“Vasser?” I asked.
“The building belongs to this huge real estate tycoon named John Vasser. He’s nearly a billionaire.”
She could even tell what floor Mack’s unit was on.
The fifth floor.
The news hit me like an anchor, heavy and mooring.
Now that Kate’s gone, I pace around my living room, arms clasped behind my back, forehead tilted, surveying the limited inside world around me. Unmade seafoam bed, desk against the wall, aquarium bubbling in the corner, empty silver picture frame resting on a nightstand.
I should really put that picture of my mother up.
I shake myself out of my thoughts, halting in the middle of my living room.
Because now I know two things.
One: I know Mack is a fish monster. Or at least, I believe it. I believe it with my whole entire brain even though rationality screams at the back of my neck.
And two: I know where Mack lives.
Oh, and three. For whatever inexplicable, morbid, weirdo reason my brain might have, I can’t stop staring at his picture.
Not the fake picture of the blond guy with the green eyes.
The picture within the picture, of course. The real picture. The picture that exists in between the spaces. The aquatic one with the eerie blue gaze and the almost see-through white gauzy scales and the high forehead and smooth head and . . . also there’s some kind of fin growing out of his chin. Like how a betta fish has fins floating beneath it. Like that, but it falls like a beard.
I genuinely can’t stop looking. I’m a woman obsessed.
But I’m also a woman on a deadline, and I’ve never missed a deadline before.
I can’t afford to lose my job, of course. What other job would allow me to hide away in my apartment, staring at the walls, navel-gazing about fish? If I had to venture out of my safety, I wouldn’t survive.
Mental illness is the real monster, isn’t it?
For a second, another thought crosses my mind.
Maybe there’s no fish monster at all. Maybe there’s no Mack. Maybe I’ve just totally cracked? Maybe I’m hallucinating. Maybe I’ve succumbed to the spiral of madness that I sometimes feel is just bubbling beneath the surface.
My gaze wanders to the four corners of my room. Seafoam bed, sparkling aquarium, empty picture frame . . .
Yes. Losing my shit entirely? Definitely a possibility that I can’t count out. In fact, a possibility that I’ve never counted out.
But then another peculiar thought strikes me.
If I’m afraid of being crazy, but I’m already crazy, then isn’t that its own kind of freedom? A freedom to do whatever it is I really want. Whatever that might be.
I roll out the creaky chair to my computer, and instead of opening my work assignment, I open the Freemont Aquariumaniacs Forum again.
My hands freeze, eyes unblinking at the screen. There’s a message from Mack.
But I can’t open it. Not yet.
I click back. First, I have a deadline to meet.
Chapter 5
Ifinished the first portion of my assignment and turned it in to my boss minutes before the deadline. This project on the multiverse is extensive, and it’s going to take me the better part of the year to finish it, even though my only role is to research and condense copy in an easy-to-consume format.
Sometimes I wonder who my boss is. I’ve never met her. She’s just some woman who hired me off the internet. And in that sense, I love her and she’s a hero. But also, she could be anyone. I never really considered who I might be working for. Maybe a mad scientist?
Wow, I really might actually be going crazy.
Being in this apartment for so long has warped my sense of reality.
Once I sent off my assignment, I paced around my apartment again, looking at it with renewed vision, a novel perspective. Like . . . what might Mack think about this place?
The furniture is secondhand for the most part. I’m a saver when it comes to money. If I ran out, what would I do? Face the world? I don’t think so.
When I’m old enough to retire, I’ll never have to talk to anyone ever again; I can have all my goods and services delivered. I can sit on my couch and stare at the wall, and no one will know the difference.
Well, except for maybe Kate.
And Mack . . .
Okay, fine. I let myself think about Mack again, and like magic, I wander my way back to my computer chair, and sitting in front of the screen where his message sits, I open the forum.
I chuckle at myself. You are definitely crazy. Mack is not that weird fish creature. You’ve convinced yourself of nothing.
