Dirty Law

Huck made me feel like a person again. He made me feel like I wasn’t simply a thing to be defined by labels. I was actually a person with thoughts and feelings and dreams when I talked with him. After these past weeks, though, I didn’t want to risk him. What if he became different outside the safety of my screen? Or worse, what if I ruined him the way I’d ruined Raskolnikov?

It wasn’t lost on me that the common denominator in all of the horrible things happening was me. As compelled as I was to call Huck and hear the voice I’d imagined over and over, I couldn’t bring myself to follow through. The risk was too great.

I watched in fascination and horror as my phone began to buzz. The vibration was so adamant, my phone moved. It buzzed and vibrated like it had its own agenda. As my phone neared the edge of the coffee table, I grabbed it. I looked at the number calling and recognized it immediately as Huck’s number. As the phone vibrated for what was probably the last time, I pressed answer.

“Hello?” I cradled the phone to my face, not sure if the emotion tugging at my gut was fear or excitement.

“You’ve been calling over and over again.” The voice on the other line sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Sure the number calling was the one Huck had given me, but I wasn’t so quick to say Huck was on the other line. I didn’t know what Huck sounded like. I didn’t know who Huck was.

Except…I felt like I knew everything about Huck, despite not knowing anything at all.

“Sorry, I had the wrong number,” I lied. Of course Huck had my number and knew it was me, Dandelion, calling. I wasn’t ready for what was happening, though, so I prepared to hang up before he could call me on my lie.

“You had the wrong number fifty times?” I breathed into the phone, feeling like a total creep. I didn’t know what to say but now I didn’t want to hang up. I wanted to keep listening. The voice sounded so familiar. The more he spoke, the more I thought I knew him. I did know him though, didn’t I?

Huck was the only one who’d made me feel like me. If it was Huck on the other line, then I should speak up. At the same time, I was worried that outside Secrets our relationship wouldn’t last. That the magic of text would be broken by our voices.

So I breathed into the phone like I was auditioning for the role of Ghostface in Scream.

“Dandelion?” the voice asked. I hiccuped at his words. “Dandelion, I’m glad you called.”

A million emotions and thoughts ran through me at once. I felt thrilled. I felt excited. I felt terror. I also felt that little niggling thought that I knew the person already…but I couldn’t know his voice, right? I only knew Huck through the computer and other than him the only men in my life now were Morris and—

My grip slipped from the phone, but I caught it just before it fell.

“Law,” I said into the phone, my voice cold. Had he been playing me this entire time? Was it not enough to almost fuck me, he had to fuck with me too?

“Nami?” Law asked, sounding surprised.

“Oh don’t start with me Huck,” I fumed. “Game’s over now. You got inside my head, congratulations. Now go back to Morris and tell him what a good boy you’ve been.”

“Dammit, Nami!” Huck—I mean Law, yelled. “What do I have to do to prove to you that I’m not working for Morris? I’m just as fucking surprised as you are that you’re Dandelion.”

I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn’t see. “Do you really fucking expect me to believe that? That of all the people on that app, you responded?”

“I don’t care what you believe any more Nami. I’m sick of trying to prove that I’m not the bad guy.” Huck—Law, dammit!—hung up before I could. I stared at the blank screen for a few moments then chucked it at the wall. Watching the phone break in two, I felt a momentary catharsis for the girl I’d become.

There was a knock on my door. I eyed it from my couch warily. I was comfortable, finally. After having spent a few hours drinking to forget my humiliation, now I was watching Netflix and researching the reporter Matthew Jameson. I’d even laughed a bit at the TV. Progress, right?

Before looking up Jameson, I’d looked up Law. Turned out it was a bit harder to do than just googling “FBI ID number”. I’d had to actually call the FBI, and when I told them I was trying to confirm if “Law” had worked there, they thought I was playing a prank and hung up on me. I almost gave up, thinking Law really was a scumbag. Still, there was that annoying feeling in my gut, so I pressed on. Finally someone connected me to the right bureaucrat and they confirmed that yes, Law was a former FBI agent. I drank a few more glasses of whiskey after getting that confirmation.

Back to Jameson. According to the all-knowing internet, Jameson was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who covered such lighthearted topics as government corruption, genocide, and sex trafficking. He’d won the Pulitzer for an exposé on sex trafficking within government-subsidized corporations. I hated to admit it, but he seemed like the real deal. Why he was living in Salt Lake City, I couldn’t tell you.

Suffice it to say, after all the research and whiskey, when someone knocked on the door, I didn’t want to get off my ass and answer it. I knew nothing good waited on the other side. I didn’t have friends. I didn’t have family. All I had were paparazzi and potential rapists. It was past twelve in the morning and I knew that whatever was knocking on my door was most certainly a boogieman.

Another knock sounded on the door and I burrowed farther into my couch. If it couldn’t hear me, then it couldn’t get me, right? A pang of grief hit my chest as I remembered Raskol, who would’ve undoubtedly been barking at the door. He might have been a small and, at times, unreliable guard dog, but he was my small and, at times, unreliable guard dog.

“Nami open your door! It’s me, Law!” I perked up a bit, looking at my door with less hostility and more interest. Why was Law here? Still, my interest was not enough to get me off the couch. Law was persona non grata in the DeGrace house.

“Go away!” I yelled, curling myself in blankets.

“I will stay here and wake up all of your neighbors if you don’t let me in!”

“Go ahead!” I yelled back. “They hate me anyway!” Silence radiated through the wood, and I hoped that Law had decided against staying. When I’d all but settled back into my alcohol-induced comfort, I heard something truly disturbing.

Singing.

Loud, operatic singing.