Page 124 of Fate Fiction

The thread between us had grown so taut it snapped.

I came in a quick rush, it overtook me so fast I wasn’t able to steady myself for it. When the shockwave shook through me I braced my hands on my knees for stability.

Evan gripped my hips and pulled me down with him onto the bed. Our bodies collapsed into a messy heap.

He brushed my hair out of my face, “I can’t let you go.”

A few minutes later, I sat in the bathroom and crashed into earth with an awareness that this was all real again. No more hypotheticals. I’d grabbed my phone off the counter to check the time and saw a dozen messages from Andrea, each more frantic than the last.

As my feet rested on the freezing tile I sobered up to the reality of what just happened. I had slept with Evan while the two of us co-existed in this weird undefined relationship. It felt right, and I wanted to have more and more nights with this satisfied warm feeling sitting deep in my belly.

My phone went off again and I finally opened the messages.

Andrea:

Set your instagram to private ASAP.

Someone took pics of you and Evan at dinner.

Then someone else took pics of you and Evan at the bar.

Instagram is blowing up trying to find out your identity.

It’s kind of wild, you making an anonymous gossip page.

Kind of hot tbh.

She had started emphasizing her own messages and sending exclamation points. Anything to grab my attention and get my privacy in order. But the message that stopped me in my tracks was a screenshot of Evan and I.

It was from the Instagram stories of a celebrity gossip page that I had heard of but didn’t follow. It had the text “Evan McLeod spotted with mystery woman at Lunar in Boston” accompanied by one of the grainiest photos I’d ever seen. This particular page was a place where followers could anonymously submit celebrity sightings or “heard it from a friend in the industry” type of gossip.

It was the kind of source that was maybe 50% accurate but 100% shit stirring. In the photo Evan himself was hardly recognizable, and I was not much more than a blurry tan silhouette.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. I swiped to the next photo.

This one was more obviously Evan, but lucky framing cut out the majority of my features. A third of my face showed, my curls, my soft cheek, and the edge of my glasses.

“I need to go home,” I said, stumbling out of the bathroom with heightened awareness, “I’m sorry.”

Evan sat up on the couch. “Is everything okay? Did I hurt you?” He crossed the room and assessed me, searching for injury. I kept my eyes downcast, scared to look at him. I’d been inadvertently seen by thousands of people tonight, I couldn’t bear to be seen by the only person who mattered.

“I think dinner didn’t sit right with me. I need to sleep in my own bed, that’s all.”

“Yeah, uh, let me drive you.” He fumbled for his pants that had been cast aside on the floor and pressed his hand to his skull.

“I’m going to walk. I’ll be fine.” I gathered up my things quickly and pushed past him, “I’m sorry,” I said again as I rushed out. He backed up with his hands up and watched as I walked out the door.

sunday, late february

I couldn’t sleep through much of the night.

I should have slept in Evan’s bed in that cursed nineties mirrored nightmare of a room. We should have gotten coffee and breakfast delivered and rotted on the couch all day.

I shouldn’t have run.

I had gotten back to the apartment at close to two in the morning, and didn’t think I fell asleep until nearly four. I was lying in bed, late into the morning on Sunday when Andrea called. The first two calls were sent to voicemail but when she rang a third time I begrudgingly answered.

“Obviously this was sort of inevitable when out galavanting with celebrities,” Andrea said when I answered with a hungover grunt. I looked over at my boots and clothes strewn around my room. My feet burned with blisters that formed on my hasty journey back, those boots were most definitely not made for walking. Adrenaline, alcohol, and anxiety had melded with the cold on my walk. Evan texted asking if I got home safe and the most I could manage was sending him a thumbs up emoji.