TWENTY-EIGHT
Ozzie
I had plans this morning.
I had plans to wake up before dawn and have the sorority house kitchen all to myself to make breakfast. I was going to try to replicate my mom’s breakfast that Mila loved…in my haphazard way. Those soft-scrambled eggs, Mom showed me how to do when I started dating. “This right here, these eggs? These eggs will close the deal. You’ll get a wife with these eggs.”
Those are the ones I had plans to make this morning. Along with espresso, I think I saw some country ham and those tube biscuits in the fridge last night when we took a break from our bedroom romps to hydrate and fuel up before going back for more.
Instead, I wake up to find Mila pacing back and forth in the hallway, hyperventilating and staring at her phone.
I shoot straight out of bed and go to her.
“Babe?”
She doesn’t acknowledge me, but continues to pace back and forth, staring at her phone. Mila seems to be in her own world, where she’s in a deep crisis about something.
I don’t like this. I park myself in her path, trying to break this wild back and forth pacing and shallow, gasping breath. Mila tries to veer around me, but I’m not having it. I keep my voice low and steady, placing my hands on her shoulders.
“Mila. Look at me.”
Her eyes dart everywhere like she’s desperately trying to come up with an answer, shaking her head, her breath going even more shallow. I squeeze her shoulders and command her to look at me. “Fucking tell me what’s going on, babe.”
Finally, her fearful eyes meet mine. “I’m so fucked.”
I wrench the phone from her death grip and look at the screen. I see it’s opened to a social media page for Homing In. There’s a selfie of Mila, her friends from Beta Beta Psi, and me on that public page.
I quickly gather the pieces together mentally, realizing why this upset her. “I get it,” I say, squeezing her shoulder. “It’s a public page. But what are the chances anyone from your…former family in Jersey…is going to notice this?”
Flaring her nostrils, she rips the phone away from me, opens the comments, and shows them to me. There, someone named Crypto liked and commented with the word “Nice.”
I keep my face stoic and my words light. “Maybe it’s not the same guy.”
She waves the phone in the air, her eyes wide and bloodshot from crying. “It’s him; it’s Crypto! I know what his account looks like, and that’s him! The caption says, ‘Volunteers from Beta Beta Psi at Pine Mountain University.’ Leela’s face is all over this app for anyone looking for school information. It’s all there. It’s all public. Cassandra must have shared it to her personal page, and then Beau must have seen the photo and grabbed it for the company page.”
It takes little effort to escort Mila to the kitchen to sit down while I get her some water. “Mila, I need you to breathe and calm down,” I say, pushing a glass of water in front of her.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god….” Mila’s staring wide-eyed at her phone again.
My heart breaks to see her like this. All I want to do is wrap her up in my arms and make this panic disappear.
“What is it, Mila?”
With shaking hands, she shows me the phone screen. “He left another comment.” This time her voice is as quiet as a mouse. So unlike her that it scares me.
I squint down at the screen, and there, this guy she calls “Crypto” has left another comment. “Glad I found you. You’re gonna get what’s coming to you, lol.”
The white-hot rage starts in my toes and spreads through my body like lava until it seems the tips of my hair might be on fire. This is entirely fucked up. And on a charity’s public page, no less. The “lol” might make me more pissed than anything, but I can’t explain why.
Despite the anger that floods me, I’m eerily calm. I quickly text Beau, asking him to take down that photo. My voice even says, “The first thing we do is tell Cassandra to delete the image and stay calm.
“Stay calm? I can’t! I have to go!”
“Don’t start that again!”
“Don’t you get it? Crypto found me! He is on his way here, probably with backup. It’s all over.”
“You don’t have all the information. You don’t know he’s coming. And you forget, I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
She looks up at me, her breath finally calm. “How are you going to prevent anything from happening? Do you have an army or something?”
I smirk. “Yeah. As a matter of fact, I do. And so do you.”
She smiles wanly and shakes her head. “You can’t be serious. Your family has a life. Jobs to go to. Cats to rescue from trees.”
Even in her most trying moments, she makes me laugh.
I know how insane I sound. But I’m still not worried. That’s who I am.