“GIZEL!!” Megan, the supervisor of the Firehawk College Cafe, calls out, much louder than needed. “You’ve got a phone call!” She continues to yell. Gizel sighs and apologizes to the couple she was serving to answer the call.

“Hello?” She asks into the phone.

“Hey, Bun-Bun!” Her adoptive mother, Mari, cheers on the other side of the phone.

Gizel sighs and smiles. “Hi, mom. Any reason for you calling me at work instead of coming into the shop? We’re on campus too! The house is literally a block away! So you really should have no excuse for not just walking in!” Gizel giggles, playing with the white strip in her long red hair.

“As much as I love that coffee, I didn’t want to get distracted by its heavenly scent,” Mari says with a dramatic sigh. “Anyways, what I wanted to tell you was that a very attractive boy stopped by looking for you~” She seems to purr out. “Perhaps someone from class? It’s okay. You can tell me, dear~” Gizel rolls her eyes.

“Mom~,” She whines a little bit, “I’m already dating Malcolm.” She leans against the wall, knowing this was going to be a long conversation.

“I know, I know.” Mari sighs. “I just don’t think he’s right for you.”

Gizel rolls her eyes again. “Mom I’m so limited in my pool of boys it’s not even funny.”

Mari sighed. Mari just hated hearing her daughter speak this way, but Gizel just couldn’t change the way she saw herself. Every morning was a battle. My hair’s to red!, or, My white streak is weird!, or, I have too many freckles!, and don’t even get her started on her body image issues.

“Besides, Malcolm is different. He listens and plays sports and likes me.” She says, but Gizel could practically hear Mari roll her eyes.

“Okay. Well just know that an attractive boy came by and when I told him that you weren’t home he said that he’d come by later. Or something like that.”

Gizel sighs. “‘Or something like that’? Come on mom, you need to be more specific. There are a lot of attractive boys at school. None that I think would come to our home, but still.”

“Honey. Calm yourself. I didn’t get his name but it seemed like he knew you. So you may have a class with him and not even know it.” Mari says. “Anyways. Sorry, I took you away from your job. You have fun, and I’ll leave some food in the fridge for you to reheat.”

There was a soft click of Mari hanging up and Gizel puts the phone back on the wall.

“What was that about?” Megan asks. Gizel jumps a little but composes herself quickly.

“O-Oh. Just my mom trying to play matchmaker. You know how she is.” She gives an awkward and unconvincing smile, but Megan just shrugs.

“Cool. You’re closing up tonight.” Before Gizel can even argue that she’s closed for the past three days Megan is gone.

She sighs and put on a smile. The day drags on slowly but finally, her shift ends and she is freed. “Night everybody!” She says as she waves goodbye to her fellow co-workers as they walked out of the shop before starting the closing up process. She wipes down the machines and windows, cleans the counters, and bags up any trash she finds. After all that Gizel grabs the keys and locks the doors from the outside and throws away the trash. That’s when she feels it. Like someone is right behind her, watching her.

She turns around fast, ready to grab her pepper spray when Malcolm comes into the light. “Relax, Ember.” He holds up his hands. “I come unarmed.” He chuckles and she lets out a big sigh.

“Oh. I thought you were some kind of murderer or somethin’.” She hits his chest lightly as he continues to laugh.

“Right, right. Sorry. I forget how jumpy you can get at night, Ember. That’s why I’m here. Thought I could walk you home.”

Gizel sighs. “Sure. That sounds nice. I’ve got this splitting headache for my mother calling me at work.” She mutters.

Malcolm lifts an eyebrow. “Oh? What did she call you about?” He asks as she rubs her forehead and temples.

“She was telling me how some guy showed up at my house looking for me.” Malcolm’s eyebrows lift up close to his hairline.

“Really?! Is she okay?” Gizel laughs. Malcolm seemed to always be so overdramatic whenever she tells him something.

“Mom didn’t say he was threatening or anything. I think she was trying to set me up with him, actually.” She teases. “Silly I know.”

Malcolm chuckles. “Yeah.” He puts his arm around her waist.

“It’s completely crazy.” She giggles and leans on him. “Why think of other men when I’ve got you?”

His grip tightens a little, “Yeah… Why do that?” He gives her a big grin. She smiles back as he walks her home.

The whole walk she continues to feel the chill of being watched. She darts to look up at Malcolm every so often to see if it’s his gaze she’s feeling, but it never is. Which leaves her slightly fear stricken all the way to her porch step.

“See ya tomorrow? We can meet up at lunch, under that big tree?” Malcolm asks, standing one step before Gizel, making her look down at him.

“Huh? Oh,” She shakes off her worries and smiles. “Right! Of course. Will you be buying or would you like me to make you something?” She asks.

“Aw, thanks, but my mom’s visiting for the big game and she wants to pack me; like it’s elementary all over again.” He dramatically rolls his eyes, making Gizel laugh a little.

“Alright. But if you change your mind, just let me know, okay?”

Malcolm nods. “Sure.” There’s a pause that starts to slip into an awkward one until Malcolm steps up to kiss her cheek before taking off and leaving her on her porch. Gizel sighs with a smile before heading inside.

“Ah! Gizel, I’m so glad you’re home!” Mari cries as she waddles over to hug Gizel tightly, given the fact that her pregnant stomach didn’t allow her as much speed as she would like. “I have some food for you.” Gizel was shocked to see Mari still up. Mari was a woman of middle stature with light olive skin, like a gingerbread cookie, short brown hair in a banged bob cut and chocolate eyes to match. She just emanated motherly warmth. Even her hugs were warm.

“Y-you’re still up?” She asks, heavily confused.

“Yeah, well, little Romeo here was kicking too much.” She says, placing a hand over her bulging belly. “So I thought I’d just wait up for you. That way we can talk, you can eat, and just have some girl time.”

“Oh, okay.” Gizel puts on a smile. “What’s on the menu?” She asks, walking into the kitchen.

“I made some chicken cordon bleu. It’s still pretty fresh.” Mari says, slowly following from behind.

“Aw, thanks, mom,” Gizel says, taking some and putting it on a plate. “This is just the best. You will not believe the day I’ve had.” Gizel grabs a fork and sits down to give her mother all the details of her day at work.

“And then I closed up, and Malcolm showed up and-” Mari cuts Gizel off.

“Wait wait. Malcolm walked you home?” She asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah. He surprised me at work.” Gizel explained. “Anyways, we walked home, he kissed my cheek at the porch and now I’m here,” Gizel says, as she stabs her fork into the chicken delicacy to take her first bite.

“Well… how nice of him.” Mari says with an almost forced smile, rubbing her stomach. “Just make sure that there's no funny business between the two of you.”

Gizel rolls her eyes. “Of course mom. I’m not dumb.” She takes another bite of her food. “‘Boys only want one thing. If they won’t wait for marriage then they aren’t worth your time.’ Isn’t that what you always say?” Gizel says, her voice teetering between sass and teasing.

Mari narrows her eyes. “You better not be sassing me, young lady. Or you’ll be in a world of pain!” She jokes with a serious face, picking up Gizel’s butter knife and pokes her in the arm. Gizel giggles.

“Mom~” She rolls her eyes with a smile. “I know full well not to cross you.” She stands and puts her dishes in the dishwasher.

“Smart girl,” Mari says, giving Gizel the knife to put away. Gizel just rolls her eyes.

“Anyways. I have a cooking lab tomorrow. So I should get to bed.” She smiles, trying to quickly escape.

“Gizel.” Mari grabs Gizel’s hand on the railing. “I love you.” Mari gives Gizel a smile.

Gizel smiles back, but it’s a tired one. “I love you too, mom.” Her hand slips away from Mari’s and she slowly gets up the stairs and into her room.

It’s at the end of the hall on the right. It’s marked with a butterfly ornament that Mari had gotten her when she was first adopted into this home. She turns the brass knob and opens the white door to reveal her room, which hadn’t really changed over the years.

It’s the second largest bedroom in the house and it has four walls covered in soft pink paint. There was a queen sized bed that sat with the headboard against one wall. There was a large window with white, sheer drapes to which had flowers that Mari had embroidered onto the fabric herself. One flower for each year they’d had Gizel in their lives. It was kind of cheesy, but the love was there, and Gizel loved the anticipation of adding one each year.

Gizel put her bag down on her desk chair and plopped down onto her plush, pink comforter, grabbing the closest stuffed animal — which happened to be a black wolf — and brings it close to her chest. She kicks off her black flats and sighs. Her feet throbbed from all the walking she hadn’t realized she’d been doing until now.

She groans when her phone starts to buzz. She rolls and gets off the bed, fishing the phone from her bag. She doesn’t even look at the number before she answers it, she was honestly too tired to care who it was.

“Hello?” She yawns. There’s some light panting from the other side of the call and Gizel sighs. “‘Kay. I’m hanging up.” She says, but just before she can a voice speaks out from the other end of the phone.

“Don’t. Trust. Him.” It was deep and gravelly, clearly having some sort of filter over it.

“Excuse me?” She asks in a slight upset manner.

“You heard me. That boy that you think you’re dating. Don’t trust him. He’s dangerous.” The voice says.

“Okay, this is a prank, right? Thomas? Is this you? You really need to stop this stupid ‘girlfriend of a jock’ hazing thing. It’s been a month. Let the idea go.” She snaps into the phone, resting the phone between her shoulder and ear as she pulls out a nightgown.

“THIS IS NOT A JOKE!” The voice erupts, making Gizel jump and the phone falls to the floor. When she picks it up again she hears the voice heave a sigh. “Fine. Be that way. But also be careful. Your Boy-Toy is dangerous. Watch yourself Gizel.” And then nothing but soft, disconnected, beeps fill her ears.

She slowly takes the phone away from her ear and looks at it curiously. Out of that whole conversation, the way he said her name was the only thing that was really bugging her. Of course this stranger calling her boyfriend mean things was bad, but that venomous undertone of the way he formed every part of her name left goosebumps on her pale skin.

She puts the phone to her chest as she takes a deep breath, calming herself. “It was just a prank call.” She tells herself, not fully believing in her words but shoving all curious thoughts to the back of her mind as she puts the phone on her charger and dresses for bed.

But what she was unaware of where the piercing green eyes that watched her shadowy silhouette move behind those sheer curtains.