The Boyfriend

by Freida McFadden

I saw her at the playground feeding bits of her sandwich to the hungry squirrels, and all I could think was that I had never met any living creature as beautiful or as kind as Daisy Driscoll.

And I’m terrified that the moment I get her alone, I will wrap my fingers around her pretty, white neck and squeeze the life out of her.

I stare at the man, waiting for him to tell me that Kevin was killed in a tragic taxi accident on the way to our date, because this guy is definitely not Kevin. But instead, he sticks out his hand. “I’m Kevin,” he says.

“Well,” he adds, “except for your arms.” “My arms?” “They’re kind of flabby.” He wrinkles his nose. “But other than that, wow. Like I said, you’re the perfect woman.”

“Hot damn,” Kevin remarks, following the path of the waitress with his eyes as she goes to get our drinks. “She has really nice arms.”

Kevin clutches his chest in astonishment, like I just told him I kill puppies for fun.

“I don’t hug on first dates.” “Oh.” At first I think he’s going to protest, but then he says, “Well, how about a kiss then?”

“Come on, Sydney,” he says. “Don’t cut our night short. The fun is just getting started.”

It’s gratifying how quickly Kevin goes down. I’ve never nailed a guy in the balls before, and wow, that works really well.

“Get out of here,” the mystery man cuts him off. “Now. Before your date changes her mind about calling the cops.” His voice lowers a few notches, almost to a growl. “And if you ever bother her again, I’m happy to testify to what I saw you do. Do you know what jail is like for a sex offender?”

What a great meet-cute. I can already imagine telling the story to our children. This jerk was trying to kiss me, and that, kids, is how I met your father.

And then, to my shock, he starts to turn away. To leave. “Um, thank you again!” I call out. “I really appreciate what you did. You’re, like, my hero.”

Would it be okay if I called you sometime? Can I take you out on Saturday night? Can we make passionate love tonight? Are you down for that?

“Jesus, Tom. Stop being a wuss and go talk to her already!”

and next to that is a black-and-white photo of a teenage girl with the word “MISSING” underneath. I recognize the face of Brandi Healey from our class, who ran away from home way back at the beginning of the school year,

My request warrants a peal of giggles from the peanut gallery.

I wonder what it’s like to cut into a person with a scalpel. To feel their skin separate under my hand. To see their insides. I can’t wait to find out.

She looks very pleased by this turn of events. Much more so, I suspect, than if I sliced through her jugular with a knife.

Truth be told, I’ve only kissed a girl once, and I didn’t even want to do it. She kissed me. Except the only people who know about that are me and her. And now just me.

After all, the less time I spend with the chief of police, the better.

Bonnie lives one floor below me, and she’s one year older than I am and just as single.

“Hey, Syd.” She doesn’t look up from her phone. “How was your date tonight?” “On a scale of one to ten? Negative a million.”

I have something called von Willebrand disease, which basically means that if I get a papercut, I’m going to leave a trail of blood behind me.

Romance novels give you an extremely unrealistic concept of romance. If I were a character in one of those books, our meet-cute would have quickly been followed by Mystery Man ripping off his T-shirt to reveal gleaming, rock-hard abs and then thrusting his throbbing loins against me.

Why is dating so hard? Why can’t I just find a great guy, marry him, and live happily ever after? Is that really too much to ask for?

God, why couldn’t things have worked out with Jake?

Slug is a wealth of information about anthills. For example, did you know that the surface of an anthill is actually covered with small entrances that the ants open and close like doors? And did you know that anthills can reach heights of eight feet tall and be hundreds of years old?

There are alcohol fumes emanating from his skin. It’s not even four in the afternoon and my dad is already sloshed. Great.

I expect his face to wrinkle in disgust, but weirdly, it doesn’t. Instead, he says, “Well, why don’t you?”

I imagine those five pints of crimson liquid oozing out of my father’s body until he finally crumbles on the floor, his eyes rolling up in his head. And for a split second, it feels so real that I almost think I’m going to be sick.

“Sydney,” he says pleadingly, “you’re my perfect woman. Don’t let something great slip through our fingers.”

Ninety percent of my social life these days consists of drinking coffee with friends. But oh well. There are worse things.

Is it possible that Mystery Man and Dr. McHottie are one and the same?

“But Bonnie doesn’t like me to come into her apartment when she’s not there.”

Slowly, I turn the doorknob. I push the door open, revealing Bonnie’s queen-size bed with the lavender bedspread. And when I see what’s on the bed, I can’t stop screaming.

I lay my palm on my chest. “I will never kill a flower ever again.” And I mean it. I will never kill a flower ever again.

It’s only when she pulls away from me that I realize that while we were kissing, the daisy fell from her fingers. When I look down, I see it under my sneaker, the white petals smashed into the pavement.

The detective is staring at me. He doesn’t introduce himself, but it’s unnecessary. I already know his name is Jake Sousa.

“When I heard the address, I asked for the case,” he finally says. “I remembered this was where I was forwarding mail the year after you moved out.”

This wasn’t a crime of passion. Bonnie was tortured. She was mutilated.

“What kind of doctor? Did she say where he works?”

I don’t love Jake anymore. For a while, I hated him, but right now, I’m glad he’s here. If anyone can find out the truth about what happened to Bonnie, it’s this man.

I wonder if she would still feel the same way if she knew the thoughts that were going through my head as I squeezed the blood out of her finger.

“Wow,” I say, “I had no idea! What smile do you think we were getting?” Gretchen looks affronted. “The real smile, of course.”

He takes finding a mutilated dead body in stride? Okay…

Under what he’s looking for, he wrote: I want to find a woman I can come home to at the end of a long night of work, enjoy a hot dinner together, and watch a movie on the TV. More lies. Jake doesn’t want a woman he can come home to. He doesn’t want to come home at all.

phone. And then I get off the couch, walk over to the front door, and make sure the dead bolt is in place.

“Murderers often visit the funerals of their victims. Several have been caught under those circumstances.”

But instead of Jake, I see something that completely shocks me. It’s Kevin. Kevin is at Bonnie’s funeral.

It’s been a week, and apparently “no arrests have been made in the murder of Brandi Healey.”