It started sometime in November. Parker couldn’t remember the exact day, only that it had been roughly half a year since the Michael Incident. Mikayla was still sensitive on the topic… or, at least, she was. 

Often, Mikayla had been slipping away to go riding on her motorbike. Rae and Parker had let her, knowing full well just how Mikayla was feeling after that douchebag had unjustly dumped her for fucking “laughing with another boy.” Who the shit does that? 

And so the two girls let their best friend ride off into the sunset, probably to scream her anger into an empty forest and scare the mother fucking shit outta some birds. So long as it helped her, neither of the girls cared. 

Until one day, Mikayla was late. 

Parker was sitting on her bed, her knee jogging involuntarily out of anxiety as she stared at the digital clock on Mikayla’s nightstand. Minutes passed like hours as Parker bit her thumbnail. Rae was on her bed, above Parker’s, listening to the annoying, rhythmic thud, thud, thud, thud of Parker’s shoes hitting the floor. 

“Oh, for the love of–” Rae finally exclaimed, rubbing her hands against her face in anguish. “If you’re that concerned, fucking call her!” 

“What if she crashed?” Parker blurted out. “What if she got arrested? I don’t remember if she still has her plate on her bike, it might’ve fallen off. What if she got kidnapped?! What if–” 

A knock at the door interrupted Parker’s anxious rants. Rae groaned in relief, leaping from her bed—something that Parker would usually scold her for, but was too worried to be bothered with—and went to open the front door. 

“Amy, thank fuck,” Rae groaned, opening the door to let in Parker’s girlfriend. “Your girlfriend is driving me insane.” 

Amy frowned. “What’s wrong?” she asked as she came in at Rae’s invitation, a bag of takeout hanging from her hands. She set it down on Parker’s desk as she went over to sit beside her girlfriend, whose leg still hadn’t stopped bouncing. “What happened?” 

Parker didn’t respond, not even as Amy’s hand came up to rub her back. Her eyes darted from side to side as she thought. 

Suddenly, she bolted upright, yanking her thumb from between her teeth. “Yeah, I’m calling her,” Parker said. 

She went over to her desk and unplugged her phone. Within seconds, she had pulled up Mikayla’s contact and clicked the call button. 

It rang once. 

Twice. 

Three times. 

“Oh my fucking god, she’s dead!” Parker shrieked when all of a sudden, Mikayla answered. 

Parker nearly gave herself a concussion as she slammed her phone to her ear. Across the line, Mikayla’s tinny voice could be heard. 

“Hey, girl. What’s up?” Mikayla greeted. 

“Dude, the fuck you at?” Parker asked, her anxiety vanished as if it had never been there. Amy saw through it, and so did Rae—it was a front, so that Mikayla wouldn’t know just how concerned Parker had been. “You up and vanished after class. We still on for the skate park today?” 

The answer was obviously no. Parker knew that. The sun was nearly set, and they could get in trouble if they were caught in the skate park after dark. But she asked anyways, to sound nonchalant and totally not anxious at all. 

“Uh, well…” Mikayla said, trailing off. In her silence, something swooshing could be heard in the background. “I…” 

Is that… the ocean? Is Mikayla at the beach? Parker wondered to herself with a frown. Out loud, however, she asked, “Mikayla, you good? You sound… off…” 

“No, yeah it’s just… I-I… Would it be possible if I… tell you… later? In person?” Mikayla asked, her voice rising unnaturally high like how it always did whenever Mikayla felt guilty. 

“Well, yeah, sure,” Parker agreed, taken aback. “See you then, I guess?” 

Honestly, Parker did not expect Mikayla to agree so readily, and so brightly at that, her smile practically visible in Parker’s mind as her joyful voice exclaimed, “Yeah, thanks, see you then!” 

“Bye?” Parker said, but Mikayla had already hung up. Parker brought her phone away from her face to stare at incredulously, as if it had been her device that acted so oddly. “The fuck is up with Mikayla?” 

Rae meandered over, her takeout in hand (and already half empty, somehow) to glance over Parker’s shoulder at the phone. She lifted her sunglasses off her eyes and squinted at the phone, equally suspicious. But she just gave a shrug and said, “I dunno. Probs  stressed or some shit.” 

Parker shrugged Rae off her shoulder and scowled. “When the fuck have we ever heard a stressed-out-Mikayla sound like that?” 

As if to solidify her point, she shook her phone in her hand, like she could shake the information out of it. But Rae just shrugged again. 

“Maybe she’s on something,” Rae said, stuffing a whole drumstick in her mouth, bone and all. 

Parker rolled her eyes. “She’s not ‘on something,’” she countered, using air quotes as Rae obnoxiously slurped the meat from the bone. “This isn’t one of your dramatic, unrealistic True Crime: College Kidnapping stories!” 

“Hey,” Rae said, pulling out the half-eaten drumstick from her mouth to point at Parker. “Those are true stories. That one with the girl who drugged her ex-boyfriend out of jealousy? Sounds like something a certain someone might do, if you know what I mean…” 

Parker rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Michael isn’t kidnapping Mikayla,” she said. A small voice was nagging in the back of her mind, but she brushed it away. “She answered my phone call, so that means she’s safe. I mean… the girl sounded happy. Now get your saliva-covered chicken away from me.” 

Rae shrugged, letting Parker move her wrist over before she raised the chicken back to her lips. “I’m just saying, it could happen,” she said around the chicken. 

“I’m not saying it couldn’t, I just mean I doubt it is,” Parker countered, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Well, you didn’t have the call on speaker, so I only know based on your side of the call,” Rae said before narrowing her eyes and taking a step back theatrically. “For all I know, you could be working with Michael!” 

Parker rolled her eyes, her hand coming out to swat at Rae’s arm. “Oh, quit it,” she grumbled as Rae snickered. 

Rae schooled her face back into a dramatically suspicious glare. “Who knows? Maybe you’re Michael in disguise,” she said in a conspiratorial voice, wiggling her fingers. 

“Why, I oughtta–” Parker hissed with a smirk, turning on her heels to grab her pillow from her bed and began to whack Rae with it. 

Rae laughed as she bent to protect her head with one arm as the other cradled her precious takeout to her chest. “Hey!” she exclaimed as she crouched. “No fair!” 

“Take that, you silly conspiracy theorist!” Parker said with a laugh. 

“Yield, yield!” Rae exclaimed with a laugh, falling to her knees. “I yield!” 

Parker hit her once more before complying with Rae’s surrender. She turned and tossed the pillow back to her bed and helped Rae onto her feet. 

“Damn, girl,” Rae said with a huff of laughter. “Yield!” 

Parker barked a laugh before sighing. She turned to sink into her desk chair, fiddling with her takeout container that was laid out in front of her. “What if… what if you’re right?” Parker asked with a wince up at Rae. 

“Oh, come on,” Rae said with a crooked smile and a roll of her eyes. “I was joking.” 

“I know that,” Parker said defiantly. “But still! Those are true stories that really happen? What if something did happen to Mikayla?” 

“Well, we’ll have to see when she gets back,” Rae said with a one shoulder shrug. 

“When will that be, though!” Parker exploded, her eyes wide as she gave a huff. 

“Whoa. Okay, girl. Chill,” Rae said, holding her hands out. She walked over to pop open Parker’s takeout and push it gently towards her. “Maybe you should eat something.” 

It wasn’t a suggestion, and they both knew it. 

Parker grumbled but agreeably picked up her own fork and popped it out of its plastic wrap. “If she gets hurt, I’mma kill her,” Parker muttered as she began eating. 

Rae rolled her eyes and patted Parker’s shoulder. “Yes, yes, you do that,” she said sarcastically. “Right, Amy?” 

She turned to see that Amy wasn’t on Parker’s bed like she had been. Rae frowned, glancing around like Amy was somehow hiding in their small one-room-plus-a-bathroom dorm. 

“Amy?” she asked, looking around. At her quizzical voice, Parker looked up as well, a furrow in her brow when she saw that Amy wasn’t in the room. “Where’s your girlfriend?” 

“Do I look like I know?” Parker deadpanned. 

Outside the door to the dorm, Amy was pulling her phone out to call Mikayla. Her foot was in the doorway to prevent the door from swinging completely shut, meaning she could just barely hear the girls’ confused conversation from inside. She ignored it, however, to complete the task she stepped out to do. 

Calmly, she hit the button to call Mikayla. It rang twice before Mikayla answered. 

“Hello–” she answered before Amy cut her off. 

“Mikayla, I don’t know what’s going on, but something you’ve said has gotten the girls as worried as clams,” Amy said in her quiet voice. 

Amy was a literature major, something her parents only supported because they themselves had struck gold as screenwriters… though, metaphorically speaking, striking silver would be a better term—they weren’t crazy rich or famous or whatever, just popular enough to sustain their household as Amy and her little brother grew up. 

But Amy was different from her happy-go-lucky family. She was the ‘black sheep’ of her family, so to speak, favoring dark colors and eerie poetry. And that was exactly how she lectured Mikayla. 

“Your unknown whereabouts are throwing the girls under a solicitous tidal wave of undeniable cold. A chill is descending like maggots on a corpse, Mikayla. Honestly, the way the clouds cover the sun erratically on a daily basis claims a higher award of regularity than your constant whims pulling you like a marionette on a string. When will you demand to be free of your puppeteer’s control?”  

Amy’s rant seemed never ending as her voice began to actually portray some form of concern. Because of the past few years they had spent together, Amy had grown rather fond of Parker’s friends, chaotic as they were. She had gotten used to Parker’s overprotective tendencies, Rae’s insensitive ‘that’s the truth’ statements, and even Mikayla’s carefree go-with-the-flow attitude. 

“Or at least let the wind blow your choices back to us so we aren’t lost in your hurricane!” 

“Okay, okay, Amy!” Mikayla finally managed. “I’m on my way back. Lemme just… do one last thing.” 

Amy gave a huff of impatience. “If you insist, who am I to take the strings?” she said before lowering her phone from her ear and hanging up. 

As she pocketed her phone, Amy turned and pulled the door open. 

“Amy!” Parker exclaimed, her face brightening as she saw her girlfriend reenter the room. And then her brow furrowed and she asked, “Why’d you step outside?” 

“Phone call,” Amy replied vaguely. 

Parker, who was used to Amy’s vagueness, nodded easily. “Alright,” she said as Amy came over to hop up onto a cleared space on Parker’s desk. 

And they stayed like that; Parker in the desk chair, Amy on the table, and Rae sprawled awkwardly on the crowded floor. The space was mostly filled with mindless chatter between Rae and Amy as Parker anxiously watched Mikayla’s digital clock, the minutes passing by agonizingly slow. 

Eventually, Amy had to leave—she had the night shift at the local college cafe that night. It was about the same time that Rae had to get up off the floor to flick on the lights. 

Still, it was nearly another half hour before the faint jingle of keys sounded outside the door. Both girls straightened as the door clicked open and revealed– 

“Dude, where’ve you been?” Parker demanded the moment Mikayla stepped in. 

“And… why’re you soaking wet?” Rae asked, lowering her glasses down the bridge of her nose to squint at Mikayla’s absolutely drenched form. 

Parker noticed the blank look on Mikayla’s face; her fears of drugs and kidnappers and screams as Mikayla was being chased down a dark alley by a crazed pervert–! 

She forced her thoughts to stop, giving her head a light shake as Mikayla just fucking dropped her bag on the fucking floor and then sat, whilst soaking wet, on her bed. 

“And where’re your shoes?” Parker asked as she frowned at Mikayla’s bare, sand-coated feet, trying to keep herself calm. 

“Aw, man.” Rae groaned as she stood from the foot of Parker’s and her bed, walking to the track of sand Mikayla had left. She groaned again as she gestured at the footprints and complained, “You brought in sand!” 

“Dude, seriously,” Parker said, completely ignoring Rae’s continued grumblings as she went to cautiously sit beside Mikayla on the bed. “You good?” 

Mikayla numbly shook her head, no, as she stared down at the floor, her eyes unseeing. 

Parker and Rae made eye contact, their faces mirrors of concern at their very obviously out of it friend. But when they looked back to Mikayla, what they saw freaked them out even more, if that was even possible. 

Nevermind, it was definitely possible. 

Because Mikayla was smiling. Not like a ‘oh, haha, what a funny joke’ kinda smile. Not like a ‘I’m just generally happy’ kinda smile. 

She smiled like she had gone insane. The sort of smile one makes when they’re absolutely demented and found a new object to place on their pedestal of obsession. 

Or perhaps that was an over exaggeration, but that’s what it looked like to Parker. 

But as Mikayla raised her eyes to meet the gazes of the other two, Parker tried her very hardest to compose her facial expression to one of mild interest instead of absolute fucking shock. 

And then, Mikayla finally spoke. 

“I’m in love.” 

Just three simple words. 

And Parker almost passed out. 

All attempts at controlling her expression swan dived out the window. 

It took three seconds for Parker to get her brain to cooperate.