Page 72 of Distortion
‘Change your shirt. There’s one in my locker. Do you wanna go home?’
She sounds so concerned that I smile and shake my head.
I go to the back and take off my shirt, looking in the hall mirror as I do. My skin is a little red, but I don’t think it’ll blister. The coffee wasn’t boiling.
My hands are shaking, I realize. The whispers are one thing. The names I hear under people’s breaths around campus I can tolerate, but this is the first time anyone’s attacked me because of the rumors surrounding me.
I take a few minutes to calm down and wait until my hands have steadied before I go back out.
I find Lu pacing behind the red counter.
‘This is getting out of hand,’ she says to me. ‘The threats were one thing, but?—’
‘Threats?’ I ask with a frown.
I haven’t even shown her the notes I got yet.
She winces. ‘We’ve had some ... letters under the door since you started working here. I didn’t want to bother you with them. I figured it was the sorority chicks and nothing else happened until today, so I thought ... Shit, I should have ... Look, if you want to go home, I’ll be okay without you, babe. And we should tell the campus rent-a-cops what’s going on.’
‘I don’t want to tell anyone,’ I say. ‘Then even more people will know and they’ll ask questions and ... no.’ I shake my head. ‘I don’t want to do that ... and I want to work my shift, if that’s okay with you.’ I look at her a little warily. ‘But if my being here is causing a problem ...’
Lu’s fierce hug surprises me, but I find I can bare it for a few seconds before she pulls away.
‘It’s not a problem,’ she says. ‘I’m not letting those cowards make me do anything I don’t want to do, and I don’t want you to not be working here.’
‘Wanna start early?’ she asks. ‘It was nuts this morning before I closed the hatch.’
‘Sure.’ I grab my apron from the hook and make sure my pad and pencil are still in the front pocket. Lu is reopening as I pull them out and I frown. There’s a third thing. An envelope.
It looks like the other two I got before.
I open it quickly and scan it, my heart in my throat.
Was the river cold, Daisy? Looked like it. You should spend less time having fun with your boyfriends and more looking into your mother’s death. I thought you wanted to know. Or maybe you’re afraid of the skeletons you might find in her closet.
Be seeing you, darling. xx
I’m being watched.
This one isn’t like the others. It’s darker, almost menacing. Andmasculine. But I guess it could be double bluff.
I put the paper down on the counter and stare at it, my chest pounding.
I need help, but the thought of talking to any type of law enforcement makes my stomach twist.
‘Lu? I need to talk to you,’ I call, trying not to second guess myself.
She looks back at me and frowns. Turning back to the hatch, she glances out and then puts up the ‘Be back in 5’ card.
‘What’s up?’
I point at the note.
She looks at it, her eyes scanning it quickly before she stares up at me. ‘What the fuck is that?’
‘A note,’ I say.
‘Yeah, I can see that. Where’d it come from? Was it under the door?’
