As I picked up my sketchpad from the kitchen table I noticed he’d written a short reply:
Dear Cassie,
Yes, I can take out the trash can. It is no trouble whatsoever, and you do not need to worry about “making it up to me.”
Additionally, that drawing is very nice (all of your drawings are very nice, everything about you is very nice) but is that supposed to be me? I am certain I never smile quite like that.
Yours,
FJF
He’d added his own drawing of a stick figure to the note, with an exaggerated frown nearly as big as its head. I couldn’t help but laugh.
The drawing was so silly.
And Frederick was about the furthest thing from silly a person could be.
Or so I’d thought, anyway.
Also—the Yours, FJF?
Yours.
That was new.
I refused to let myself think about what it could mean. All the same, I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my face as I picked up my sketchpad.
I was still smiling as I opened the fridge to grab an apple before leaving for the library.
But when I saw what was inside, my face froze.
My entire body froze.
Time stopped.
After what might have been multiple minutes of my staring numbly at the contents of the refrigerator, I began to shriek.
My sketchpad slipped from my hands and fell to the ground, forgotten. I continued staring into the fridge, my mind reeling as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.
There had to be at least thirty bags of blood in there, arranged in orderly rows alongside a bowl of kumquats, my half-finished gallon of orange juice, and a box of Velveeta. Each bag was labeled by blood type and date, and bore the kind of barcode sticker I vaguely remembered being put on blood donation bags when I’d donated in the past.
The sharp, metallic tang of blood was thick, filling the air and nearly making me gag.
Unlike what I’d seen at blood centers, not all these bags were sealed. Some were nearly empty, with a pair of small puncture wounds at the top. Blood dribbled from one of them, leaving a small, sticky, red and drying puddle on the middle shelf.
None of it had been there that morning.
Why was it there now?
I was still standing in front of the open fridge, gaping at its contents, growing dizzy at the smell of blood and at the shock of what I’d found but too stunned to move away, when the front door to the apartment opened. I distantly heard the heavy tread of Frederick’s footsteps as he stepped inside.
“Frederick,” I called out, my voice thick. “What . . . what is all this doing here?”
Something very heavy dropped to the floor. And then came Frederick’s strangled gasp.
“Oh, fuck.”
I looked at him, my hand still tight around the handle of the refrigerator door. Frederick’s eyes were saucer-wide, his hands clutching at his hair in both hands. There was a large package wrapped in bright pink wrapping paper and tied with a pale pink ribbon at his feet. “Please—I can explain. Don’t . . . don’t get hysterical.”
I gaped at him. “I wasn’t getting hysterical before you said that.”
He buried his face in his hands. “You . . . weren’t supposed to see that. You said you’d be gone tonight. I—”
“Frederick?”
“This was not how any of this was supposed to go.”
I waited for him to continue, to explain why I’d just found bags of blood in the same place I kept my breakfast. When he just continued standing there, gaping at me open-mouthed like a fish out of water, I closed my eyes and let the fridge door swing closed.
I counted slowly to ten, breathing deeply through my nose to try and calm down. “Frederick—” I began.
“Did you get any O-negative this time, Freddie? I’m famished.” A loud male voice came in from the hallway, his words so hard to process they made the rest of whatever I’d been about to say die in my throat. A moment later, a vaguely familiar-looking guy with dirty-blond hair strode into the apartment like he owned the place, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his jeans. His black T-shirt said This Is What a Clarinet Player Looks Like, and stretched a little too tightly across his chest.
All at once I realized where I’d seen him before.
He was the weird guy in the trench coat and fedora who appraised me at Gossamer’s the other night.
I was stuck on what he’d just said.
Did you get any O-negative this time, Freddie? I’m famished.
I tried to make sense of what I was hearing, but my brain felt sluggish—like it was processing things at half its normal rate of speed.
I had no idea who weird coffee shop guy was or why he was there. He, however, recognized me right away.
“Hey, Cassie Greenberg.” He sounded surprised to see me but not unhappy about it. He grinned, showing off perfectly straight, gleaming white teeth. He reached out his hand towards me. After an awkward beat I realized he wanted me to shake it. Slowly, as though moving through a dream, I clasped his hand in mine.
It was like holding onto a block of ice.
“I’m Reggie,” he said, still smiling. “We met the other night at the café.” He paused. “Well. Sort of met, anyway.”
Reggie.
Was this the Reginald Frederick had mentioned a few times in passing? He gave my hand a few quick pumps before I pulled out of his grip.
I looked between him and Frederick—who, for his part, looked like he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole—trying to understand what was going on.
“I told Freddie he needed to come clean with you.” Reggie elbowed Frederick in the ribs good-naturedly. “But I gather from the look on your face that he didn’t listen to me.”
He jabbed Frederick in the ribs again—more forcefully this time. But Frederick was clearly ignoring him. His eyes bore into mine, beseeching me wordlessly to understand . . . something.
“Miss Greenberg,” he began, sounding desperate. “Cassie,” he amended.
“What do you need to come clean with me about, Frederick?” Instinct told me I couldn’t trust Reggie—Reginald—as far as I could throw him. But Frederick’s desperation confirmed that he was right about at least one thing: there was a lot Frederick wasn’t telling me.
“Speak up, Freddie!” Reggie encouraged. He clapped Frederick on the back.
“Leave,” Frederick muttered, his tone murderous. “Now.”