Fixated

It had been three days and three nights that I’d managed to hold up my ‘normal’ facade and had been staying with Amanda; which was actually pretty refreshing. It was nice to have some normal, female company and spend time away from the past few months of fuckery. Sherlock had text me a few times but I couldn’t bring myself to reply, not yet anyway. I didn’t want to. So I just left it, despite the unnerving fact I still couldn’t erase him from my mind.

Amanda and I lay on the enormous, fluffy shag rug in her cosy living room looking through those stupid celebrity tabloid magazines and sipping tea.
“Hey, look at this.” Amanda pushed the magazine toward me, it was a double page spread of an article entitled “Sherlock’s MYSTERY love interest?” There was a picture of me standing on the balcony at the Ritz, half naked with a cigarette in my hand and Sherlock’s hand around my waist… Amanda read out a line from the article, “Sherlock Holmes has once again shocked the nation, not by solving crimes..but this time, by proving that he is not asexual (or homosexual!) Can you believe it? Sherlock and the mystery, brunette lady were spotted sharing an intimate moment at the Ritz on Sunday night.”
I sighed, this, this drivel was honestly all that was wrong with society. I didn’t want to be seen as Sherlock Holmes’s ‘mystery woman’. We were not having an intimate moment. I was on the brink of an imminent mental breakdown when that picture was taken, actually. “Aren’t plants asexual? I know Sherlock is a bit of a weirdo but I don’t think he has many plant qualities. He did pollinate you.” Amanda elbowed me in the ribs jovially. I looked up at the ceiling, what had I done to deserve this?
“Amanda, really?” I gave her a friendly retaliation shove. Suddenly, Amanda’s phone began to vibrate violently. “Wanna go check that?”
Amanda picked up her phone and as she did so, the colour from her face vanished.
“What? What’s wrong?!” Concerned now, I looked over her shoulder. There were texts, a few of them, all from a withheld contact.
The string of text messages began with: “I know where Laura is, no point in hiding.” Another said, “Amanda, you may want to think twice about letting her stay. You’re only getting in my way”...and the last two said, “PS. Check the fridge, I left you a gift.” “If Laura is out of your building ALONE- in fifteen minutes, I’ll take it back...I’m not sure it’s quite of your taste.”

Amanda and I stood up and ran into the kitchen, she slowly opened the fridge and clasped her hands to her mouth. I looked inside; lo and behold, chained to the inside of the fridge was a small chemical explosive. The timer was now on 14 minutes and 30 seconds. There was no time to waste, I ran and put my shoes and coat on, fuelled by fight or flight. Amanda started sobbing in the kitchen, she was as clueless as I was. All I knew is that whoever this was..was no longer playing around. “Amanda, I am so sorry. You’ll be okay” I called, as I ran out of her apartment and down the stairwell as fast as my legs could carry me.
I threw myself out of the building and collapsed in a heap on the pavement outside, breathing heavily. I heard my phone beep in my pocket, I slowly pulled it out, my hands shaking as I did so. “Clever girl...you saved your friend.” - Withheld number. This was getting out of hand, what did this person want from me? This ordeal had just become a whole lot more sinister and I didn’t know how to handle it now.

As I slumped into a taxi headed back to my own apartment, I realised I was truly in danger. How was I meant to protect myself when I didn’t know who or what this person wanted from me? I couldn’t let myself get scared, not now. I breathed heavily as the cab pulled up to my apartment block. I paid the cabbie and instantly started ringing Amanda, she must’ve been terrified.
“Don’t you ever come near me again!” Amanda’s half hysterical voice shook down the phone; “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-” I said two seconds too late after she’d hung up on me and left me speaking into a dial tone. I felt tears brimming at my eyes, no no no. I can’t be weak. The only thing I have left is my strength and what is left of my sanity. However, it was hard to be strong when the life as I knew it was falling to pieces. Years of creating a new persona, making new friends with normal people (albeit a little dull, but friends nonetheless), living in a normal apartment, working a normal 9-5 job...It was all rapidly slipping through my fingers. I needed to get home and take a breather, I needed space to think clearly without something or someone shitting all over it.