Page 55 of Waiting for Her

“I love you guys,” I tell them through my whimpering.

“We love you too. Now, tell me more about this whole you two living in each other’s backyards and he still doesn’t know. You realize that you’re basically a full-fledged stalker now, right?”

“Shut up, Andy!” I whisper yell. He simply laughs. Not at all offended.

“How embarrassed are you going to be when he finds out?”

“Horrified.”

And then, because the embarrassment gods are against me, I see a giant spider shimmy down its stupid web right in front of my face dangling from the eaves above me. I’m like Little Miss Muffet, only I’m no longer sitting on my tuffet. I’m screaming and flailing around because… it’s a spider! And it’s enormous and likely flesh-eating, as areallspiders. It’s beady little eyes look directly into my soul, or I imagine they would had I not stood up and started dancing around to get away from it. I hit at my legs, brushing my arms, violently running my hands through my hair because it surely landed on my head and is about to make a nest.

In the process of my freaking out, I drop my phone so I army crawl across my tiny deck to get to it, lift it to my ear in time to hear Andy shouting into the phone, asking if I’m okay, if he needs to call the police.

Geesh. I must have really been freaking out.

But in my defense, spiders are my biggest fear. Their gross legs and sneakiness with the way a string can be produced out of their butts. Nothing about spiders is okay.

“I’m okay,” I pant. “Spider.” I say as way of explanation. “Huge.”

“Ahh,” he says, understanding in his voice.

He’s seen firsthand how scared I am of spiders. Seen me frozen in fear when I was walking from my car to the house and a spider the size of a softball sat in my way, daring me to move past it. I moved to the right, it moved to its left. I screamed, it jumped in the air and charged me. I shouted at it that it needed to leave me alone. It cocked an eyebrow at me. I screamed again, begging anyone for help and Reece came running out of the house with a baseball bat, fearing that I was being assaulted. Which, I was. By a mocking spider.

Reece looked at the spider, up at me, then back down. Walked three steps, picked me up and flung me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and brought me into the house. I looked at the spider over my shoulder and saw him shaking his head, likely laughing at me. When he got to the door, Andy stood there with his arms crossed over his chest, chuckling. Entirely too entertained at the prospect of me almost being killed.

Some of that memorycouldbe a bit exaggerated, but I really don’t see how.

I spare a glance over my shoulder when I reach the sliding door and notice Drew and Grady are both on their feet, looking in my direction. Grady’s head is cocked to the side and even his dog seems to be on alert. Probably because my screams could only be heard by dogs.

I reach up as far as I can to open the door, so I can slink quietly back into the house but can only barely touch the handle with the tip of my fingers.

I sigh, realizing that I’m going to have to stand up to get into the house, or at the very least get up on my knees and shimmy through.

“Andy,” I whisper, my other hand cupping over the mouth piece.

“Yeah?” he whispers back, clearly amused.

Now would be a really nice time to be able to scream, but that would defeat the purpose of my stealthy behavior. “I’m not even joking right now. You need to help me out.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” he asks, chuckling. Mom is in the background giggling.

“Call Grady.” My voice is still a whisper.

“And say what? That his neighbor is having a panic attack because of a daddy long leg?”

I shift, sitting on my butt, my eyes on the area the spider was dangling from moments ago. Anxiety kicking up ten notches because I don’t see it anymore.

“It wasn’tjusta daddy long leg, you turd. It was probably a brown recluse and you know it. They’ve been stalking me for years.”

Now he laughs so hard he wheezes.

“Andy! Focus. Just call Grady so he isn’t staring in my direction. Provide a distraction so I can get inside!”

“Alright, alright. Good grief.”

“Wait. What do you mean so you can get inside?” Mom asks, still laughing. So annoying.

“I’m on the floor of my deck,” I say like it should be obvious.

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