Revenge(18)

My hands feel dry from touching so much dusty cardboard.

The sun is low on the horizon, almost setting. The grass and trees around me are so green. It’s still hard to believe it’s technically winter here in California.

I put one of my EarPods into my ear and start up a favorite playlist for the walk to the bus.

After a minute, I have to skip past the song, because it’s making me homesick. The next song makes me feel the same way.

Finally, I switch over to some random songs I don’t know very well. At least these don’t make me feel homesick.

I ride the bus without incident, and return home to an empty house. Amanda will probably be working until late.

Alone in the kitchen, I twirl around, dancing while I make a simple pasta dinner. I take my food with me into my bedroom, and I open the beat-up laptop I brought to LA in my suitcase. This thing is actually held together with duct tape.

After jiggling the power supply a couple of times, I get the laptop to power up. The password for the wireless is a bunch of swear words. Obviously Amanda’s choice.

Now I’ve got to watch this video of me getting mugged.

I don’t want to see it happening, but I need to see everything.

My palms are sweaty. My heart starts to pound as soon as I type in Dylan Wolf’s name and click the search button.

Not very much stuff comes up.

The top result is the video Maggie must have played. It’s called Blue Shoes.

My heart is pounding like a jackhammer in my chest.

I press the play button and watch the video. This video has been put together using footage from several people.

Everything is how I remember, except Dylan seems different. He’s still as gorgeous as his raspy voice, but I notice something I didn’t see yesterday.

There’s a sadness to him.

Even though he’s grinning and teasing me in the video, as soon as he looks away, his smile fades. He looks lonely.

I replay the video at full size, and press pause during a close-up. He’s looking at the camera lens in this frame, so his face on my screen seems to be looking right at me.

My heart is still racing.

Just seeing the guy on my computer makes me feel like a giddy teenager. If I ever do meet him again, will I even be able to talk to him?

I start talking to myself.

“Hello, Dylan. I’m Jess. Remember me?” I give my computer screen a flirty wave. “I’ve been sent here by Maggie Clark to see you. She wants me to…”

My throat closes up.

Maggie Clark wants me to seduce you. Probably as part of a recording contract, or… maybe just for her own amusement. I really don’t know.

I try again. “Hey. I’m Jess. Do you wanna get a drink sometime?” His frozen face stares back at me, his dark eyes so mysterious and haunted. “We could go back to your place.”

My finger accidentally clicks the spacebar, restarting the video. Dylan blinks at me, as if he just heard what I said.

I shriek and cover my mouth with both hands. As soon as I figure out what just happened, I start to laugh like an idiot.

The song finishes too quickly, so I restart it again and scroll through the comments for clues.

There are thousands of comments already.

Nobody seems to know very much about the mysterious Dylan Wolf. One commenter swears she knows him from the time she spent working in Alaska. She says it was a few years ago, but she’d recognize his voice anywhere.

I click on her profile, feeling jealous. I wonder, how well did she know him? She’s not even sure it’s the same guy. She probably just wants attention, judging by the stupid-looking profile picture she’s using.

There are a bunch of girls who say they met him, and even more who talk about disgusting things they want to do with him. I can’t read any more of these, so I switch over to Google.

There’s not much on here about Dylan Wolf. It’s as if he never existed before a month ago.

Someone with a music blog has posted a map of local sightings. The map shows places Dylan likes to busk for money, as well as favorite days. It looks like he’s usually playing in my neighborhood on Sundays, so I might run into him again this weekend.

I look out my darkened bedroom window for a moment and rub the knot in the muscles of my shoulders. How long can I handle working in the archives, digitizing all the dusty files? Did I really leave Nan on her own for something so worthless?

When Nick and I were leaving today, he said working in the archives isn’t even a real job. It’s a punishment.

I’m not going to get any decent career experience spending all my days in the basement.

Maggie Clark wants me to get close to Dylan Wolf. Sounds tempting. Getting to know him would be fun.

I’ll hope to bump into him again. Maybe he wants to be friends.