Mila Santos Is (Not) Dead

ii: rat poison

ADRIAN SMILED at the barista as he picked up his third cup of taro boba from the counter. He slid two crisp one dollar bills into the tip jar and plodded back to his table near the window. He stabbed the yellow straw into the lid—purposefully off-center. Everything was purposeful with him, his life carefully curated. He could never get it exactly in the middle, anyway. It looked better to have it wildly off-center. Even the yellow straw and purple drink were purposeful. Complimentary colors. They'd catch the eye. Make you click on his feed.

Adrian Moreau was no amateur.

He snapped some photos of his drink on the roughhewn wooden table. In the background, the snowy city streets twinkled beneath the fairy lights strung around the window. Adrian picked his favorite, filtered it, and posted it to his Instagram story.

Only then, when he had properly immortalized it, did he allow himself a drink. Sipping from the yellow straw out of the corner of his mouth, he pulled his black hoodie with the sprawling, red logo from a metal band he didn't listen to up on top of his head and sulked down inside it.

His eyes flicked up to the window as his phone lit up with Instagram notifications.

He scanned the crowd for Mila, but she wasn't there. His chest fell.

She was an hour late.

He was already on his third cup of boba.

He looked down at his phone. Someone had DM'd him responding to his innocent boba post: I wanna suck your balls. To top it all off, they'd punctuated it with the drooling emoji, the eggplant emoji, and the sweat drops emoji. Adrian had accidentally opened it. His cheeks reddened; then he almost laughed. If only they knew. He quickly deleted the chat, blocked the creep, and opened his messages app.

Nothing from Mila.

He huffed and chewed a tapioca pearl.

ADRIAN

[ where r u? ]

No reply.

He arched an eyebrow. On the outside, he looked annoyed. But inside he asked himself: Do I mean that little to her, that she would be so late without even sending me a text?

Whatever, he told himself. He shut his phone off and tossed it across the table. I don't even care anymore. He tried to enjoy his boba. Who needs girls when you have boba?

His phone buzzed.

He jumped for it, nearly spilling his tea in the process. But no—it was just one of his friends asking if the boba place had finally sponsored him. It hadn't. He was just a slut for boba and wanted everyone to know the best boba place in the city.

He groaned and sunk into his chair.

***

MALACHI LEANED AGAINST the green fence around the subway station's entrance. He was almost sitting on it. Almost. The spikes on top prevented that behavior, unless you were kinky, and Malachi was not.

Shivering, he pulled his coat tighter around him, his skateboard kicked up beside him. His breath formed clouds in front of his lips. The snow fell in heavy white clumps that stuck to his clothes and the pavement. The tips of his fingers, uncovered by his gloves, had gone numb. Above him, the sky darkened, but the city streets were still brightly lit.

His phone buzzed. He fished it out of his pocket and slid it open.

Yes, literally slid.

In the year of our lord and savior 2021, this boy had a slide phone. By. Choice.