"You really didn't have to get us a limo from the airport. We could have just taken a cab, or get Gabby's brother or my dad to pick us up."
I let myself fall down on my mattress like a road-kill, and thanked all mighty sources including our neighbor's cousin's cat, that the driver helped me with my luggage. Because it was heavy. H-E-A-V-Y! But he carried it all the way up to our porch and didn't make a face once. Unlike me, who looked like a strangled seal when I carried it inside the house and up to my room. And now I was pretty much dead.
Then there was this thing called family... My dad backed off after I finally made him understand that there had been absolutely no boys in our hotel room. But mom fried me for every little microscopic piece of information about the trip, the hotel, the concert and the meeting with Michael Jackson, from the minute I left to the moment I got home. And of course, my sister kept rolling her eyes so hard that I was starting to wonder if they were attached to her body at all. She was a great sibling and we shared a lot, but she never understood my fascination for Michael Jackson. And I didn't really care, because I didn't share her obsession with Jensen Ackles, either. I mean, he looked good and all, but he had nothing on Michael.
The phone dinged, indicating that Jake had replied.
"Had to make sure you got home safely. 💖And that you weren't abducted the luxurious way, by some ridiculously rich and insane monster."
Then I got:
"🤭🤭🤭"
"I'm gonna hear that to the day I die, aren't I? 😒🙄"
"Pretty much. 😂"
"Gee, thanks. Anyway. I'm home, and I'm safe and sound. And thanks to you, I've had the best time of my life. 😊"
"Glad to hear. And now it's time for you to pay me back. 💀"
What?!
A cold chill crept down my spine and I stopped breathing. This was what Gabby warned me about! Things never come for free. Especially something as big as a whole weekend in luxury, and a meeting with one of the world's biggest popstars. And I was stupid enough to believe him when he said he wanted nothing in return. God, what have I done?
"You're gonna kill me now, aren't you?"
He didn't answer.
"Are you there?"
"Are you here??"
"Are you in my closet?"
"Under my bed?!"
"I'm gonna scream!"
"My parents are downstairs, so they're gonna hear me and come save me. And my sister has a black belt!"
...in shopping, I added with a mumble, and kept staring around me in search of any potential threats. And when I couldn't find any, I tiptoed over to the window and squinted out from behind the curtains.
The limo was long gone, as were the kids who were playing basketball next door when I came. Maybe he'd murdered them?
Another pling made me jump like a scared rabbit.
"I have black belts, too. Lots of them, actually. And no, I'm not in Idaho. Unfortunately. 😔 Work schedule is kinda tight these days."
"So you're not going to kill me?"
"No."
"And you've not hired someone to kill me?"
"No."
"Then what are you trying to say?"
"That we should have a movie date! 😁🎥"
"But how do we do that when I'm in Idaho and you're... Wherever you are."
"You have Netflix, right?"
"Ahhh... You're one of the smart guys."
"😌😌😌"
And cocky, I added to myself. Then I turned on the TV and prepared my usual pillow-under-chest-blanket-over-legs position, with the remote in my hand.
"I'm ready," I typed with a mischievous smirk. This was the kind of date I could actually like.
"Popcorn, too?"
"Damn, you're advanced, Jake. Gimme a few minutes. Brb."
Mom frowned when I came stumbling down the stairs, barely keeping myself from falling on my face.
"Where's the fire?" dad mumbled, but he didn't bother to tear his eyes off the NBA match on TV.
"Nowhere. Pretend I'm not here. And the gunshots you're about to hear are popcorn."
"Gunshots?" mom and dad exclaimed in unison, but I was too busy picking out what I wanted to drink. I already had plenty of chocolate and raspberry candy, because I had fallen asleep on the plane and didn't even eat half of it. So I brought home the whole damn bowl.
"I think I feel Exotic tonight," I chuckled to myself, and grabbed the last Fanta in the fridge, mentally making a note to buy more. I also made a note to wait until mom did it instead. What can I say? The benefits of living at home.
The fact that I was twenty-four and should have moved out long time ago was completely ignored. I was a student, dammit! And instead of living on a strict budget and working my ass off at some diner or whatever to make the ends meet, I had the luxury of having the university close enough to my home to live there. There were other reasons too, but I preferred not thinking about those.
"Zup, sis?" DeeVana asked suspiciously. She'd sneaked up behind me, and leaned on her elbows against the counter top next to me.
"Nut'n much," I answered and walked over to stare into the microwave. I was totally convinced that it popped faster if I only stared hard enough. Everybody had a secret superpower, and changing the radiation in a microwave from the 90's was definitely mine.
"Sho' doesn't look like it. You're acting the way you did at Christmas when we were kids."
"Huh?"
"You know, the intense sugar rush after you ate grandma's chocolate cookies all by yourself?"
She emphasized the last three words to make sure that she still had grudges for not letting her taste any.
"But she said 'I've got cookies for you'! How should I know she meant 'you' as in plural? And for your information, the doctor said I was completely fine."
"Fine my ass. There's always something up when you're like this. Are you plotting to paint dad's car again? If you are, you can totally count me in! But maybe we should use water colors this time."
I chuckled while I took out the burning hot bag of popcorn, opened it and emptied its contents in a huge glass bowl. Then I reached for the salt, that got snatched right before my eyes.
"Give it back!" I protested, but DeeVana just laughed.
"Not unless I get a little tas... Hey!"
Before she knew it, I'd snapped it out of her hand and ran toward my room with both the popcorn, salt and the soda.
"Make your own! I'm busy!"
Then I slammed the door shut behind me and reached for my phone.
"Sure thing, babe," was the only message that waited for me, and I tried to ignore the faint feeling of butterflies in my stomach.
"You know, I'm starting to get used to you calling me that now. Should I be concerned?" I typed back, giggling. Then I reached for the remote and resumed to my favorite position, this time with my face in the bowl of popcorn and my hand in the bowl of chocolate and raspberry candy. Literally.
"Mmm... Heaven," I hummed to myself as a new text popped up.
"Not unless we're watching a scary movie. Any preferences?"
God, no! Please...
"NO HORROR MOVIES! PLEASE!!!! 😱😱😱"
"Okay! Calm down, woman! Action? Thriller? Mystery? Sci-fi? Romcom? Musical?"
"Mystery, maybe? And the horror genre... It's not because I'm a scaredy cat, because I'm not! I'm really tough. Like, REALLY tough. 😎"
And when he didn't reply immediately, I felt the need to clarify it.
"Stuff like that doesn't affect me. Like... At all."
"Clowns and all that... Monsters. Bleeding zombies. Ghosts with bodies twisted in all kinds of unnatural angles. Nothing. 😌"
LIES! LIES! LIES! Why do you lie to him? I asked myself, but had no answer. So when he eventually texted back, I actually felt scared to look.
"So if I knocked on your door right now, dressed in a clown costume, you'd be completely cool about it? Nice."
"NOOOOOO!!! PLEASE DON'T EVER DO THAT! I HATE CLOWNS! 😭😭😭😭😭😭"
I felt my heart thumping wildly in my chest at the thought of the clown from 'IT' standing right outside my bedroom door. And when my imagination managed to convince me that I heard a teeny tiny scraping sound on the window, I was close to crying. Fuck this!
"Relax, Mia! No clowns. No ghosts. No zombies, murderers or anything else scary. And if you want, I can get you a giant teddy bear you can cuddle with to keep you safe."
"Yes, please... 🥺" I typed slowly, then erased it.
"How about a cartoon? 😅😬" I asked instead, almost a hundred percent positive he was going to make fun of me.
"Thought you'd never ask! Which one?"
Whaaa...? He... What? He likes cartoons?
"Idk? Do you have a favorite?"
If you say 'Peter Pan' I'm gonna jump off this damn roof!
"I like them all. At least the ones I've seen, and I think I've seen them all. But my weakness is the good, old classics. Definitely."
"So if I say 'Moana', you won't protest and say 'Peter Pan' instead?"
"Not at all! What kind of question is that anyway?"
I threw a few popcorns into my mouth and chewed slowly. Now that I added it all up... There had been so many signs! But seriously? Out of the almost eight billion people on earth, what are the odds that...
"Jake? Can I ask you a question?" I wrote, suddenly nervous as hell.
"Of course, babe."
See? That word right there! A man of his caliber would never have said that to a nobody like me. It was probably just the aftermath of the concert and the upcoming sugar high I had going, that messed with my head. That, and all the jokes Gabby threw out all the time.
"Next time she tries pulling a joke like that, I'll give her a hanging wedgie and let her hang there until late next week!" I growled to myself. Then I asked the question I dreaded to ask.
"Answer honestly. Are you Michael Jackson?"
There. I sent it. And if he was going to mock me for the rest of my life because of the idea of limos and luxurious kidnappings, he'd probably have a ball now.
"😅😅😅"
That was all he wrote, and I didn't know if I should feel angry, relieved or just confused. I must be mistaken. Of course I was.
"Yes, I am."
NOOOOOO...
"You're shitting me, right?"
"Uhm.. No? I don't think so?"
"You're THE Michael Jackson?"
"Yeah. Hi. 🤭"
"Okay. Where did you put the cameras? Are my parents in on this, too? Gabby? I need a few words with them, JAKE. Brb."
I left my room in a hurry, and knocked over the bowl so I got popcorn all over my bed.
"This has to be a joke," I mumbled, and repeated it to myself until I stood face to face with my parents.
"Very funny... Where is he? And where is she?"
"Where's who, honey?" mom asked with the immediate and easily recognizable crease between her brows at display.
"Jake! And Gabby! Where are they?"
"Gabby? Didn't she come back together with you? Did you leave her in Huston?" I heard mom's concern turn into slight panic at the thought of me having left my best friend behind all by herself. Because, in mom's mind we were still five year old girls playing with hula hoops in the backyard.
"Of course I didn't! She's here! At least somewhere," I mumbled and started searching.
"GABBY! JAKE? THIS IS THE MOST RIDICULOUS..."
"Mia! Who is Jake?" dad yelled, and temporarily snapped me out of my rapidly growing anger. "I thought you said there were no boys in your hotel room?"
"There wasn't! Jake is the guy who paid for the trip, the concert. Everything! And I've never even met him! And now he's claiming to be Michael fucking Jackson, and I wanna claw at something, preferably Gabby, because right now, in my head, she's a scratching pole and I'm the bloody cat. And my nails are razor sharp! You hear me? Razors!"
"Mia! Language!" mom scolded and looked slightly upset. Dad looked more furious.
"That man is clearly a nutcase, and I've told you to stay away from men like that. The smallest signs of delusional behavior, and you're out. And you remember the technique, right? Groin - face - run. Groin - face..."
He mimicked everything like the mantra he'd imprinted deep into my cerebral cortex, demonstrating the way he'd taught me to defend myself.
"But dad! I told you I've never met him! And we got back and forth safely, and I had the time of my life and now I'm freaking out and..."
"Mia! Breathe!"
Mom wrapped her arms around me and tried to calm me down, but my heart was beating so hard it hurt my ribs, and my voice sounded so frenzied it was almost ultrasonic.
"Where can I find this guy? I need to have a word or five..."
"Carl! No, you don't! Go sit down!" mom yelled, trying to calm the situation down, but my mind was fogged up with Gabbys, clowns, Michael Jacksons and scary images of a headless person named Jake.
"This is the worst prank ever!" I cried against mom's shoulder. Then DeeVana came down the stairs with my phone in her hand.
"Here, sis. It's ringing. It's some dude named Jake."
"Give it to me!" dad snapped and got up, but I beat him to it. And with my phone locked in a sweaty grip, I pushed 'end call'.
"Okay! I'm calm! See? I'm even breathing!"
I made a somewhat successful attempt to do my breathing exercises, and lowered my shoulders.
"Still breathing. Okay? Let me talk to him for three minutes, and if I don't respond when you knock on my door, call 911. DeeVana? You can get my shoes if I don't survive."
My sister groaned and rolled her eyes, before she dragged her feet to the couch and slumped down.
"Take your pills, Mia," she mumbled, and I was just about to go off at her when my mom yelled out.
"Enough! DeeVana, be quiet! Carl, sit down! And Mia? Go to your room and talk to his Jake guy. He can't hurt you through the phone. You're safe. Okay? Remember that. You're completely safe. I'll check on you every other minute, and everything will be just fine."
DeeVana crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the TV screen with the foulest scowl, and dad sat down next to her, quite a bit agitated too. But after mom had caught my eyes and made me lower my shoulders even further, I felt calm enough to do what she said.
"Okay. I'm gonna call him, and he's not going to be Michael Jackson. It's probably just some guy at school that..."
"Mia! Stop. Talk to him and ask what you need to know. That's it."
She walked with me halfway up the stairs, and gave me an assuring smile when my phone went off again.
"It's him," I whimpered.
"You can do it, honey. Pretend you're talking to me or Gabby. You'll be fine."
"Okay," I muttered and stared at the blinking screen. Then I walked up the rest of the stairs, walked to my room and closed the door behind me. I stared at my phone for a little eternity, before I lifted it up to my ear and accepted the call.
"Hello?"