May Kill Me

Twenty

We made it to the train station just as the announcement was made that the train was about to leave. 

"Thank god! For a second I thought we'd have to stay the night!" Andrea exclaimed as she plopped down in a blue upholstered seat. 

I only nodded, unsure where Andrea's strong dislike of Wellesley came from.   

"It's not that terrible," I said with a shrug, sitting down next to her, "There are worse things than getting stuck in some ritzy town in Mass." 

"You'd think that," Andrea said ominously, and took a pair of black wireless headphones from her bag. 

I was about to ask her what she meant by that when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. 

"Hi, hope ur stalker isn't out and about 😨" 

The text is from Travis, and for a moment, I feel a bit confused as to why he's texting me. 

Andrea has her eyes closed, arms crossed over her chest. 

She's either trying to sleep, or she doesn't want to talk. 

I'm not going to lie, I kind of forgot about Travis. With everything going on, I forgot that he saw whoever was out there, lurking in the shadows. 

The memory of what he said came rushing: Travis said he saw the guy at the club, who insisted on taking me home. 

"Hi, Travis! All good, no sign of him."

I type. Before I hit SEND, I consider adding an emoji, to make myself sound friendlier. 

"Hi, Travis! All good, no sign of him 😐." 

That sounds kind of better. I don't want to sound like I don't care about his inquiry, but I do feel weird about him reaching out. We aren't friends. At least not as far as I was aware. I did spend the night at his - whatever she was to him - Jenna, apartment. Maybe that somehow brought us closer together? 

"I should have texted you sooner, sorry. Life got overwhelming 😵"

He shoots back in a matter of seconds. 

I note that he keeps typing when the three dots appear again. 

"Maybe we should establish a system. Like, I text you every day at a certain time, and if I don't hear back from you in 24 hours, I call the cops 🚔🚔🚔" 

"That's not a great system. The stalker might steal my phone, and pretend to be me." 

I fire back. 

What the hell am I doing? 

This is weird. 

The Travis texting me is so different from the stern jock obsessed with a group project. He was nice enough to drive me back home though. Maybe this was the real Travis - a nice guy who cared about people. 

"Haha, that's true. Should I call instead?" 

What? Call? No! 

Was he flirting with me?  

Before I can send a big fat NO, my phone vibrates again. It's Travis. 

I can't believe he's calling me. Is he crazy? 

"Hello?" 

"Oh, hi! So you're alive! That's good." Travis sounds a bit different over the phone, younger. 

"Yeah, alive and well. I went to visit a friend." 

Next to me, Andrea doesn't move, but I don't want to wake her up, so I get up and walk down the aisle toward the end of the car.