Kenny Girl: You know I love you, babe, but when it comes to flying, you turn into an eighty-year-old
Kenny Girl: Look at your texts first, no news apps until you get through it all!!!!!!! Mom is freaking out worrying about you.
The panic and confusion that settles onto my shoulders makes me curl deeper into the chair. My breath comes out in sharp little pants, and my heart rate kicks up. I kind of want to puke, but everything around me is too normal to warrant an all-out panic attack before even checking the news.
I leave my messages and click on the first bold banner that crosses my screen.
Monsters: Finally coming out from under the bed.
A grainy photo, which I assume is supposed to depict Bigfoot, Nosferatu, and a swamp monster, complements the dramatic flair of the headline. I snort, clicking out of the app to check the date. It’s not April first, but all this feels like some elaborate prank being played on me by my family. How they got the app on my phone to display that headline is something I’ll have toask about and steal when I plot my revenge, but for now, I call Kennedy.
“Ha, ha, very funny, Kennedy?—”
“Bitch, do not even! I take it you didn’t see the dragon spewing flames from the torch of the Statue of Liberty? A woman on the news pulled off a very fancy wig to reveal a head full of snakes too! I am losing my shit but am also weirdly fucking excited.”
The choking sound that slips from my lips is the only sign I heard her at all. All my normal faculties have stalled. I can’t breathe, and my heart races so erratically in my chest I’m worried I’ll go into cardiac arrest.
“In through your nose and out through your mouth, Lottie. Please don’t pass out in the airport. Well, actually passing out in the airport would be preferable to passing out where you’re headed—that rinky-dink little town,” she says teasingly, but tension laces her voice.
The city girl is none too pleased about my relocation to the middle of nowhere, Ireland.
I don’t know if Colbéliard has an emergency room or even a local doctor. The small town is two hours from Galway, heading south, with nothing advertised except for the castle and the local loch for tourist attractions.
“You still with me, Lottie? Wheeze once for yes and groan for no.” My sister-slash-best friend’s voice is tight.
She’s not a worrier, but this is an unprecedented situation. It’s not every day that monsters just…make themselves known.
“You’re really not kidding?” My voice is small, fragile in a way that makes me feel exposed.
“I’m not creative-writing class enough to come up with something like this, Lottie.” She sighs.
“Is it weird that I’m pleased to be an ocean away from the Appalachian Mountains?”
My question makes my sister laugh so hard she snorts, groaning at the horribly unladylike sound coming from her nose like it betrayed her on purpose.
“Of course, that’s the first thing you think about. You may be away from those woods, but Ireland is teeming with its own monsters. Oh, fuck me, I won’t be able to ride the subway ever again. I’m fucking terrified of the idea that rat people are real.” I hear her shudder through the phone.
“Just have Chad pay for all your Ubers to and from work. Make the finance bro work for you, Kennedy.”
She groans across the line in response.
“Did something happen that I don’t know about?” I ask, trying to keep up with the subject whiplash common in Kennedy conversations.
“Yeah, apparently he wants us to get serious, like meet the parents and come to holidays and shit.”
“But he’s the one who insisted you keep it casual?” I ask in faux horror.
Any of those finance bros and literal Chads with half a brain cell would be lucky to snatch up Kennedy if she gave them the time of day. The whole appeal of the actual Chad was that he was cool with flings.
“I know, right?! He said he has reservations with them next week, and he would just ‘love for me to meet them.’” She makes her voice more nasally and drops it an octave, giving her best Chad impression.
I hardly know if it’s a good one or not. I tend to zone out when he tries to make small talk.
“Tell him no. Tell him to take a long walk off a short pier on Coney Island.”
“Even I’m not that cruel.” She scoffs, and I roll my eyes.
“You can be when it comes to the numbers. Think of it this way. He’s trying to steal away precious time that could be spentriding monster dick. Now that it’s out there, you can’t just settle for a two-pump chump who doesn’t even have the courtesy to get you off with his tongue afterward,” I huff, agitation sending tingles racing down my back.