Receipts

Her bedroom felt wrong.

Stacy sat on the edge of the bed, staring at her stepson Evan while he finished explaining, his hands moving too much, his voice jumping between panic and **** logic. He'd been talking for several minutes. Long enough that the words had started to blur together.

Magic potion.

Reality rewrite.

Marriage.

According to Evan, now that she'd drank the flavoured water he had brought home, David had never been married to her. Not anymore. And the bedroom that she was sitting in now belonged to her and Evan now. Her new husband.

He finally stopped talking.

Stacy stared at him.

"You're full of shit," she said flatly.

Evan closed his eyes briefly, like he'd expected that.

"This is some elaborate prank," she continued, standing and pacing once across the room. "The photos downstairs? Photoshop. AI. Whatever. You kids can fake anything now. That's not evidence. That's a hobby."

Still...

Something weird was going on.

Downstairs, David had been strange. Distant. Confused in a way that didn't feel like acting. And she couldn't deny the bedroom itself looked different. The bedspread was new, not the grey stripes she was used to. Instead, a baby blue duvet with a neatly folded grey throw blanket covered the bed she now sat on. Posters hung on the wall. Not tacky ones, but the kind of abstract indie-band or minimalist movie posters she distinctly associated with Evan's room.

The closet door stood open, having been flung wide during Evan's speech. Half the clothes inside were definitely Evan's. Hoodies. T-shirts. Jeans that looked like they had been purchased with zero adult supervision.

And on the dresser...

Figurines.

She pointed at them like they were incriminating evidence.

"You are full. Of. Shit," she repeated, though the words landed softer this time. Less certain. More like she was trying to convince herself.

Evan rubbed his face, exhausted.

"Okay," he said quietly. "Call someone. Anyone. Ask if they have pictures of you and your husband. Ask them to send one. Right now."

She scoffed automatically.

Then hesitated.

He watched her, not smug, not confident, just braced.

"Fine," she snapped.

She crossed to the nightstand where her phone sat plugged into the charger. She always left it there while she made dinner. She grabbed it, unlocked it, and opened her messages.

Her thumb hovered.

Then she tapped Brenda.

Brenda would know. Brenda had been at the wedding. Brenda had held her bouquet while she fixed her shoe strap. Brenda had taken approximately nine thousand pictures of everything because Brenda believed documentation was the backbone of friendship.

Stacy typed quickly.

Stacy: Hey. Random question. Do you have any pics of me and my husband?

She hit send before she could overthink it.

They waited.

The silence stretched. Evan shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Stacy stared at her phone like she could intimidate it into responding faster.

The typing bubble appeared.

Vanished.

Appeared again.

Then a message popped up.

Brenda: Like this one?

Another bubble.

Then a photo loaded.

Stacy stopped breathing.

It was Brenda's living room. She recognized instantly. Balloons taped to the ceiling. Streamers drooping slightly because Brenda had always been optimistic about tape strength. A banner that read HAPPY BIRTHDAY hung crooked over the window.

Stacy was wearing an outfit she absolutely owned: short, tight, strategically revealing, paired with a glittery birthday hat tilted at an angle she remembered practicing in a mirror.

In the picture, she was sitting on Evan's lap. Her one arm was behind Evan's neck, the other on his chest. Their eyes were closed. Their lips were close. They were just about to kiss.

Evan, younger but unmistakable, wore a t-shirt and jeans, hardly a match for the outfit the woman he was about to lock lips with.

The room tilted.

"What the fuck is this?" Stacy whispered.

Her voice climbed into a sharp edge. "How did you get this to Brenda?"

"I didn't," Evan said immediately. "That's what I'm saying. It was the potion. It wasn't even for you. I meant to give it to a girl in my class and now everything's completely fucked up."

She lowered the phone slowly, staring at him.

"First of all," she said, her voice dangerously calm, "the fact that you were planning to use some under-the-counter **** to date **** a girl is horrible."

He winced.

"Second," she continued, stepping closer, eyes locked onto his, "who made this supposed potion, and how do I find them?"

Evan hesitated only a second.

"Her name is Madame Ruth," he said. "She's on Thirty-Fourth and Vine."

Stacy grabbed her purse from the dresser without breaking eye contact.

"Let's go."