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Sound has become static in my ears. It fizzes through the speakers in my headphones.

My hand rests on my half-closed laptop screen. The chunky old computer balances on my knees. 

My back rests solidly against the metal appartment door.

Light streaks the floor from the hotel hallway beyond. I can almost smell the musk from the carpet. The only thing that keeps me is a thought. There was a question about a card.

Cartoon ponies prance across the screen in distraction now. I continue to binge watch My Little Bro-nee because ponies and fandoms can never die.

There are no answers. Not a single answer. 

It's been two days since Ronnie talked to me and I won't be the one to start this conversation.

I realize that I don't know what I want. Not anymore.

I haven't for a while. Not since Bernard dropped me off in this apartment and held up a screen that showed me a credit balance that I could spend. The deal was that I was supposed to get a job, which I did, sort of.

I don't think Bernard would have agreed that drug delivery was a job, more like a hazard. I always told him that I worked night shifts at one bar or another, which was a close enough description as to what I did. Most clients preferred to meet at a bar.

And before you ask, no, Bernard is not another boy who I'm dating, or even an older friend with benefits. Bernard is a cop; my case worker some people might say since he found me where my mother left me eight years ago. He used to visit me in the children's home. Sometimes he would bring his wife, a wonderful young lady, whom I could not help to notice was a different girl every time. Bernard had the worst luck with women.

And then all of a sudden I found out that Bernard had signed adoption papers for me and he had set me up in this quiet little place. I really do wonder what he saw in me.

An idea comes. I click for the browser. My fingers click along as I input a new search query to the wide, wide web. 

I looked up 'pervert who hands out white cards'

Cartoon voices sound in my head, preaching of friendship.

Somewhere between pictures of old men in mug shots and screams of cartoon joy, I hear the squeak of floorboards. I tap the mute button. The floor outside the door creaks with the shifting of weight and the light under the door is shadowed.

I imagined Ronnie pulling together the courage to knock.

I wonder if he can hear my breath or the thud of my heart.

Instead the weight shifts on the floorboards in another squeak. The shadow spreads further forward before pulling back and the footsteps are retreating.

When the rattling doors of the elevator snap shut I flip closed the cover of my laptop, push it away across the floor, and stand to tug the door open.

[There] A small rectangular box that looks like it might fit an electronic device sits on the carpet.

We stare each other down. 

Me... 

and 

the 

box. 

The door shuts behind me. The box is in my hands. Blue. Sturdy cardboard. No ribbons.

My mind conjures exciting ideas, some embarrassing. (Like sex. Like did I miss my own birthday? And soap. Maybe soap.)

I give up guessing and pull a vial from the packaging. 

Drugs, obviously. And a note.

And a note.

(With one hand I awkwardly shake it open.) 

And a note with an address.