A desperate idea came to mind. If no one she knew could be here to rescue her, Maddie would have to make a new friend, and fast. It was a long shot, she knew, but it was her best hope. She looked around for people waiting at bus stops, out walking their dogs, casually taking in the sights as they walked, anyone who might have five minutes to spare to talk to her. But no one paid her any mind, and she felt about as nervous to approach a stranger as she was to stay put and let Nora find her.
Then Maddie spotted someone who looked about as nervous as she did. It was another woman about her age, late twenties or so, with her strawberry-blonde hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail and wearing a really cute embroidered denim jacket. She was nestled in the doorway of a closed down shopfront. Her eyes, framed by winged eyeliner and peacock blue eyeshadow, stared down at her thumbs as they darted across her phone screen with the same fear Maddie felt, occasionally stopping to look up and scan the crowd. Maddie took a chance.
“Ohmygodhi!” Maddie exclaimed, running up to the other woman. “How are you?” she asked with her brightest and friendliest smile.
The other woman furrowed her brow. “Um…do I—have we met?”
“Tsch,yeah, remember? At the Silver Vein?” Maddie laughed. “I mean, maybe we were both a little out of it, but you said we should meet up sometime, and now here we are!” Dropping some of the bubbly tone in her voice for a morepointed emphasis, she said, “What are you up to right now? Want to get coffee or something? Y’know,not out in the middle of everyone?”
Understanding lit up in the other’s woman’s expression. “Oh. Yeah, sure. Um…I’m not…doing much. I could use a coffee.”
“Perfect!” Maddie hooked her arm around the stranger’s and led her off. One of her favorite doughnut places happened to be a block away. She was originally going to go there and wait for someone to come get her, but with Nora possibly hot on her trail she had abandoned that plan. The plan had changed once again, and Maddie prayed it worked.
They didn’t say anything until they got to Ground and Around Café. Maddie relaxed once they were inside and she smelled the familiar blend of in-house roasted coffee and sugary sweet frosting. “My treat,” she said, hoping that would make up for practically abducting this woman.
“Thank you.” While they waited in line, the other woman whispered, “I don’t think we’ve actually met before.”
“Oh, we haven’t,” Maddie whispered back. “I’ll explain in a minute. My name’s Maddie, by the way.”
“Brooke,” her new friend replied. “And I did need this, by the way. I can explain, too.”
They ordered their coffees and picked up a doughnut each. Maddie got her usual caramel-drizzled maple doughnut, and Brooke got the one with chocolate frosting rolled in mini peanut butter chips. Maddie habitually checked her phone, but it was still off. Their table was close enough to the windowed wall that she could look outside and check if Nora stormed by. She decided to tell her story first.
“Alright, look, I’m sorry if I scared you or anything,” Maddie began. “My ex just broke up with me and I…kinda stole stuff from her when I went to drop off my keys and grab a fewthings she left out for me.” She didn’t dare say what she stole, not here. Also, she didn’t want Brooke getting even more freaked out. “I shouldn’t have ignored as many red flags as I did with her, because then I would have realized what a dumb idea that was. Turns out she put a tracker in my phone or something andmiiightbe on her way to find me.” She held up her phone towards Brooke and tapped the screen. “I turned my phone off, so maybe that means her tracker won’t work, but I don’t know.”
“I think it should,” Brooke said. She took a bite of her doughnut. A few peanut butter chips clattered onto her plate. “Unless there’s like, an actual separate transmitter inside your phone, tracker apps probably use your phone’s location settings or something, and maybe those turn off when your phone does?” She shook her head. “I dunno, I’ve never had to track someone.”
“Me neither, but yeah, my ex was the nosy, jealous,if you don’t text me back within five minutes, I’ll assume you don’t love metypes. Which I justified and told myself that she’s had rough relationships before, so if I treat her right, she’ll see she doesn’t need to be that way with me.” Maddie rolled her eyes and shook her phone. “But then she goes and fuckingtracks my phonewithout telling me.”
Brooke pulled a sour face. “Ew, well, glad you’re done with her, I guess. Good luck hiding from her.”
Maddie snorted. “Thanks, I’ll need it.” She ate a few bites of her own doughnut. “What about you? What had you so willing to follow some rando just to get off the street?”
“Ah. Hm. Hmm.” Brooke steepled her fingers and pressed them to her mouth pensively. “Do you want the short version or the insane version?”
“Both,” Maddie said excitedly, happy to take her mind off her drama with someone else’s.
“Okay, be warned: the insane version is…pretty insane.”
Brooke was interrupted by a server bringing them theirdrinks. Maddie stole a glance outside. No sign of a short angry whirlwind tearing up the city looking for her. Yet.
“Alright, the short version is that I got catfished and you caught me trying to figure out where I could get an Uber or something from to get me out of here fast.” Brooke sipped her coffee. “Oh dang, that’s actually really good.”
“I know, right?” Maddie gestured for Brooke to continue. “Okay, what’s the insane version?”
Brooke took a deep breath. “I also broke up with my girlfriend recently, and one of the reasons was because of her younger brother. He had averyobvious crush on me but he thought he was being subtle, alwaysconvenientlydropping by her place when he knew I was over and trying to chat me up, make jokes that I was dating the wrong sibling, that kind of stuff. And my ex justlet him. I told her over and over how uncomfortable it made me, but she said it was cute and harmless. The big red flagIshould have noticed was she always told me I was overexaggerating about stuff. I’ll admit, I do sometimes, but not about this. Her brother was being a real creep.”
“How younger are we talking?” Maddie asked. “Like, it’s cute because he’s twelve, or…?”
“No, he’s twenty-four, twenty-five, something like that. Old enough he should have more sense, butno.” Brooke shook her head. “Anyway, broke up with my ex because I’d had enough of her gaslighting, took a few weeks of Me Time, then got back on the apps to find someone else. I matched with someone and we really hit it off. She was really cute, sweet, into the same kind of music and stuff, y’know? She sent me a bunch of photos of herself—nothing lewd, just her hanging out and saying she wished I were there—and eventually I agreed to meet up. She said she’d be wearing a lime green jacket so I’d know who she was.”
Maddie grimaced, already suspecting where this was going. “But when you got there, she was…”
“Hewas there,” Brooke said darkly. “My ex’s fucking brother. The only person around with any kind of green jacket. He spotted me before I could get away and told me clearly this meant we were supposed to be together. Turns out he deepfaked all the photos of himself because he thought if I learned to like him as a girl, I wouldn’t mind that he wasn’t.”
“That issogross,” Maddie said.
“The thing is, I’m pan. His sister’s a lesbian, so he assumed I was too, and I wasn’t about to tell him that yeah, I’ve also dated guys because that would make itworse. But I tried to tell him that, not only did I not likehimas a person, thisdefinitelymade me not want to date him.” Brooke pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “He kept saying that because I liked the girl he was pretending to be, that means Imustlike him, I was just getting hung up on the gender thing.”
