Chapter 16: The Softball.

7:00 p.m. The Wrong Kind of Surprise

Something is wrong.

Not the usual wrong. This is new wrong.

The clock says 7 p.m. Not a.m.

That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

Your pulse spikes. You feel it before you even look: heat, stickiness, a wet, rubbery give like your hand is pressed against a rotisserie chicken.

You freeze.

No. Don’t look. It’s fine. Maybe it’s a pillow. A cursed, breathing pillow.

Slowly — very slowly — you turn your head.

No no no no no no no.

It’s a girl.

A cute girl.

The genie has escalated to ****.

She’s tiny. Glitter‑coated. Tequila‑marinated. She smells like coconut lotion and the exact moment someone’s life derailed. She’s draped across your couch like an abandoned party favor.

And your hand?

Your hand is in her. Fused between her shoulder blades like you are the operator of a horrifying, floppy meat puppet of ****.

You make a sound. Not a scream. Not a word. Something primal. Something the human throat shouldn’t be able to make.

“No,” you whisper. “No, no, no, no. I refuse. Take it back.”

You try to shake her off. She wriggles like a dying fish. You shake harder. Her head lolls toward you. Her eyes half‑open.

“Yo quiero Taco Bell.” she moans.

You open your mouth to respond — anything — but she answers first.

By vomiting.

It’s hot. It’s chunky. It soaks instantly into the fibers of your carpet.

You stare at it, at her, at your hand still buried in this sticky, clammy creature, and whisper to the ceiling:

“Why?”

7:05 p.m. – Siege Engine

You can’t leave her on the couch. She’s leaking, twitching, and smells like the tragic aftermath of a frat party colliding with a Bath & Body Works.

Your brain, which is now operating on the emergency power of pure panic, comes up with a plan. Not a good plan. Not even a plan by normal human standards. But a plan nonetheless:

You scoop her under the knees, hoist her up, and angle her forward.

She is now a battering ram. You are the world’s least qualified siege engine operator, tasked with storming Castle Bathroom.

Her limbs flop against you.

One of them slaps your face. You taste glitter.

“Wheee~ I'm flying,” she giggles.

“Oh God,” you mutter. “Don’t enjoy this. Nobody should enjoy this.”

You slam her shoulder into the bathroom doorway. “Sorry.”

She doesn’t even flinch. “Do it again, Daddy.”

You die inside.

You set her down on the toilet. She sighs, like this is a luxury experience.

“Poop‑pourri,” she says dreamily.

You stare at the wall, contemplating how much bleach can be safely ingested before you die. Or if you even care.

7:07 p.m. – Horror Movie Foley

The first thing you hear is… well, it’s hard to describe.

Imagine a pot of soup boiling over. Now imagine that soup has gained sentience and declared war on the world.

That sound.

Then the smell.

A toxic brew of perfume, vomit, and something so profoundly wrong it makes you reconsider humanity.

You gag. You retch. You heave into the sink like you’re the one dying.

She sighs happily.

You dry‑heave into the sink.

She glances up at you with bleary, glitter‑rimmed eyes.

“You okay?”

You stare at her. At the tiles. At the smeared reflection of your ruined life in the bathroom mirror.

“No,” you whisper. “No, I am not okay.”

She pats your shoulders reassuringly. "It's gonna be okay."

7:15 p.m. – Bathroom Butler

She’s done. Probably.

You don’t check. You’re not that brave.

You reach for toilet paper with your free hand, trying to figure out how to wipe a glitter‑coated drunk girl without direct eye contact or committing a felony.

She giggles. “You’re like… my butler.”

You freeze. “No.”

“You are. Bathroom butler.”

You clean her up as fast as possible, hand trembling like you’re diffusing another bomb.

She claps. Claps. “Five stars. Would poop here again.”

You want to scream.

7:30 p.m. – Alien Abduction

You need her in bed.

So you hoist her up again — cargo mode — and trudge toward the bedroom.

Halfway down the hall she decides she’s a talk show host.

“Do you believe in aliens?” she slurs.

“What—no—stop talking.”

“I do. They put me here. For research.”

“You put yourself here. With tequila.”

She gasps. “You’re with them.”

She tries to slap you but only succeeds in smacking her own thigh.

7:45 p.m. – Bedtime Boundaries

You reach the bed. Lower her onto the mattress. She spreads out like she’s claiming territory.

“Comfy,” she sighs. “You’re cute. You should take off your shirt.”

You stare at her like she just asked you to eat glass. “Absolutely not.”

She shrugs. “Your loss.”

You consider making her sleep in the bathtub.

7:00 a.m. – Screaming Match

You wake up to the sound of groaning.

Not your groaning. Hers.

She’s awake.

You open one bleary eye. She’s sitting up slowly, rubbing her temples like someone spent the night sandblasting her brain.

“Oh my God,” she croaks. “My head.”

You stay very still. Maybe if you don’t move, she won’t notice you’re—

Her bleary gaze drifts down to your hand fused between her shoulder blades.

She freezes.

You freeze.

Then she screams.

The kind of scream that makes your ancestors flinch.

“WHAT THE HELL—WHO ARE YOU?!”

You throw your free hand up like that’ll help. “Wait! It’s not what it looks like!”

She stares at you like you just confessed to every crime in the book. “WHERE AM I?!”

“My house!”

“WHY AM I HERE?!”

“I DON’T KNOW!”

She tries to stand. You go with her, unwillingly, yanked forward like a terrified sidecar.

She spots the door and bolts, dragging you along.

“LET ME GO!” she shrieks.

“I CAN’T!” you shriek back.

She grabs the nearest throwable object — your alarm clock — and wings it at you. It bounces off your shoulder.

“STOP ASSAULTING ME!”

“I’M NOT—YOU’RE ASSAULTING ME!”

She whirls, panting, eyes wild. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!”

“NOTHING!”

“Oh my God, I was ****. I was ****!”

“I DIDN’T **** YOU!”

“DID YOU **** ME?”

"NO!!!"

"THAT'S WHAT A **** WOULD SAY!"

You flail helplessly. She's not wrong.

She points at the door. “I’M CALLING THE COPS.”

“With what?!” you shout. “You don’t even have your phone!”

That gives her pause.

Then she screams louder.

The neighbor starts banging on the wall. “Knock it off, you sick freaks!”

You close your eyes. “Please kill me now.”

8:30 a.m. – Work

You drag her through the front doors like you’re smuggling contraband through TSA.

She’s in your hoodie, hood up, sunglasses on. Unfortunately, this only makes her look more like a **** victim.

Your coworker looks up from their desk. “Uh… new intern?”

“Don’t,” you growl.

Then she raises her voice, loud enough for the entire office:

“I WAS KIDNAPPED!”

Everyone freezes.

You wave your free hand wildly at your fused arm. “DOES THIS LOOK LIKE **** TO YOU?!”

It does, actually. It really does.

9:00 a.m. – The Call

She finally — finally — calms down enough to call someone.

“My friends,” she mutters. “They’ll come get me.”

She’s still shaking, still glaring at you like she’s deciding whether you deserve jail or the **** penalty, but at least she’s quiet.

You sit there, sweating through your shirt, while she dials.

“Hello?… It’s me… No, I don’t know where I am… Some guy’s house… NO, I’M NOT HIS GIRLFRIEND… Yeah, I know, I blacked out… What?… What do you mean ‘everyone was freaking out’?… Who?”

She pauses. Sits up straighter.

“Wait. You mean that guy? The slimy one? He came downstairs saying I was gone? Like, vanished?”

Your stomach sinks.

She hangs up slowly, staring into the middle distance.

“…My friend says there was some creep at the party. They think he was gonna… you know. And then I just disappeared. Like, popped out of existence.”

You don’t know what to say.

For once, neither does she.

Silence.

Not the good kind. The kind that fills a room when two people are thinking wildly different things but neither wants to be the first to speak.

She’s staring at the floor, still pale, still trembling — not from rage anymore, but from whatever cocktail of fear, hangover, and realization is running through her.

You’re staring at the opposite wall, praying for divine intervention, or for the genie to just end your suffering with a lightning bolt.

Every so often she glances at you. You can feel it.

10:15 a.m. – Therapy Session

She sips her water like it’s poison.

“Do you ever think,” she starts, staring at the wall, “that maybe you peaked in high school?”

You blink. “Can’t say I did.”

“I think I did.” She scratches her temple. “I was on the dance team. Had a boyfriend. We were, like, the hot couple. You know. Prom‑adjacent royalty.”

“Prom‑adjacent?”

She waves that off. “Point is, now I’m here. My friends suck. My grades suck. My liver definitely sucks.”

You nod. Mostly because nodding seems safer than speaking.

“You look like someone who peaked in high school.”

You frown. “Thanks?”

She smirks. “Was it football or band? I’m getting band.”

11:30 a.m. – Honesty Hour

“My last boyfriend?” she says suddenly. “Cheated on me. With my roommate. She said it wasn’t cheating because it was ‘an experiment.’”

You cough. “That’s… awful.”

“She still owes me fifty bucks for utilities.”

You nod again. You’re becoming a bobblehead of sympathetic noises.

She squints at you. “Do you even date?”

You freeze. “Uh. Not really.”

“Figures,” she says. “You’ve got that… sad bachelor apartment energy.”

"Also, your house smells. Like, really bad."

You make a noise somewhere between a laugh and a whimper.

7:00 p.m. – Pop

You’ve been staring at the clock for ten minutes, silently willing it to move faster.

She’s dozing on your couch, still in your hoodie, sunglasses sliding halfway down her face.

You don’t know if she’s asleep or just avoiding talking to you again. You don’t care. You just want 7:00 p.m. to arrive like the Second Coming.

It does.

POP.

She’s gone.

No goodbye. No screaming. No “thanks for not being a murderer.”

Just… gone.

You sit there in the sudden quiet, staring at the dent she left in your couch cushions.

It takes you a minute to notice the folded napkin on the coffee table.

In messy, looping handwriting:

Thanks for not being the worst. —J

You read it twice.

Then you set it down, lean back, and say to the empty room:

“…Therapy should pay both ways.”