Paranoid Pair

In life, you come across a lot of people that you never want to see repeatedly. Naturally, these are the people that you run into most, usually at the most inopportune moments. These are also the people that are so unaware of their own horror that they're unable to just let you walk away, and trap you into insanely long, drawn-out conversations that you spend a lot of energy trying to escape from. They probably think that those conversations are really deep and leave them feeling like the two of you have become the best of friends.

Ever since my run-in with Patti, I had been much more careful to check where I was sitting when I got onto the bus. Of course, there were times that I still ended up spending a trip next to other undesirables.

Kaya and I had been talked into attending a craft fair that one of our friends was working at at the local community centre. To be honest, neither of us were all that interested in going, and we assumed that our friend wouldn't have even noticed if we had just failed to show up, but Kaya's best friend was convinced that this would be the greatest day ever and that we would really regret not going.

To get from our bus stop to the community centre, we had to make a long, arduous trek across the street. But since it was December, there was snow, so...it was cold and stuff.

Anyway, by the time Kaya and I had made it to folk-art-fest, we were both angry and cold, irritated that Kaya's friend was so sure that it would be a good time. Five minutes later he ditched us, scampering off to look at something, and we didn't hear from him again for the rest of the day.

As Kaya and I were wandering around, both of us with empty pockets and unable to buy anything even if we had wanted to, I spotted Patti. At first, I wasn't sure why I recognised her, and I just ignored the fact there was a familiar face across the room and continued on browsing. The more I questioned where I knew her from the more it drove me insane. I pointed her out to Kaya and asked if she knew who it was, but Kaya had no idea.

As soon as Patti turned around, her eyes locked on mine. In that moment I knew who she was. Her gaze penetrated deep into my soul and a chill shot down my spine. I clutched onto Kaya's arm, pulled her closer to me, and whispered "...we need to get out of here..."

At first, Kaya was like "thank God," but then she started to wonder why it took us until now to decide to leave. I quickly rattled off the story of my run-in with Patti, all the while Patti and I competed in a never-ending staring contest. Kaya agreed, but as we were trying to battle the crowd to escape the auditorium, we realised that we were without any real winter-wear and were likely to freeze our fingers off since we had nowhere to go and nowhere to be.

Since Kaya didn't want to risk going back out into the snow, she thought it would be best if we just avoided Patti and went to the opposite side of the room that she was on. We couldn't quite determine what side of the room we should now go to, since we had lost her in the crowd, so we just continued to browse the tables.

The very first table we found ourselves at ended with us being pinned close to the table by the oncoming crowd, and as soon as I turned to navigate my way back out, I found Patti's face looming three inches away from my own.

Her lips stretched into a smile and she said "...hi." I blinked twice, said "hello," and followed Kaya away from the crowd.

Rather than wander around outside in the snow, we escaped down the hallway to the next available space, which happened to be the ice rink. We sat in the fitting area, which was warm, and watched the skaters through the window for a few minutes, talking about how Patti was likely to murder and eat me.

We wandered in around the ice rink, walking up and down the rows of seats and complaining that it was too cold to walk around outside, while it was probably just as cold wandering around an ice rink, but as we made our way along the top rows we spotted no one else but Patti. She had just come out of the fitting area and was making her way up the stairs.

Any normal person wouldn't have been alarmed at this turn of events, but Kaya and I were a paranoid pair, and we were convinced that she was now stalking us because we had offended her all too greatly.

We ducked into the little restaurant at the top of the rink and hid ourselves far inside at one of the corner booths. We had managed to scrounge up enough change for a basket of fries and sat huddled together watching the door while we waited for Patti to inevitably find us.

The door soon swung open and Patti entered, hobbling in to what we assumed was her regular seat and making her order. Kaya and I devoured the fries as soon as they were set in front of us, which left us just watching Patti from across the room until she was finished with her meal. She was, unfortunately, a much slower eater than Kaya and myself, and it felt like we were watching her for an absurdly long time.

Eventually, though, Patti left, and Kaya and I were able to get out of the building without any further altercations. Kaya never forgave me for welcoming her to my nightmare, especially since Patti wasn't the first mad-stalker the two of us had gained.