16. Madelyn
MADELYN
Hannah sketching ideas for the charity event flyers during lunchtime as she eats a sandwich proves to be the perfect opportunity for me to put my ‘Operation Handwriting’ in motion.
“Loving the drawings!” I say with a high-pitched tone. “Are you doing the typography yourself?”
“Y-yeah?” Hannah’s eyebrows scrunch.
“Oh.” I pause. “I think we should check who has the best handwriting of all the teachers and have that teacher do the text part.”
She tilts her head. “Nah. It’s okay. I don’t think they care about that part as long as we have some flyers. My handwriting isn’t the best, but it’s readable.”
“You’re already putting in so much work, girl. You’re hand-drawing these instead of looking up pictures from online. Let me take some of the workload off you. Let’s get someone else to do the text; you focus on your art.”
She purses her lips. “Isn’t that a lot of work?”
Bingo. “I’ll do it,” I say. “I’ll go around and ask everyone to write down some words in their own handwriting, and we can compare.”
“And you think they’ll agree to work on all the flyers?”
“I’ll convince them,” I say. “And worst-case scenario, we make copies of the text and paste it on top. It’ll give the flyers a cute craft-like look.”
Hannah nods. “Okay, go for it.”
I stand up, taking a few sheets of paper and a pen with me. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
The shenanigans end up taking almost the whole lunch hour, as I need to stroll around the school looking for every single teacher.
I add Regina, the receptionist, to the mix just to make the suspect list longer. No one complains when I imply they may have to contribute to the flyer-making, since all I ask from them at the moment is to write down a single sentence.
Once I have the sheet of paper filled, I sneak into the copy room to make a copy for Hannah as well.
“Oh, thanks!” She smiles.
“It’s nothing,” I say. “Let’s take a look at all of them and settle on someone by tomorrow, okay?”
***
It’s during my own class, as the students focus on a writing prompt I handed for creative writing, and I’m sitting at my desk, that I scan the results.
I pull out the last note that my stalker left me, and place it right next to the sheet of paper with all the teachers’ handwriting. Yes, even Kayden’s.
His was a pain to get.
I inspect it now, and a crease forms between my eyebrows.
What in the hell.
I scoff.
To my little demon. Love and kisses, Kayden. And his name is his signature. He did not write down what I asked him to, but rather signed the paper for me as if I were his fan.
His handwriting isn’t remotely close to my stalker’s, and that somehow relieves me.
Shaking my head, I move on to the next teacher in line.
By the end of the class, I’ve checked all the handwriting to no avail. None of them is him.
I don’t know whether to be happy or pissed.
My last hope is that damn phone number. The one I implied I’ll sell my body for tonight.
How to trace a phone number, I type into my phone’s web search during the ten-minute break between my classes. The answer comes in seconds. Dozens of websites instruct me to simply type the phone number I’m trying to trace, and promise they’ll give me the information I need.
So, I pick the one at the top of the search results page, write down the number, and cross my fingers.
Loading.
Loading.
My heart’s thumping in my throat.
Loading.
This number belongs to…unknown.
Crap.
I sigh.
At the bottom of the page, there is a note.
If you’ve searched a number that came up unknown, some possibilities are that the number is a burner phone, or belongs to a company that blocks their own numbers through a private VPN or network.
If you’d like us to dig in deeper, you can hire one of our private security specialists for an exclusive price.
God, this whole website must be a scam.
After three other tries on different pages and no result, I give up.
This phone number is useless. Of course, he’s using a burner. He wouldn’t have given me his real number.
He’s smarter than I am.
***
By the end of my workday, I’m exhausted and pissed. All the hard work didn’t pay off.
But I sure as hell won’t give my stalker what he wants. I will play his game, and I’ll play it my way.
I’ll show him who he’s dealing with. I’m not some innocent pawn whom he can twist and turn as he pleases.
I promised myself this wasn’t happening again, but sometimes, sacrifices must be made.
My words come out naturally.
“Hey, girl. Are you in a hurry to get home?” I grab Hannah’s arm when I cross her in the halls.
“No, why?”
“Do you want to go grab a drink? Have a girls’ night?”
She smiles. “God, yes.” She intertwines her arm with mine, and we walk into the teachers’ lounge to grab our stuff. “I was worrying you’d never ask again after last time.”