The unstoppable urge to steal.
Hi, my name is Irene and I’m a kleptomaniac. I’ve been struggling with it since I was a teenager. I would go to local stores and steal whatever I could. Then after the rush wore off, I would dispose of everything I had. I didn’t actually want or need what I was stealing. I just liked the excitement it gave me. I got in trouble for it and my parents immediately sent me to therapy. After years of working on my mental health, I stopped stealing completely.
Then I saw a purse.
I was walking home from work when I saw an unattended purse on a table outside of a cafe. I could see the person’s phone and wallet just sitting there. I don’t know what came over me. I thought I was already past this part of my life. But I couldn’t help myself, I had to take it. I walked over to the table and pretended to drop something. When I was getting up, I deftly took the phone and walked away briskly. The owner of the purse came out of the cafe with her coffee and food and sat down, not realizing I just swiped one of her most important belongings.
God, I missed the rush.
I practically ran to the train station thinking I was going to get caught. I was buzzing with excitement the entire ride. When I got to my stop, I spotted a trash can. I walked over to throw the phone away but somehow I just couldn’t. For some reason, taking the phone wasn’t enough. I had to see what was inside it. I debated with myself for a bit before ultimately deciding to pocket the phone and go home.
You’d be surprised how easy it is to unlock a secured device. All I had to do was Google. After a bit of tweaking, I finally got it open.
The first stop was the album. I started from the very bottom. It contained what you would expect: selfies, food pictures, animals, and memes. Nothing too exciting. I scrolled up a bit and I saw pictures of a guy, probably her boyfriend. I scrolled up further and started noticing something. She had dozens of pictures of the same guy but no pictures of them together. I continued scrolling and saw she had candid photos of him outside buildings, out on the street, in bars, and whatnot. I started feeling uneasy. Scrolling even further, I saw pictures of him through what looked like the window of an apartment. The last picture was of him with another girl. It looked like it was pulled from his Instagram.
“What the fuck,” I said as if I would stop prying.
The next stop was the messages. I scrolled through and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Then at the very top, I saw her texts with a guy named Jared. Or rather, her texts to Jared. She sent him walls of text, proclaiming her undying love one minute and then threatening to kill him the next. He never responded apart from one text saying, “Leave me alone, Meadow.”
To say that I was uneasy is a gross understatement. I was petrified. But my dumb curious ass decided to continue my exploration.
I checked Meadow’s call history. She called Jared two hundred and fifty-six times over the past three days. All calls were missed. Then I checked her email. She had dozens if not hundreds of emails sent to Jared saying more of the same; pledges of undying love and threats of violence. Checking her notes, I found: love spells, boyfriend manifestations (whatever that means), and the most disturbing grocery list of all time:
Not only that, but I found a long, all-caps rant about “Jenny” (Jared’s girlfriend I’m assuming) and how he was cheating on her with Jenny, how Jenny was in the way of their perfect love, etc. Just out of sheer curiosity, I checked her Spotify and her most played song is Keep Awake by 100 Monkeys. Lovely.
Suffice it to say, I was freaked the fuck out.
What freaked me out more was the sudden notification that popped up. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard it. With much trepidation, I shakily opened the notification. It was an email Meadow sent to herself. It read:
“I know you have my phone.”