the wall met, and left.

Hi,

M.

When I got back, there was another note waiting for me on a brand new page.

If it does not trouble you, would you tell me what occupies your thoughts?

X

My brows pulled together at that, but I figured it was their way of asking how I was doing or what was on my mind. I’d taken the note inside with me, leaving it on my counter as I went about my day. But then I’d caught sight of it again hours later and my fingers itched to pick up a pen.

It was stupid. Dangerous. I knew that. Who in their right mind responded to a complete stranger or even entertained the idea?

The thing was, it didn’t feel harmful at the moment. It felt like a cute little joke. And I was intrigued. Bored.

Lonely.

So I picked up my pen, and I responded. Not with a ‘I’m okay’. I actually sat at my desk, nibbling away at a prawn cracker and I wrote back.

It felt like having a penpal. And I was careful, too.

Careful not to overshare anything about myself.

About my work. My family. I mean, if they were a serial killer, they could’ve murdered me at any time since they already knew where I lived, but I still made sure to sign off with my first initial and not my full name.

And he did the same.

All the responses following implied my mysterious penpal was a he. And as careful as I was to keep details about myself private, he did the same.

But even though I didn’t know his name, or what he looked like, I knew a lot. At first, we’d written back and forth surface-level stuff. Things about our days, what we’d seen. It escalated into a slow-building relationship tethered together with scraps of pen and blotches of ink.

I looked forward to hearing from him.

Was it sad to say that his letters were one of the best parts of my day? Probably, but it was the truth.

Talking to X had been something that veered from my set routine. At first, I didn’t think it would go anywhere, but his messages appeared daily to brighten my day. To ask me questions and answer my own.

The last letter I’d left was yesterday’s, where I gushed over my favorite restaurant, The Cauldron, a few blocks away. I guess I just assumed he lived in the building and had been there.

I reread the words, trying to decipher more about him with the clues he left. I eventually got up and strayed across my living room to the corner that was meant to be my office.

On my desk sat a wooden box, the color faded with time, with golden edges and the Chinese character for courage on the lid.

I lifted it, placing X’s letter inside along with the others I kept. Then, I took a seat and picked up a pen, paper, and began to write.

Not for the first time, I daydreamed while I wrote, weaving an image of X in mind.

Each time I read another note, his appearance changed.

Each time I grasped the pen in my fingers, it was like I had X in front of me, and every word that came to life at the tip of it.

It felt like I was speaking directly to X.

Butterflies erupted at the base of my stomach, spreading through my entire body as a whole, until the sensation of tingles overtook every single layer of me.

My heart sang, and it was almost embarrassing to admit that I’d grown a crush on someone I’d never seen, heard, or really spoken to before.

But did that even matter? Spiderwebs were composed of intricate smaller pieces, stringing the bigger strands together to form the whole. I was familiar with the smaller pieces of X’s spiderweb. I knew parts, if not the whole, and that was okay too.

Besides, it was just a crush. A harmless crush.

I could almost hear my ma and aunties in my ear asking me–demanding, really–when I would be getting a man. Someone for me so I wouldn’t be so lonely.

I wasn’t lonely.

Okay, that was a lie, considering I’d taken up a mysterious penpal for that reason exactly. But it was easier to pretend I wasn’t.

Even if that wasn’t the full truth.

Maybe that’s what drew me towards X.

Because in the undercurrent of words on paper, I recognized his loneliness as a mirror to my own, a reflection of the parts of me I shoved down deep. X was all alone in the world, because why else would he reach out to me like this?

The same reason I’d decided to respond, no doubt.

I finished the note and signed M with a flourish. After carefully folding it–though not as intricately as X had done–I went out into the hallway. After a cursory glance, I tucked it onto the doorframe and slid back inside.

For a while, I busied myself with putting away my groceries and eating a quick meal of congee.

My eyes kept straying towards the door, ears perked for any sign of footsteps.

I hadn’t been able to catch X in the act, no matter how many times I tried.

Tonight was no different. My espionage was bound to get me somewhere, I thought, as I laid down on my couch facing the hallway and my front door.

The hours went by with nothing. There were no sounds of footsteps or breathing.

Eventually, my eyes grew heavy with the need for sleep and I succumbed, not before catching sight of the shadows slipping just beneath the door.