“When did you get that?”
I follow his stare to the center of my chest where a silver pendant hangs from a chain: A triangle within a circle. The symbol that the Faceless Man marks my skin with. The same symbol I was standing on at the beach in my dream.
Blood rushes through my ears and I squeeze the pendant in my palm, not sure if I am trying to hide it or trying to pretend that last night's dream didn’t happen, and that I never tasted his skin.
The urge to tell Evan that this is the symbol that I was telling him about for the past year dies before it makes it to my tongue. He won’t believe me, he’ll just keep thinking that I’m completely insane.
When I look back up, I almost stumble back. The Faceless Man stands directly behind Evan, towering over him and shrouding him with shadows. With a blink, the Faceless Man is gone.
“Oh, uh, I just found it in my closet.”
Evan looks at me like he doesn’t believe me, but doesn’t push further. “As long as you didn’t waste money on it.”
I nod as the edges of my vision blur. The Faceless Man wasn’t behind Evan. The Faceless Man wasn’t here. He doesn’t follow me to Evan’s. He never follows me to Evan’s. I need to leave. I can’t keep standing here while Evan looks at me like I am crazy.
“I need to go to work,” I mumble under my breath and all but run back to the safety of my car to swallow the familiar white pill without water.
It’s just a hallucination. Just like when you see Dahlia. The Faceless Man did not follow you here. You’re just worked up from the dream.
I count to ten and open my eyes, instantly wishing that I didn’t, because the words that I just told myself make me a liar. The tears threaten to fall, but I don’t let them, not when I can see Nate standing in the kitchen, heating the side of my face with his pity-filled stare and a brown parchment on top of my console holding my gaze:
When death comes knocking, it will not wait for you to answer the door.
It’s midday by the time I have my break. The Saturday and Sunday rush are always the worst, but at least the tip jar doesn’t look as measly.
Like clockwork, I stand in front of my locker, wondering what might greet me. The Faceless Man already left one letter today, maybe he won’t leave another after what he said when I saw Evan yesterday? I know that the thought is just a delusion, because there’s no telling when he contacts me, especially now that he apparently has a phone.
As expected, a single lily greets me when I open the door. Evan told me to stop buying them because he’s sick of seeing them. I don’t even like flowers, let alone lilies. He should know I’m not the one buying them.
The resemblance to my name isn’t lost on me, it was an amusing gift at first. Now it feels like there’s something that I’m not getting.
Next to the lily is another rolled-up brown parchment. This time, before I unroll the note, I bring it closer and inhale deeply. It smells like a forest in the morning when dew still dots the leaves and the mist still swirls around your legs. But it also smells like the ocean breeze at night, freeing, yet cloying, from the unknown that lies within the darkness.
I unroll the paper and fresh tears gather but don’t fall as I read the note:
You will bloom, my sad flower. You already have the earth; I will bring you the sun.
I tuck the note close to my chest and lean my head against the aluminum locker and fist the necklace he gave me. The Faceless Man is the only one who sees me. Like I don’t need to utter a word and he’ll know everything there is to know about me. Sometimes I think that he might know me better than I know myself, but then I remember, I may just be as crazy as they say.
My shift ends in a whirlwind of trouble: spills, broken glasses, angry customers, threats of a lawsuit, and to top it off, someone stole all of the money out of the tip jar. Meaning that tonight’s gourmet meal will come in the form of antipsychotics made by Johnson and Johnson. But already my stomach aches for something substantial to eat, not just a kids’ sized packet of chips that one of my coworkers gave me and the chicken sandwich that I’m guessing the Faceless Man left in my locker, but I couldn’t stomach.
I almost have to stop and rest as I walk up the stairs to my apartment. Exhaustion weighs on my shoulders and my lower back hurts from being on my feet all day. A bath would be great, but we can’t always get what we want. Not when electricity is so expensive, and my patience would be far too thin to wait for the tub to fill.
When I finally make it to my floor, I have to angle the key just right to unlock it. I step into my place, blissfully ignorant with nothing but food and sleep on my mind. As soon as the smell of lasagna drifts through the air and makes my mouth water, I mutter, “God, I really am going insane.”
Nothing screams crazy like smelling your favorite food when you’re delirious with hunger.
I flick the light on and blink. I blink again, thinking the sight in front of me will change and my delirious mind will snap out of it. But it stays exactly the same.
On my kitchen island is a single candle, its flame flickering in time with my pounding heart. Beneath it, a perfectly white plate and silverware that probably costs more than every item I own in the kitchen. Then the sight that truly has me breathless: perfectly cooked lasagna, a plate of sliced ciabatta with garlic butter and melted cheese, and a bottle of wine.
My three favorite things.
For the first time in a while, a real smile tugs at my lips. Without thinking I reach into my bag to fish out my phone to dial the number at the very top: Evan.
I start hobbling toward the bedroom while stripping out of my clothes that smell like stale milk and a crappy day.
He picks up on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Thank you,” I say breathlessly. “I love it.”
I don’t know how he managed to pull this off with finances being so tight, but this is the sweetest thing he’s done for me since the accident. He must have felt bad for manhandling me the day before and being a dick yesterday morning.
“Uh, okay?”
I tie the cheap silk robe—that’s oddly softer than usual—tightly around my waist and pull on some underwear. For one blissful moment, I feel like the old Lili who walked around the house with a robe and a glass of wine while music played in the background. But the thought dies when I hear feminine giggles on the other side of the phone, followed by Evan harshly whispering, “Shut up.”
The worst part is that it doesn’t sound like his flatmate’s laugh.
Logic tears at the joy I felt and steals the smile that was on my lips only seconds ago. Reality is the worst pain there is. Would he not join me if he went through the effort of making all of this? Wouldn’t he wait at the apartment to see my reaction? How did he even get inside without a key? Where did he get the plates and the silverware? Since when does he even cook?
The creak of the wood beneath my feet is louder than ever before, but I’m deaf to the words coming out of Evan’s mouth about how busy he will be and how he won’t be able to see me. Then I stop in front of the counter and properly take in the setup, including the brown parchment sitting on the bench, just above the plate. With hesitant hands, I unroll the letter:
A feast worthy of my creature of the night. Enjoy your meal, my love.
I press the big red button on my phone, hanging up the call even though words keep coming out of Evan’s mouth.
The Faceless Man did all of this. How did he know that it’s my favorite food when I haven’t had it since before the accident?
I could call the police and tell them that someone did all of this, and that this whole time I was right. But they wouldn’t believe me anyway. Part of me wants to knock on my neighbor’s door and give them all of the food just so the Faceless Man doesn’t think that he has me wrapped around his finger.