Chapter 45
Chapter
It’s eleven p.m., and Mark Winterson is at least four drinks in. It’s probably the right time to probe about his relationship with Erickson. But when we get back to our room at the bed-and-breakfast, he says he needs to read on his phone for an hour to wind down.
“Come here,” he says, and pulls me closer so I’m nestling against him, head on his chest. His heartbeat pulses in my ear as I notice the title at the top of the page.
“Capitalism in America: A History?” I scoff. “Some light bedtime reading.”
My head rises and falls with Mark Winterson’s laugh. “Alan Greenspan’s droppin’ bars in this one.”
My God, I really do have terrible taste in men.
I’m starting to zone out when a very interesting push alert slides onto the top of his screen. It’s a Telegram notification. He flicks it away before I can read it, but I could swear the sender name was Win.
Winfield Erickson.
Mark Winterson turns off his phone and sits up suddenly, forcing me off him and onto my own pillow. He turns off the bedside lamp, so the only light in the room is the faint glow from his phone.
In the middle of the night, while Mark Winterson is snoring steadily, I tiptoe around to his side of the bed and disconnect his charging phone—oh so carefully, barely breathing.
He snorts in his sleep, and my heart nearly stops.
But he rolls over with a deep snore, back turned to me, and I finally exhale.
He still uses a passcode—I made fun of him for it when I noticed a couple weeks back.
“Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I hate the idea of handing over my biodata,” he said, running a hand through his hair.
“I would have thought you’re one of those ‘scan your palm at Whole Foods’ guys.”
He shuddered, playing it up for a laugh. “I don’t know, call it a phobia.”
Whatever you call it, it’s convenient for me, because after watching him open his phone out of the corner of my eye at every opportunity, now I can do it too.
With shaking hands, I open the Telegram app.
If there were messages from Erickson, he must have sent disappearing ones, because I can’t find them.
There’s just a thread with zackthagod—bro, really?
—that seems to go back weeks and weeks. Fumbling open my phone with my other hand, I find the screenshot from his bank account and check the date stamps.
And on Mark Winterson’s phone, I scroll up to around the same time in the Telegram thread.
zackthagod:
i’m drunk who up
just kidding
falcon is in flight
mark, you tracking that sucker?
mwinterson:
yup, falcon received
the bird will be heading south after a brief rest
zackthagod:
thanks man
clarissa says hi
I’m still puzzling over how weird their family dynamic is, but this seems like it means something. I hold his phone out in one hand and take the steadiest photo I possibly can with mine in the other.
Mark Winterson suddenly rolls over, flinging out one arm that comes close to grazing my leg, and I hold in a yelp as he settles with a hefty inhale-snore, arm dangling off the bed.
I plug his phone into the charger, arrange it the way he left it, and slip back to my side, lying on the farthest edge of the mattress.
Then I remember I still have those photos from the wedding for Mom, so I send them into the haunted DM.
sampaguita72:
Beautiful couple! You look so good together
And those grounds! How much must this have cost?
I wait awhile, staring at the wall, before messaging her again.
ruby.ocampo:
Mom?
sampaguita72:
You’re still up?
Did you drink too much? I told you, you should always stop drinking by 9 p.m. if you want to get a good night’s sleep
She’s still there.
Mark Winterson snores loudly again beside me.
There’s no way I’ll ever marry him. I have to face it: This won’t be what frees Mom from Slack, and I have no clue what will. I’m going to have to end this charade. Sooner or later, I’m going to have to tell her this isn’t going to work.