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Chapter 15: Anthony Is Not Stupid

Author: Margie Shii
last update publish date: 2026-10-21 16:37:34

I came home at six that evening expecting a funeral. What I found was garlic.

Anthony was in the kitchen in his duck pajama pants, stirring a pot of tomato sauce with the focus of a surgeon. The radio was playing something soft. There were two plates on the table and a candle he had clearly dug out of a drawer. The blue notebook sat on the counter, closed, with a spoon resting on top of it like a paperweight.

"Hey," he said, without turning around. "Sit. Dinner's almost ready."

I sat and folded
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  • I Hooked The Wrong Man    Chapter 15: Anthony Is Not Stupid

    I came home at six that evening expecting a funeral. What I found was garlic.Anthony was in the kitchen in his duck pajama pants, stirring a pot of tomato sauce with the focus of a surgeon. The radio was playing something soft. There were two plates on the table and a candle he had clearly dug out of a drawer. The blue notebook sat on the counter, closed, with a spoon resting on top of it like a paperweight."Hey," he said, without turning around. "Sit. Dinner's almost ready."I sat and folded my hands in my lap like a boy outside the principal's office. He served pasta, poured water into both glasses, picked up his fork, then put it down again and looked at me with those clear brown eyes."I'm going to say some things," he said. "You don't have to answer all of them. But I'd like you to not lie.""Okay.""Okay." He took a breath. "I'm not stupid.""I never thought you were.""You thought I was easy to fool, though. And that's fine. I like to believe the best in people, and sometimes

  • I Hooked The Wrong Man    Chapter 14: Forty-One Pages

    There are moments in life when your brain offers you three excuses at once, all of them terrible, and you pick the one that comes out of your mouth first."It's research," I said.Anthony looked at the notebook. Then at me. "Research.""For a class. A project. About, um. Human behavior.""You're in economics.""Behavioral economics," Theo said at once, with the serene smile of a man who had practiced lying in front of mirrors. "It's a very hot field. We're doing a character study for our psychology elective. He picked Lucas. Because Lucas has so much character.""I do not," said Lucas, flatly, "have a character.""He means you're interesting.""He means I'm a stalking victim. I'd like to file a report.""You hate paperwork," Anthony said, and turned a page.I stopped breathing. The restaurant had gotten very loud, forks and plates and a baby crying somewhere near the window, but the only sound I could hear was paper rustling under Anthony's thumb. He had the quiet, careful expression

  • I Hooked The Wrong Man    Chapter 13: Fake Dating, Real Problems

    The war council was held at noon on Sunday, in Theo's apartment, over a plate of burnt toast. Anthony was at his sister's helping with wedding favors, which gave us exactly two hours to save three lives and one dying houseplant."Rules first," Lucas said. He had brought a legal pad. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall, pen poised, looking like a man who had decided that if the universe was going to be insane, it would at least be organized. "What does the system do, exactly?""It assigns a target," I said. "You get ninety days. When the target's affection hits a hundred percent, the mission completes and you're moved on.""Moved on where?""Nobody knows," Theo said. "I woke up in this body with a new job and a name tag.""So the rule is, if I fall in love with either of you, one of you disappears.""Technically it's if you fall in love with me," I said. "Theo's job is done."Theo raised a hand. "Respectfully, I'd like to stop being called a finished job.""Noted," said

  • I Hooked The Wrong Man    Chapter 12: The Worst Group Chat in the World

    Nobody moved. The radiator knocked twice, and the dying houseplant on the windowsill shed one tired leaf."Dom," Lucas said at last. His voice was almost unrecognizable, thin and scraped, like a rope pulled tight. "Dominic. You said that name like it belongs to you.""It does." Theo set his mug on the floor. His hands were trembling, and he hid them in his lap. "Lucas, I need to tell you something, and I need you to not hit me until I'm done.""No promises.""Fair." Theo took a breath and opened his mouth. What came out was a horrible grinding noise, like a dial-up modem being strangled. He tried again, got a wet crackle, clapped a hand over his throat, and glared at the ceiling."Is he having a seizure?" Lucas asked me, without looking away."No. It's the system. It does that.""Does what?"Eats the important words." I rubbed my face. "He's trying to tell you he's the person you knew, in a different body."Theo wiped his mouth. "Ask me something," he said, rough and desperate. "Somet

  • I Hooked The Wrong Man    Chapter 11: The man in 4B

    By midnight, the apartment smelt like pizza, fresh paint and the particular silence of a house with a secret in it.Anthony had fallen asleep on the new green couch halfway through a movie, an arm flung over his face, a slice of pepperoni in his hand. I took it, put a blanket over his shoulders and stood there feeling like a thief in a very kind house. Lucas had left an hour ago, after fixing a bookshelf that did not need fixing. He had said a flat, polite good luck to me, and I had spent the hour after pretending not to listen for his footsteps."Fourth floor," the system said, in my skull. "Door on the left.""I know," I whispered, "stop nagging.""I have not said anything for forty minutes.""You were thinking it loudly."I put on my sneakers and took the brass key out of my drawer for no reason I could explain, and slipped out the front door in the dark. The stairwell smelt of old carpet and somebody's burned toast. On the way down I tripped on my own shoelace and hung from the ra

  • I Hooked The Wrong Man    Chapter 10: Boxes, Biceps and Bad Intentions

    Moving Day began with a lie, for most honest thing for anything in my life to start at this point."It's only four boxes , "I told Anthony, standing on the curbing in front of my dorm at nine a. m.. "I really don't need the van.""You have a desk lamp and a cactus ," Anthony said, brushing a hand over my cheek. "You need the van."He had rented one, indeed, a battered white one with a sunken door, and brought donuts and a hand truck as well as a playlist called Moving In With My Boyfriend (Happy Energy); he looked like a golden retriever at a pageant. I took up my cactus, felt the old trapdoor in my stomach give its familiar twitch."Help is on the way, by the way," he said, already checking his phone. "I asked Lucas, he said yes."I dropped the cactus.It landed, fortuitously, upright in its pot, which I took as an ill omen. "You asked your friend Lucas to help us move?""He's my oldest friend. He's got the biceps." Anthony frowned. "Is that a problem? You two seemed fine at dinner."

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