Page 19 of Like A Moth To A Flame

“Promise you won’t freak out?” I said, still watching him in the mirror. I saw in crystal clarity when he rolled his eyes at me.

“I will do no such thing,” he said, shaking his head. “As I have said, I am a bitch, and as such, sometimes Ireactlike a bitch. So I make no promises, and I offer no apologies.”

Once in a while, Barrett’s queerness was front and center. This was one of those times.

I laughed, pulling my thumb out from under the water and inspecting it. It wouldn’t need stitches. Reaching over, I grabbed a few sheets of toilet paper and pushed them against the wound to stem the bleeding.

“Just some really weird stuff has been happening, and I—”

“Ghosts?” Barrett asked, and I couldn’t help but laugh. It was a deep, cackling belly laugh, and when it finally tapered off, I was grateful for him. I needed that.

“No, not ghosts,” I said, digging in my back pocket, where I’d stuffed the most recent note. “Unless you know of a spirit with handwriting like this.”

I held it out to him, and he took it, an unreadable expression on his face

“The fuck is this?” he asked, his narrowed eyes flickering across the words.

When he’d finished—reading it several times over by the looks of it—he looked up at me with a look that seemed almost pained.

“Well, last night when you left, I fell asleep,” I said, trying to think of the best words to say. “And when I woke up, someone wasstanding on the porch, and then when I went outside to confront them, there was a glass vase, upside down, with a moth inside of it, and that note.”

I motioned to the paper in his hands, and I watched him pale visibly.

“Excuse me?” he said. “What?!”

“Yeah,” I barked a laugh. This wasn’t funny. I shouldn’t be laughing, but I couldn’t help it. “And that’s not the first one, either. Also, this weird phone call this morning. I answered and someone just laughed all creepy and hung up.”

“Astalker,” he spat, looking down at the letter in his hand as if it were poised to snap at him with venomous fangs. “You come back to town for a week, and you have a stalker, yet I’ve lived here for years now and I had one date last year.One.”

I laughed again, and a thought clicked into place.

A stalker. I hadn’t thought of that before, but I guessed it was true.

“In all seriousness, Nessie? This is serious. You should come stay with me.”

My laugh went quiet, and I looked at him.

“No, no way,” I shook my head. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“And when will it be, hmm?” he asked, handing the note back to me. I stuffed it into my pocket once again. “Did you read that? ‘I can’t wait to call you mine’? Ness, comeon.”

“It’s probably nothing,” I said, pushing past him and making my way back into the den. “I’m sure it’s some local high school kids playing a stupid joke.”

“Oh yeah, it’s a joke alright,” he said, following me in and leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest. It had been a long time since I had seen him so damn serious. “Until someone breaks in here and you get brutally raped or murdered… or worse?”

I chuckled. Seems we had the same mindset.

“Worse?” I asked, looking over at him with a wrinkled nose. “What’s worse than murder?”

He seemed to think for a second, a deep wrinkle forming in the middle of his forehead before he shrugged, tossing his hands up.

“I don’t know! That’s not the point, Nessa!”

“Okay, okay fine!” I walked across the room, my hands up in surrender. “I’ve got protection.”

He seemed thoroughly confused before I slapped my hand down on the gun safe with a satisfying smack.

“Do you even know how to get into that?” he asked.

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