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I’d been wrong, though. The only thing I could actually do now was restart the damn microwave.
Elle’s eyes were closed. She was breathing softly, almost peacefully, one arm flung across her partially clothed chest while the other arm hung over the edge of the couch.
He watched her intently for a few minutes until the sound of a muted text notification broke the silence in the room.
It was April. “Sorry to bug you. I know it’s a big deadline. But will you be back soon? Emma is sick. She threw up.”
He sighed. Then he rolled the phone charger around his hand and traced a thumb slowly over Elle’s neck before pulling her skirt back into place and arranging her comfortably on the couch with an afghan.
Before he let himself out of the house and into the dark summer night, he opened the MatchStrike app. He looked at her profile, then scrutinized her sleeping form on the couch in the dark.
He was clearly trying to make a decision. About what, I didn’t know. But finally, he sent her a message. “Hope your headache went away. Would love to see you again sometime. I haven’t had this much fun since … well, it’s been a long time.”
The microwave beeped a third time in the dark room as he sent the message. He rolled his eyes, but his teeth glinted in the dim light as he smiled.
* * *
He went out with Elle one more time.
She didn’t invite him into her house again. And when he offered to pick her up at her place, she demurred, saying that she was planning to swing by her dad’s place afterward: He was sick.
When they met at the bar, the look in her eyes told me she was studying him. That she knew—but didn’t know—that something was wrong. That something had happened the last time they went out.
I pushed on that feeling as hard as I could, leaning close to her ear when she studied him during dinner. When she finished her drink before visiting the ladies’ room. When she told the waitress she just wanted a glass of water instead of a second drink. And when she, almost shyly, asked him about what they’d done at her place the night he dropped her off. Because—it was weird—she couldn’t remember much.
He smiled in response, but his eyes shifted sideways. He’s lying, I told her. He did something really bad to you. He’s not a good person.
“You don’t remember?” he asked in response, looking hurt. “I guess we really did have too much to drink.” Then he grinned, like he’d said something funny.
Elle laughed and didn’t press any further. But when she left the restaurant—long before closing time—she stopped responding to messages.
I expected him to block her, like he had the other women as soon as things started to go tits up. Instead, he sent her message after message. He pretended to be worried at first. Then a little annoyed. Then a little irritated. Like he’d done with me when I told him we were over. He refreshed the app constantly while he worked in the basement at home. He even called customer service at one point, certain that something in the messaging feature was broken. Because Elle wasn’t writing back. Why wouldn’t she write back?
On the third day with no response, he told April he’d been called into another last-minute work project, despite the fact that there was a church activity that night he’d been talking up to the girls.
I had sort of been looking forward to the church activity myself. They were going to have a bonfire at the base of the mountains, and Kimmie and Emma were dying of excitement. April looked hurt but didn’t say anything. She never did.
He brought the phone charger with him in his back pocket and drove to Elle’s house.
I studied the expression on his face, eager and agitated as he sat in the car a few houses away, just beyond the glow of a street light. He opened up the app and typed and retyped another message to Elle. In this one, he stopped with the pretenses.
At least tell me what I did? You SLEEP with me and then pretend like it never happened and ghost? What kind of person does that? No wonder your brother needed those drugs.
He hovered over the send button for a few seconds, then shook his head and erased the message, peering toward the house. There was a light on in the kitchen. A few minutes passed before Elle appeared at the kitchen sink. She appeared to be rinsing dishes and turned to say something over her shoulder with a smile on her face.
She wasn’t alone. He saw it too.
He opened the car door and shut it carefully, quietly—but not before he’d grabbed the seatbelt cutter tool tucked into the dash. I could feel myself panicking, the fear and terror turning the air charged and heavy as I scrambled after him. What could I do?
The street light a few yards away blinked rapidly then went out, if anything making it easier for him to approach the house unseen. I screamed after him, unheard and unnoticed.
He glanced around the empty street then continued toward Elle’s driveway.
I rushed to the window, where I could see Elle inside with an older man. Maybe her dad. They were sitting down at the table, watching a basketball game while they ate pizza. “Don’t answer the door, don’t go outside,” I shrieked, knowing they wouldn’t hear. As far as I could tell, the only time anyone stood a chance of listening was when I was closer than humanly possible. Basically inside their ear canal. Even then, it only seemed to work if they were open to the suggestion. Screaming never did a thing.
I screamed anyway.
As I turned around, I saw his dark form standing in the driveway at the edges of the porch lights.
