Page 20 of Somewhere Only We Know
“Oh my God,” I said to the ceiling, dragging my hands down my face. There was so much that could go wrong.
One, if Fern woke up and didn’t know where she was, and saw me, she would freaking flip and I would look like some creeper who probably roofied her at the bar. Two, if my landlady caught wind of this somehow, I would literally be beaten to death with a shoe.
I took a deep breath.Okay, it’s cool. Keep your head on straight, Jack. You excel in crises, right? This is your jam. You can get out of anything.
I rolled up my shirtsleeves and threw the extra dead bolt on my door. In case my landlady decided to pay a surprise midnight visit. Which wouldn’t be the first time. She was an insomniac and got bored easily. I glanced at Fern to see if the sound stirred her awake.
With her head dropped forward and her limbs splayed like a rag doll, there was no chance of anything short of an EDM concert waking her up.
I grabbed a pillow and a blanket from the bedroom and tossed them on the sofa.
As I stood there staring at her and the fake leather sofa cracking and peeling with age, I felt guilty. Maybe she should get the bed. That seemed like the right thing to do?
If Charlie only knew. We actually shared the bed—switching off every other week, one taking it while the other slept on the sofa. Weeach had our own set of sheets and changed them every week. It was straight-up Wild West, but it worked.
What would he say if he knew this strange girl was sleeping in our bed?
Fern was fully slumped over now, her head almost touching her knees.
Time to move her.
I closed my eyes, willing my overtired muscles to be cool with it.
Oof. Fern’s foot hit my calf as I hauled her into the bed. After looking at her for a second, those silly slippers stuck out at me and I sighed deeply. I lifted one of her feet by the back of her ankle and quickly tugged off the slipper. Trying not to linger too much on touching her skin, I made quick work of the other slipper as well, my fingertips barely touching her.
Fern let out an odd sound and I froze. But the next thing to come out of her mouth was a snore.
I gritted my teeth. I was going to have a heart attack because of this person.
Suddenly, she threw her arm across her face, knocking her cap off.
I finally had an unobstructed view of her.
She had a lot of makeup on, almost like she had been made up for some occasion. Which was at odds with the fact that she had been barefoot in hotel slippers. But the rest of her—long-sleeved shirt and jeans—looked normal.
What was she doing here?
Whatever the case, I was staring, so I eventually drew the blanket over her and turned off the bedside lamp.
I looked at my phone in the dark to check the time, the screenwashing everything in a cold blue light. Every part of this made me feel like a serial killer. It was late, past midnight. Charlie usually got off work around seven in the morning, so we were safe from him busting in here.
I hoped, anyway.
After washing up, I climbed into my makeshift bed on the sofa, hearing Fern snoring lightly in the next room. A billion thoughts raced through my mind, making it pretty much a guaranteed nope for sleeping.
What if she woke up before me and freaked out?
What if she freaked out and screamed, making my neighbors, or worse, my landlady, run in here?
What if she freaked out, screamed, and someone called the cops?
Every scenario ended with me in Hong Kong jail and being some weird Reddit urban legend.
Because I couldn’t sleep, I swiped through my phone—going through social media accounts on autopilot.
As I scrolled through Twitter, an image popped up that made me pause.
It was an account for a comedian I followed—and it was about his upcoming performance onThe Later Tonight Show. The image attached to the tweet showed the comedian’s face alongside another.
