While I’m lying on my lumpy mattress back at home, I fantasize about the bed in the house out in Montauk. Those silky sheets and nice warm blanket. I bet in that house, I won’t get woken up during the night by sirens at least three times. And one night last week by gunshots. I’m certain if I stayed here long enough, I’d get hit by a stray bullet.
I can’t wait to get out of here. But at the same time, the thought of going to live in that enormous house scares me beyond all words.
I don’t know what frightens me more—the house or Victoria herself. When I close my eyes, I can still see that blank expression on her face. When she moved into that house, she was healthy and happy. Now look at her.
I wish I didn’t have to take this job. I wish I had any other choice.
My phone buzzes loudly on my tiny nightstand. I pick it up and stare at the words on the screen.
Come to the window.
It’s an unfamiliar number, but that doesn’t mean it’s somebody I don’t know. More likely, it means that somebody I do know got a burner phone so they could text me, even though I blocked them.
Meaning, it’s Freddy. I text back: Go away.
Not until you come to the window.
My studio is so tiny that it’s less than a foot from my bed to the window. I cross the two steps to my second-floor window, and sure enough, there is Freddy. It’s raining a little and his dark brown hair is plastered to his skull. He’s blinking away raindrops as he looks up at my window.
I let out a sigh and wrench open the window. “Go away, Freddy. I mean it.”
“Sylvie…” He digs around in the pocket of his baggy jeans while looking up at me. “You’ve got to give me another chance. I love you.”
“Forget it.”
He pulls his cell phone out of his pocket and holds it up in the air. A second later, Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” is blasting loud enough to
wake my neighbors. “Please forgive me, Sylvie.”
I roll my eyes. Freddy is re-creating the classic scene from the movie Say Anything when John Cusack holds up a boom box blasting Peter Gabriel to get back Ione Skye. And it works in the movie. Because that’s a movie. And also because John Cusack and Ione Skye were just a couple of kids who didn’t go through what I went through with Freddy Ruggiero.
Anyway, Freddy knows Say Anything is one of my favorite movies. He always used to tease me that I would tear up during the scene with the boom box. So it makes sense he would want to give this a try. But he doesn’t have a chance. Maybe if he brought a real boom box and not just a stupid phone. But even then, probably not.
“Good night, Freddy,” I say, and I slam the window shut.
I can still hear him yelling my name, but I just ignore it. I’m never taking Freddy back. If he wanted to be with me, he never should have left when I needed him the most. One good thing about getting the hell out of Brooklyn is I’m going to make sure he can’t find me.
