Remote.
Timed.
Precise.
Someone knew when my phone would be off.
Someone knew my PIN.
My mind scrambles for logic.
There’s no way she knows my PIN.
No way.
She’s never met my mother.
Doesn’t know her birthday.
Wouldn’t even know theday.
Except—
I set it up at Verizon.
Out loud.
0109
January ninth.
I remember it suddenly. The casualness of it. The way I hadn’t thought twice. The way she’d been standing right there, leaning into me, apologizing, kissing my jaw, saying she was so, so sorry about the phone.
The employee shifts uncomfortably.
“Do you want to change your PIN?” he asks.
The words come out of my mouth before I’ve fully processed them.
“No.”
He blinks. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Because if I change it… then she’ll know that I know.”
Silence.
I hear myself say it.
How insane it sounds.
I shake my head slowly, running a hand over my face.
“Dammit. Fuck it all to hell.”
The employee nods, polite but clearly unsettled. “Okay. Well. If you change your mind?—”
“Thanks,” I say, already backing away from the counter.
