Page 9 of Below the Shadow of the City

CHAPTER 9

THURSDAY, LATE SEPTEMBER

H ours have passed since I fled the basement, I keep picturing him standing there, looming. Every time I shut my eyes I see him, I consider checking under my bed with a flashlight. It’s physically impossible. People, moreover creatures, like him don’t exist. He’s a Frankenstein-esque amalgamation of every monster story I’ve heard, and a mix of every beast that haunts an abandoned castle in a fairy tale. And yet, I texted him six hours ago.

When sleep finally does find me I dream about him, like he’s some mystical being that’s possessed my every thought. I replay our meeting, I attempt to link our past conversations to his face. And when I wake up with sticky dampness between my legs, I realize I must have had a dream attaching his monstrous form to the voice that rendered me undone multiple times over.

There’s an inevitability I have to face eventually. I have woven thoughts together in my mind but they quickly become unraveled. Thinking anything remotely coherent has been an impossibility, but there are facts and truths I can organize. I scramble for a notebook I shoved in my nightstand when I thought I’d be getting into dream journaling. There are pages full of random artsy poems I’d scribbled down, a drawing of a horse wearing pants from when Perrie and I debated on how they’d wear them, and some doodles that I’d mindlessly sketched when on hold with the cable company. Feverishly, I flip to a blank page and begin a list.

Fact 1: “Adam” is a creature of some sorts. A terrifying beast-like thing.

Fact 2: such creatures like him exist (?)

Fact 3: his voice alone made me come undone completely.

Fact 4: he’s definitely hot, and it’s messing with me how hot he is. Because, on a biological level, I’m probably not supposed to find him hot.

Fact 5: up until seeing him in real life I was swiftly falling for him, and I’m mostly terrified of that.

The realizations ping pong in my brain. How am I supposed to come to terms with all this? How am I supposed to tell anyone about him? I’m a logical person. I have to think through all this logically. He lives…somewhere nearby, I guess? Does he dwell in the basement? Do other people know of his existence? Is he even real?

“Hey Margo, yeah, I finally met the mystery hottie. He’s a monster. Yeah, covered in fur, giant fangs, tail, horns sticking out. The works, you know. Anyways, I think I want to fuck him even more now.”

I go through each of the facts one by one as I reconcile with them. “Adam” and the alley monster are one in the same, and even if he was stalking me, he obviously meant no harm. And I’d been doing plenty of stalking him on my own. So, at a minimum we’re even.

What I can’t grasp is his mere existence, even the best CGI and most intricate makeup couldn’t replicate how he looked. So animalistic, but simultaneously so human . I’d relinquished my only opportunity to look at him closely. I want to study his features closely, I want to know the feeling of his fur and his horns and his claws in the palm of my hand. My stomach wrenches thinking of touching him, he’s a mystery that remains entirely unsolved.

My hormones are in overdrive, and they want the feelings that he brought up inside me to not be temporary. Truly, if his voice is one of the only ones I get to hear for the rest of my life I’d die a happy woman. But I know where this affection can lead, and I don’t know if I’m ready to let this go beyond anything but what it is now. Which is a strange, confusing lust swirling with fear and curiosity. Lest you forget he is a literal monster, Sigrid. Get a hold of yourself.

My own conflicting feelings aside, at a minimum I should apologize for how I reacted, from our conversations alone I know he has feelings. He’s been so open and honest with me in a way that makes me think I might mean something to him. I’ve shared more with him than I have with anyone in months. I cried on the phone with him. I can’t think of the last time I’ve cried in front of anyone but Margo, and even that was months ago. Maybe I can’t take back my panic and discomfort, or the fact that I tried to pepper spray him, but at the very least I can apologize to him.

Hi.

You’ll probably ignore this.

And I won’t fault you if you do.

But I’m sorry. Like, incredibly sorry.

For all of it.

Stalking you in the basement.

Forcing you to come out of hiding.

And the whole freaking out thing.

If you never want to speak to me again I understand.

But I needed to make sure you knew I feel awful.

If I never get to see you again, have a nice life.

I go through the motions of my life like nothing has changed. It’s been over a week since I sent my apology message. I’d accepted that it would mark the end of things. He would haunt my existence for the rest of my life and I’d eventually learn how to deal with it.

I’d still wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat after seeing his figure standing in my bedroom doorway. Some nights I would go on walks to clear my mind. Each time I looked to see if he was lurking in the alleyway again.

Something was very clearly wrong with me, and I was horrible at concealing it. It’s too easy to fall back into the habits of old Sigrid, and while I do my best to cover up the fact that my entire worldview has been warped, I’m an awful liar.

“You’ve been weird,” Margo spurts out when we’re walking to lunch together. I’d clammed up on anything regarding the “mystery man.” As far as I’m concerned, the mystery had been solved. The only thing left open-ended was what I was going to do with the emotions I still held inside myself.

“I’m always weird,” I counter and look at the crosswalk sign across the street from us. I haven’t been fully myself since January, and I can’t remember who I was before then. My only points of reference were when I was in my virtual situationship with “Adam” and now.

“Weirder than normal,” she quips. “You were barely alive on Friday, and since Monday you’ve been acting like you saw Bambi’s mom get killed in front of you or something. You seem thoroughly haunted.” Haunted was an incredibly appropriate way to describe it. I’d filled my notebook with sketches of what I saw to recreate what I remembered. Maybe it was to prove to myself he was real at all.

“I’m in a funk, that’s all,” I shrug as the crosswalk sign changes and we stride across to the expensive salad place we’re grabbing lunch from.

“It wouldn’t have anything to do with the mystery guy, would it?” She asks quietly, cautiously, even. She’s likely waiting for the admission that he wasn’t real, or that he was some creep. The real answer would be beyond any person’s understanding.

“Things dissolved, just like I knew they would,” this was the easiest of the answers. “It was stupid to get tangled up in anything.” There was a heavy, bitter truth behind the end of my statement. It was stupid. I was naive, hopeful, and it crashed around me, like it always does. I would be the one to fall in love with a monster I’d only heard the voice of and completely destroy it all in a singular meeting.

“You can’t keep blaming yourself for things not working out, he clearly was hiding something major from you if he refused to meet you.” You don’t even know the half of it.

“I’ll be good in a few days, I got my hopes up,” my eyes sting as Margo opens the door for me. It’s not so much a promise to her as it is to me. I need to get over this, and soon. I may never be able to do laundry in the middle of the night again, but I can move on. I’ll have to move on.

We wait in line behind other twenty-somethings gleefully paying upwards of twenty dollars for a salad and I check my email as we stand. A new notification from a familiar name sits at the top of my inbox.

RE: Gingham Books Opportunity

Hi Sigrid,

I wanted to reach out one final time about the opportunity with the collaborative cookbook opportunity with Gingham Books. Just a reminder, the deadline to commit is October 1st.

I’m not sure if this email is still active anymore, but I wanted to try once more. We’d really love to have you participate.

Best,

Billie

I audibly groan. The biggest opportunity of my life has quite literally fallen into my lap and I’d been ignoring it rather than facing the fear head on. Until Billie sent yet another email, I’d forgotten her pitch entirely. I still have until Monday to say yes, which would thrust me into a two month sprint of recipe development and testing, which I don’t even know if I have the energy for anymore. But, the logical part of my brain pushes through and I realize I can let myself use it as a distraction from meeting the “Adam” — the monster, or whatever he is. If I make myself busy enough, I won’t have insomnia tempting me with another trip to the laundry room, and if my only thoughts are about baking, I can’t ruminate on what could have been.

There had been plenty of time extended towards me to deliberate, but I need the weekend to sit down and truly figure it all out. I can frame out a few recipes, figure out ingredients to buy, start testing a bit. It would be good, it would be a healthy way to cope. If this entire ordeal had taught me anything, it’s that I haven’t lost my spark entirely, the cookies were at least a success.

I’m thrown back into reality by the employee at the salad shop asking for my order. I stammer as I try to remember my surroundings, Margo gives me a careful glance from behind as I fumble an order that I’m only half sure I’ll actually enjoy eating.

Two more days , I promise myself. Two days of mourning “what could have been” and then I need to focus entirely on future Sigrid. I can’t let myself be completely unwound by my own thoughts anymore.