Chapter 9 #2
My curiosity evaporates as soon as Theo lifts his hand to press the Bluetooth button on the stereo.
Four words flash across the screen: Theo Carter’s Driving Playlist. Followed by the title of the first song: Kiss You by One Direction.
Exactly one second later a prepubescent male voice fills the inside of the car and when I look to my left, long gone is the man who bought the last blueberry muffin from the hospital cafeteria two months ago just to piss me off.
In his place, sits a complete stranger who seems to know all the lyrics to this song and is now singing along as if I’m not even here.
When he spots me staring at him, all he does is smile and ask if I’m still cold.
“This is what you listen to?”
“It’s nice, huh?” He sounds vaguely proud of himself, and the song goes on playing.
“Sure. If you’re a thirteen-year-old girl.”
Theo lets out an amused huff. “So fucking rude,” he mutters to himself, smiling at the road and I feel its warmth deep in my belly.
A flush rises to the surface of my skin and I look away from his face, which really just means my eyes skate down his arms, over his t-shirt, all the way to his fingers gripping the steering wheel, and — are those gloves? Yes. The man is wearing black fingerless gloves.
Why didn’t I notice them before? They’re kinda nice. I mean as far as gloves go, they’re not bad. Whatever, they’re just gloves. Jesus, Holly. You need to chill.
We stop at a red light when Theo speaks again. “Holly?”
“What now?”
“Are you sure you’re not cold?”
“I’m fine.” I look out the window. It’s fully snowing now.
A man runs down a subway station with a jacket on his head.
A few steps ahead, two girls stand underneath the awning of a coffee shop.
They look like college students — early twenties.
One of them has short blonde hair like me and the other’s a brunette.
Her dark brown hair is twisted in a loose ponytail.
They’re wearing big puffer jackets and holding hands.
The blonde leans down to whisper something in the brunette’s ear, making her laugh. They seem like a couple.
A strong gust of wind whooshes past them, blowing some snow into the blonde’s face. The brunette pulls the other girl’s beanie down, covering half her face, a gesture she clearly doesn’t enjoy. But it doesn’t matter since the brunette is now laughing.
It’s a nice laugh. I can tell.
It makes her companion smile. And she doesn’t seem like someone who smiles that often. She seems like someone who doesn’t enjoy most people’s company. She thinks she is the problem. She probably is.
The blonde girl leans down to kiss the brunette. And she kisses her back. It’s a quiet promise. A silent one. Out of love, I believe.
A car horn goes off and I’m jolted back to reality, vibrating like a snapped rubber band.
“You good?” Theo’s staring at me with a tight frown between his brows.
My face is burning.
“Holly, you’re shaking. I asked you if you were cold.” The accusatory tone in his voice does nothing but irritate me more.
“I’m not cold.” I don’t know where this bullshit concern is coming from, but I’m not a fan. A few seconds pass, and he keeps glancing over at me. Around the fifth time, I speak up: “What is it?”
“You’re cold.”
“I just said I’m not!”
“Well, I can see your nipples poking through your dress. So you’re either cold or incredibly excited to be in a closed space with me.”
Everything in me pulls taut and I tip my face down. If my nipples weren’t poking through my dress before, they sure are now.
Theo laughs and turns the dial to increase the heat. “Better?” he asks. Another sidelong glance at me through the red hues of traffic lights.
My thighs squeeze together, and I shift to my right, a vain effort to put some distance between us.
“Are you hungry?” he asks.
“Is being treated like a two-year-old a prerequisite to sit in this car?”
“Wouldn’t know, you’re the first one.”
My cursory glance turns into a full-blown glare. But fortunately for him, before I can give in to my homicidal urges, the song on the stereo changes. A block of ice in my chest cracks and the memory is immediate and equally intense.
“Happy birthday!” Aanya cries, barging into my dorm.
“Jesus Christ, keep it down,” I say as she rushes over to smother me with a messy, laughing, slightly tipsy hug that almost ends with us on the floor. “No one on my floor knows it's my birthday and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Why are you not ready yet?” she asks, ignoring my statement and refusing to let go. “We were supposed to be at the party half an hour ago. Nate has been texting me non-stop.”
“About that.”
“Noooo.” She pulls back, frowning. “Holly, you promised.”
“I know. But I’m really tired. Please don’t be mad.”
Aanya pouts.
“You should go,” I tell her. “Get really, really drunk and come back to me so that I can make fun of your hangover tomorrow.”
“Are you sure? I can stay with you if you’d like. We can make some popcorn and watch a scary movie—”
“I’m sure.” I brush the hair away from her face. “Promise.”
She doesn’t seem convinced. She seems skeptical. Narrowed eyes, wrinkled brow, tense muscles. But then I kiss the tip of her nose, and she smiles.
I love her smile. It’s the kind of smile that makes your insides shimmer. Full of warmth and sunshine. Full of magic.
“Fine,” Aanya says. “But first I need to give you something.” She reaches into her pocket and takes out a tiny box wrapped in red paper, placing it in the palm of my hand.
I look at it like it’s a grenade. “What is this?”
“Your present.”
“...why?”
“I don’t know if you’ve heard,” she whispers, her thumb making gentle circular motions above my wrist, “but it’s my girlfriend’s birthday today.”
“Tell her I said hi.”
“Opennn it.”
Too tired to argue, I do as I’m told, immediately frowning as I uncover the present. “You got me a…flash drive?”
“No, I got you a Hello Kitty flash drive. Give me your laptop.”
“Why?”
“Holly!”
“Okay, okay, jeez.” I hand her my laptop, and she plugs the device in. There’s only one folder. It has my name on it. I click on it and it’s a never-ending list of audio files, each beginning with the words “Play Me When.”
I glance up. “Is this…did you make me a playlist?”
“I prefer the term mixtape, but yes. Do you like it?” Without waiting for my response, she scoots closer to me. “There’s like maybe twenty songs on it. But you can’t listen to them as you like. There’s a system in place. Rules need to be followed.”
“Of course.”
“For example,” she goes on, “the first one is called Play Me When Sad. Are you sad right now?”
“Surprisingly not.”
“Well, then you can’t click on that one. Here, play this one.” She points to a file that says Play Me When Happy.
“That’s a bit presumptuous.”
She pokes me in the ribs, and I stifle a laugh, hitting the spacebar.
The beginning of the song feels like a warm hug. It’s melodious and happy and hopeful. Ordinarily, I’m not into this kind of music, but today I might be. Especially when she’s looking at me with that silly, almost-shy smile on her face.
“It’s nice,” I tell her.
She holds a finger to my lips and tells me to wait for the lyrics. They’re the “main part,” apparently. So I do. I wait for the lyrics, and as soon as they start to play something inside me melts.
The song comes to an end and the smile on Aanya’s face fades. “You hate it.”
I shake my head. “I love it.”
“You do?”
I nod.
She hesitates for a moment. “So you don’t think I’m crazy for making you a corny playlist for your birthday?”
“I think you’re crazy for a lot of other reasons.”
She smiles again.
“So am I allowed to kiss you or is there a specific song for that too?”
“Ha-ha,” she mocks and pulls me down to her lips.
She kisses me and I kiss her back. It’s a quiet promise. A silent one. Out of love, I believe.
“Holly?” A voice lances through the memory, low and familiar.
The song blares through the speakers. My nose starts to burn, my eyes zigzagging around the car to find something grounding.
“Love?” Theo.
My throat starts to close, my clothes getting itchier against my skin. The music gets louder and my surroundings pulse with each beat.
I need to get out of here.
I need to be alone. I need…to change the song. I swallow hard and lean forward to press Next. But Theo switches it back. Cutting him a scathing glance, I hit Next again. And he presses Rewind. Again.
“Stop that.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own anymore. Shame and embarrassment bubbles in a hot stew inside my stomach. My face is burning. Red hot. I’m not used to being vulnerable in front of other people. The air in the car gets thinner.
I try changing the song again and this time the fucker swats my hand away.
“What the fuck is your problem?”
“My car, my rules,” he states and proceeds to up the volume. Like this is nothing but one of our childish games.
“Theo, I’m serious. Change the fucking song.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t like it,” I say.
“And I don’t like you. What’s your point?”
“I was perfectly fine walking home by myself.”
“You would’ve fallen sick,” he counters.
“And that’s none of your concern. Change the song. Now.”
“Hey, Hol?” He looks at me, his blue eyes sweeping across my face.
“What?”
“I don’t like being told what to do,” he says, mimicking my earlier remark.
“Would you respond well to keeping your head attached to your body?” The second those words make their way out of my mouth, I regret it with every fiber in my body. Not the best thing to say to someone when I might have a potential stalker on the loose.
Theo reverts his attention to the traffic, subtly pressing Next on the stereo, and doesn’t say another word for the rest of the journey.
My shoulders relax a little, the thud of my heart settling as I lean back against the leather seat and shut my eyes and start to lose myself in the black box of memories I so deeply crave to escape.
It’s 2 a.m. I’m in my bed trying to fall asleep when I hear my phone ring. After a minute or so it stops. And then starts again.
I rub my eyes and grab it from underneath my pillow. “Hello?” My voice comes out all gravelly.
No response.
“Aanya?” I sit up immediately, my phone nestled in between my shoulder and ear. “Aanya, what’s going on?”
I hear a bit of commotion on her end. Maybe some cars and yelling. Definitely lots of yelling. “Where are you? Are you still at the party?”
“H-hospital.”
“What?” I try to keep my voice down. What the fuck? “Hospital? Which hospital?”
Silence.
“Aanya?”
“C-campus.”
I ruffle through my blanket and put on the first top I find lying on my chair. She’s still on the line, not speaking. “What happened?” I ask her.
No response. The sickest feeling of dread falls over me.
“Aanya, what happened?”
She starts to cry.
I feel an intense desperation to crawl out of my skin. Tears threaten to run down my cheeks, and I force myself back to the present. Back to reality. I need to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. Anyone else.
A few minutes later, the car comes to an abrupt halt and Theo turns to face me, “Home sweet home,” he says.
Quickly unbuckling my seatbelt, I pull on the door handle but before I can swing it open, I hear a click from the driver's side. The door's locked.
“Not so fast,” Theo says.
At this point, I’m convinced the man is borderline suicidal. “What now?”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Please don’t make me hit you.”
He cocks an eyebrow and tilts his head, like he’s not exactly opposed to the idea. I can feel my heart racing.
I really need to get the fuck out of here before I commit a crime.
“Thank you for dropping me home, Theo. There. I said it.”
His eyes are still on mine. A weight, something like static skims down my spine and he brings his face close to mine. “My pleasure.”
Another click. The sound of him unlocking my door.
The temperature in the car seems to plummet and yet my skin grows hotter.
A lick of heat crawls from my chest, roaming up my neck, latching on to my pulse, skirting over my jaw to creep into the flesh of my cheeks.
Irritated and angry at my body’s reaction to being close to Theo, I shove him away, freeing myself from his spell, and get out.
I enter through the front doors of my apartment building, step inside the elevator, and press eight. Light music hums through the space and I pull out my phone, unlocking it to call Cami, my hands shaking. My phone screen lights up with a text.
UNKNOWN: 18 Pierce St. Bronx, NY 10461. Come alone or else I go to the cops.
Attached below is a picture of me and Cami burying a body together.
An unsettling, antsy feeling washes over me. Like I’m in the throes of a storm. And just this once, it’s not because of the fucking creepy text. It’s something else entirely.
A stark realization.
I never told Theo where I live.