Someone Else's Fairytale by E.M. Tippetts Page A

it was a friendly hug, that's all. But they caught it on film.”
    “What's TMZ?”
    “A tabloid website, I guess. I don't really know.”
    “Oh, okay. You hungry?”
    “No thanks. I just came here to hide, really.”
    “How was the tram?”
    “It was a nice non-date, and then I did meet his family last night. Turns out his parents know all about me and are really cool about it.”
    “Met his family, huh?”
    “He was crystal clear. Non-date.”
    “But then he did get you to hug him.”
    “Aw, you want a hug? That what this is about?” I winced. Matthew hated sarcasm.
    But this time he tossed his burrito wrapper in the trash and wiped his hands on the kitchen towel. “Maybe,” he said.
    My phone rang.
    “Hello?” I answered it.
    “Okay,” said Lori. “Someone just busted our front windows.”

 
    I don't know what made me angrier, the property damage, or the fact that I missed the chance to go to the movies with Matthew because I had to be home to answer questions for the police. Matthew came over too, and he and Charles watched WWF so that Matthew would have something to write about for Media Studies. In hindsight, that's pretty funny, but at the time I was too annoyed to laugh.
    “So you had reporters in your yard all day and one of them warned you about a suspicious vehicle?” the cop asked. She was a young woman with red hair pulled up into a bun and freckles all over her face.
    “Yeah,” I said.
    “Driving slowly past your house?”
    “Yep.”
    “Any idea whom that would be?”
    “No, no idea.”
    “Any guess?”
    “Nope.”
    “Have you fought with anyone recently, or seen anything-”
    “I hugged Jason Vanderholt-”
    “Really?”
      “He is a friend. But once, after we had coffee, someone slashed my tires.”
    “So you think this is a jealous fan?” said the cop.
    “Given the timing, yes.”
    “I'm concerned about that car, though. This is near the War Zone here, where you live.” The War Zone was a bad neighborhood many blocks away that was dominated by drug violence.
    “It's not that close,” I said.
    “And this, the University Area, can be very unsafe.”
    “We've never had any problems,” said Lori. “No one on this street has, that we know of.”
    “Miss Winters, do you, or have you ever had any contact with anyone in the drug trade who might hold a grudge?”
    Yes, but he's in prison, I thought. I shook my head. “I'm pretty sure this is a fan. Some girl who wants to marry Jason Vanderholt and thinks that I'm competition or something.”
    “You really know him?” asked the cop.
    I rolled my eyes. “He's from Albuquerque . People know him. It's no big deal.”
    “Still-”
    The look on my face must've silenced her, because she turned back to her notes real fast. “Okay, I'm going to write this up, and has your landlord called back yet?”
    “She'll be here in ten minutes,” said Lori.
    “We can wait for her, then.”
    I looked at our front windows. One had a fist sized hole in it. The other just had a big spiderweb of cracks. The police had put one rock, the one found inside the house, on the windowsill. There was no telling what rock had made the other break. It was with the hundreds of others in our rock garden.
    Lori put her head to one side. “What's that sound?”
    It was my computer chiming. I darted down the hall and saw that Jason was calling again. “Hey,” I answered.
    “Hey, reporters go away?”
    “Yeah, and now someone's broken our windows.”
    “What?”
    “Some jealous fan-”
    “You're kidding me.”
    “No.”
    “You're sure it was a fan?”
    I told him about my tires and his eyes only got bigger. “Chloe! I had no idea. No idea this was happening to you.”
    “It's only happened twice.”
    “That's terrible. I'm paying for the windows.”
    “There's insurance-”
    “I am at least talking to your landlord. What's his number?”
    “Hers. Not necessary.”
    “No, listen, I don't want you to get in trouble for associating with me.