Chapter 7

For lunch, Larisa made omelets. As she cooked, Adam sat at the dining table. His phone sat on the table in front of him, and while he kept reaching for it, he kept stopping himself from picking it up. Evangeline had been texting him non-stop for the past hour, but hadn’t mentioned following him home. Part of Adam began to doubt that it actually was her, but another part argued, who else could it have been?

            He had read all of her messages thus far. Most were unremarkable; her clamoring, excited for his video and wanting to know more about it. But he hadn’t responded, not once. His phone vibrated on the table—he’d set it to vibrate to not attract Larisa’s attention. Him getting so many notifications at once would surely confuse her. Again, his hand reached for the phone, and the moment he realized that it did, he locked his arm in place. He had to force his hand back onto the mug of coffee that currently sat where his plate would be in a moment.

            Adam felt off. There were waves on the surface of his coffee, as if it were being sloshed about, but he wasn’t moving. There were berries on the decorative plant on the center of the table, even though it was a fake palm plant, and . . .

            Wait. Decorative plant?

            Adam blinked and stared at the plant. With hesitance, he reached out and touched one of the droopy leaves with his fingertip. Sure enough, he felt the artificial fabric-like material. It was really there, but . . .

            We don’t have a plant here.

            “Larisa?”

            “Yes?” His wife’s voice called back from the kitchen.

            “Am I going crazy?”

            “What?”

            “There’s a plant on the dining table.”

            “Oh, you finally noticed?”

            Adam said nothing and looked down at his coffee. He could see the reflection of the leaves in the light hitting the surface of the hot liquid.

            His phone vibrated again. He wondered what Evangeline was saying. Was it possible that she hadn’t exhausted the subject of his video? Did she truly have more to say?

            In the reflection, he saw something growing out of the plant. His mind ran rampant about what it could be—another plant? A flesh-eating spider? A monster made of vines?—but he found himself petrified, unable to look up at whatever was happening in front of him.

            The phone vibrated.

            He heard a dish being placed on the other side of the table, and the sound caused him to look up. Larisa was there, setting her own plate down. She still held another, for him, but he didn’t focus on that, because there was a goddamned red honey flower growing out of the palm leaves. In utter awe, Adam gawked at the new flower. It didn’t look fake, and he could very distinctly smell it, though he hadn’t known what honey flowers smelled like beforehand. It smelled sweet, like nectar. Larisa turned her head, revealing her face to him. But when he noticed something wrong about it in his peripheral vision, he finally looked at her. Then, he felt his blood run cold.

            Larisa had no face. Under her hair was the head of a spider. The fangs twitched as all eight eyes blinked out of sync. She spoke to him, her voice normal despite her inhuman head:

            “Move your mug?”

            Adam was so stunned that he completely forgot the meaning of the word “mug”. So, grasping at straws, not taking his eyes off of the giant spider that had taken his wife’s place, still smelling the intense honey flower scent and no longer smelling any trace of eggs, he reached for his phone and picked it up, perhaps to call 9-1-1.

            What would I say? “Hello, officer; my wife has turned into a giant spider-demon”?

            Apparently noticing his utter horror, Larisa lowered the plate. “Adam? What’s wrong?”

            He forced himself to look away, and then he ran his hand down his face. All at once, the honey flower smell disappeared. Then, he looked back at Larisa. She had her face back—her pretty face that he hadn’t realized he would miss so much after seeing it replaced by something so disturbing. Her brows were knitted in concern. But despite no longer having a smell, the honey flower remained.

            “Um . . .” Without thinking, Adam glanced at his phone. In the past five minutes alone, he’d received 13 direct messages from Evangeline. He stood up, put the phone into his back pocket, and sat back down.

            “Adam?” Larisa asked again.

            “It’s, uh”—he laughed—“nothing. I, uh . . . I think I’ve had way too much coffee today.”

            “But this is only your second cup, isn’t it?”

            “Then maybe I haven’t had enough.” His hands shaking, he reached out and grabbed the mug. When he brought it to his lips, he sipped down some of the liquid.

            That was horrifying, but I guess that’s what I get for wanting my imagination back. Not the first time I’ve had a waking surreal nightmare like that, anyway . . .

            Larisa rolled her shoulders and let out a low breath before picking the plate back up. She placed it down in front of Adam. Mouth full of coffee, he hummed at the gesture, then swallowed and said, “Thank you.”

            She forced a brief smile and sat down across from him. The plant was in the way, so he couldn’t actually see her anymore.

            That damned honey flower doesn’t help . . .

            For the first half of their meal, there was an awkward, oppressive silence. Neither of them dared say a word. Adam tilted his head, trying to see Larisa behind the plant. She didn’t notice, as she was gazing down at her plate. She poked her omelet with her fork. Only two bites worth were missing.

            I’ll humor her. “You okay?”

            She looked up and met his gaze. But she could only hold it for a second before she looked back down at her food. “Yeah,” she assured. “I’m fine.”

            Is she feeling guilty? Does she know that I know about her affair? In a second, she’ll say something that might suggest otherwise, but is that the real reason for her unrest?

            She huffed and looked back up at him. As he predicted, she said, “The financial reports I gave in for this month were all wrong. I missed some sort of memo, updates on most of the other reports that I’m using as a source, or something. So that’s, like, an entire month’s work down the drain. I have to redo it all before the end of the month.” Her elbow rested on the table as she laid her brow against her palm. “It shouldn’t bother me, but it does. I can’t believe I screwed up the report so badly.”

            Lies. She’s lying to me.

            “Is that all?”

            Her eyes, now somewhat narrowed, met his again. “Yeah, I guess so. Why?”

            He wanted to tell her about how he’d overheard her “secret” phone calls, but instead, he held his tongue. After pulling himself back, sitting up straight, he pierced part of his omelet with his fork and brought it up into his mouth. It didn’t taste like an omelet, though; it tasted like honey. But he thought nothing of it.

            For the rest of the day, the two of them didn’t talk very much. Adam spent hours in his office, finalizing the line art frames in his video. Every twenty minutes, though, he made an excuse to go downstairs to see if Larisa was still there. She was in the dining room every time, and she was either busy at work on her laptop (he could tell it was work because of her facial expression; she always looked serious when working) or skimming through the papers beside her laptop. On the other side of her laptop, she had her own mug of coffee. Over the course of the day, he noticed how its contents depleted, and then would be freshly-filled the next time he came downstairs.

            She didn’t seem to find his frequent check-ins bothersome, or even unusual (though they were very much so). The first few times, she would look up and smile at him, but then she stopped paying attention. He’d been counting the number of times he’d checked on her, and the sixteenth time, she finally said something to him.

            Without even looking away from her laptop, or stopping her typing, she asked, “Are you restless?”

            Standing in front of the fridge, peering into it for no real reason, he froze for a moment. Then, he answered with a question of his own: “Are you?”

            He watched her brow furrow, and then she looked up at him. “Um . . . No? I mean, I’m busy. I don’t mind you pacing around the house, but . . .”

            “I mean, are you restless about . . .” He trailed off, stopping himself from confronting her once again.

            “About . . . ?”

            “Nothing. Forget it.” He closed the fridge and went back upstairs, ignoring her gaze as it followed him out of the dining room.

            I’m such a coward. Why can’t I ask? Why can’t I tell her that I know? Why can’t she tell me the truth??

            He returned to his office, closed the door, and sat down. But he didn’t work. Instead, he thought.

            She’s going to leave soon, I know it. I won’t hear the phone call, and I might not even hear her leave. But I’ll go downstairs in two hours, after the sun sets, and she’ll be gone. I know it.

            As he resumed working on his video to pass the time, it dawned on him right at that moment why the video had puzzled him.

            It’s not surreal enough. It’s more of a horror short than a surreal experience. Is it possible to make it more like my previous videos? Maybe if I remove any aspect of story, and start over from scratch . . . No, I’ve come too far for that. I may as well finish this, even if it isn’t like my older work.

            His phone vibrated in his back pocket for the first time in four and a half hours. He had forgotten all about it until this, so he quickly checked it. This time, though, it was a text from Jesse.

            “Drinks at seven?” was all it said. Adam thought about it for only a second before he decided against it.

            No. I have to be here in case Larisa leaves. When she gets back, I’m going to confront her. As much as I’d like to . . .

            “I’m going to have to decline,” he answered.

            “Busy?”

            “Afraid so.”

            “Your loss!” Jesse replied, with a winking emoji.

            Adam’s lips curled into a small, brief smirk. Or maybe it was a scowl; he wasn’t sure. Whatever the case, he closed his texts and turned his attention onto the direct messages from Evangeline.

            Is it too late to answer these if I do read them? I mean, I kind of have to read them, but would she be expecting a response?

            Most of the messages were, as he’d suspected, about his video. She inquired eagerly about when it was going to be finished, and what it was going to look like. But the last few messages were different. One of them was a picture. Before looking at it, he read the message after it.

            “I tried drawing you again. I’m not very good at full-body drawings, but I just had to draw your whole outfit! I hope you like it as much as the last one.” Smiling emoji.

            A tiny flutter of glee blossomed in his chest, and he looked at the image. Sure enough, it was another drawing of him. He was drawn in a static pose, hands in his coat pockets, but it was lovely regardless. On the side of the image, in the same handwriting as before, was his name, the dot above the “i” still drawn as a heart. Under it, the signature “~ Eve” was present again, confirming that it was hers as much as the style did.

            Her next message read, “I wish I had a better camera to take pictures of my art with. It looks nicer in person.” And then, “Maybe I could give it to you the next time we see each other? We could go out for coffee or something and I could give it to you then!” And, “I’m sorry if I seem kind of creepy, asking you out for coffee and whatnot. I know you’re busy, but I just love you so much! I want to have a real conversation with you.” Another smiling emoji concluded this. Her last message asked, “What do you say? Coffee at Starbucks tomorrow morning (or somewhere else, if you don’t like Starbucks)?”

            He decided not to reply. It felt rude to refuse her, though he had to admit that ignoring her felt just as rude.

            I’ll consider it . . . possibly.

            It was an intriguing offer. He didn’t like Starbucks, but the thought of relaxing at a coffee shop with a pretty fan sounded like bliss. His only problem was that he wanted to work on the video as much as possible.

            But I am starting to get stressed out . . . Whatever. I’ll think about it later.

            At 7:02 PM, he stopped working on the video and stood up. He hadn’t been paying enough attention to have heard anything, but he knew that Larisa would have left by now.

            Now it’s time to play the waiting game.

            He had it all planned out. He would sit in the dining room and wait there for her. He’d call her only once, if she wasn’t back by 8:00, and he’d let it ring through, but he wouldn’t leave a message. When she finally returned, he’d stare at her until she felt compelled to speak for herself. Then, he’d tell her that he knew everything, whether it was true or not. That would be enough to scare her into confessing, even if only by accident—by means of a look, or her body language. Something would give it away, and he could finally be certain.

            Sure enough, the dining room was empty. Larisa wasn’t upstairs, and she wasn’t here. She had left.

            Son of a bitch.

            All of a sudden, he was angry. No, not angry—livid.

            Son of a bitch!

            In his fury, he reached for the plant (but not its vase; he wasn’t the kind of guy to smash things in anger, as he felt that would be unreasonable). But right before he picked it up, he heard it: the dense thump of a filled mug being set down on a coffee table. The sound came from the living area, to his right. He turned, slowly, and peered into the room.

            Over the couch’s backing, he could see the back of Larisa’s head. She’d done her hair up into a messy bun, which suggested to him even without seeing anymore of her that she was reading a book. He slunk into the living room and peered over the couch to see more. She was lounging, wearing what she’d been wearing for the rest of the day: her lazy t-shirt and sweatpants. Indeed, she was nose-deep in a book. Apparently she hadn’t even noticed him yet, as her only movement under his eye was turning a page.

            Adam wasn’t sure what he was feeling. He realized that it should’ve been relief, but instead, he remained angry.

            She has to know that I know. Now she’s trying to play it off like I’m wrong—trying to gaslight me into thinking that I imagined the phone calls. If I accused her, she’d only deny it!

            Still, he couldn’t resist the urge to speak. “Larisa?”

            She twitched, startled, and looked up at him. Then, she gave him another warm smile. “Hi.”

            “No phone calls tonight?” Each word was forced and sharp, enunciated clearly and purposefully. But Larisa still seemed oblivious to his distrust.

            “I’m not expecting any.” She sat up, closing the book over her bookmark. Then, she patted the cushion beside her. “Do you want to watch something with me?”

            The muscles in his arms were tense, and his fists clenched and unclenched themselves repeatedly. It took him a few minutes to even register her question. He was too busy strangling the frightening urge he had to throttle her.

            She must’ve noticed something on his face, as her smile faded. “You’ve been on edge all day,” she pointed out. “Are you really okay? Do you want a back massage?”

            He couldn’t stop himself from snapping, “No, I don’t want a back massage.”

            “What’s the matter?”

            What’s the matter? You know exactly what the matter is! Why won’t you admit it?

            “Nothing.”

            She raised a brow in doubt. “You can tell me anything, you know?”

            “Same to you,” he rushed. “You can tell me anything. So, what’s the matter with you?”

            Larisa’s eyes narrowed, and she shook her head. “Nothing. I’m perfectly fine. What’s your problem right now?”

            He tightened his lips to stop himself from answering, “You! You’re my problem right now!” Instead of responding, he turned around and headed back for the stairs.

            “Adam?” she called after him, but she decided to give him some space. He was able to appreciate that much; if she’d tried to follow him, he wasn’t sure what he would’ve done.

            He did his best not to slam his office’s door when he closed it. Then, he sat down at his computer and tried to keep working, as though nothing was bothering him. But it didn’t work. His hand was shaking too much, and the line art he did was wobbly and unusable. He tried again, to the same result. Frustrated, he scribbled all over the frame with thick lines, pressing as hard against the tablet’s pressure board as he dared. It felt good to do that, so he vandalized a few frames, forward and backwards. When he’d had his fill, he slapped down the pen and sat back in his chair.

            This video wasn’t going to suit my style very well anyway. Nobody would’ve liked it. I should just scrap it.

            Determined, he reached for his keyboard. He pressed and held down “Ctrl”, and then tapped “S”. At the bottom of the window, he watched the progress bar save the file with the newly-destroyed frames.

            A few minutes went by without him doing anything. He just sat there, breathing, slowly calming down. Still bitter about Larisa, but less likely to throw something against the wall, he picked up his phone and looked again at the messages from Evangeline.

            “I just love you so much!”

            Adam blinked and looked back down at her offer to join her for coffee tomorrow morning. It only took him a few seconds to answer: “I know a better coffee shop. – Adam”.