Well-Behaved Monsters: chapter 38

By jasonmcgathey | Jason McGathey | 3 Oct 2025

As it turns out, Dylan’s first theoretical date with Miranda doesn’t quite meet those precise parameters. On the contrary, she has invited him to come hang out over at her apartment. An intimate sounding proposal, made better in that she doesn’t live far from us, just off the next major road to the west, about two miles to the north. Except he shows up over there and it turns out that they are not exactly alone.

She is surrounded by a bunch of Mexicans, most of them from elsewhere within her apartment complex, as they all sit around the living room snorting line after line of coke. Everyone except a mortified Dylan, that is, who holds on for dear life in a nearby chair, frozen in place and barely making much conversation. This was all Miranda’s idea and the extent of what she has planned, for their quote unquote “date.” After a few hours of this, Dylan gives her a quick wave and says goodbye, with vague talk of maybe doing something later.

“I’m tellin ya, dude, it was fucking surreal,” he says, the next chance we have to catch up, “all I could sit there thinking was, Jesus Christ, what did I just get myself into?”

Well, technically speaking, he hasn’t gotten himself into anything yet. That was just one weird night hanging out at some girl’s apartment. But, though I’m not the least bit worried that type of lifestyle will tempt him — he has a zero percent chance of a fiery mountainside crash, a la Phil, is no more interested than I am in the druggie culture — I can tell already that he finds this fascinating, and is almost guaranteed to continue pursuing her.

Which is one key point where our mindsets diverge, though on the same page about so much else. I’m glad he told me this story, because I can already see there’s no reason whatsoever to sweat might-have-beens with Miranda. That night he just described would have marked the end of it for me, and it’s highly doubtful I would have stuck around even as long as he did. It isn’t just the lack of interest in the drugs, but a couple other layers that further remove and protect us from them, or at least protect me. There’s the recognition that even if I were interested, that they are bad idea, considering that my toehold with productivity and anything resembling a normal lifestyle is already about as precarious as it gets. Beyond all that, however, that whole scene sounds incredibly annoying, a gigantic pain in the ass, more than anything else. Unless hooking up with her at a party or something, some random, isolated occurrence such as that, there’s no way that ever would have gone anywhere.

There are some stunning parallels here, actually, between this and what just recently went down with Helena and me, or should I say appears to have gone down, when that all collapsed. I was just telling Dylan about this myself a couple weeks ago. This all transpired the night of the Dave Matthews concert, which is to date the last I’ve seen of her. A handful of days before the show, she calls me up out of the blue, explaining she bought tickets on a whim and asks if I would like to go.

And of course I readily agree to this, although my mind immediately sails off, with considerable amusement, to that day where Dylan and I were attempting to decide what kind of party hardy beach bum vibe we wanted to emulate: the Jimmy Buffet model or the Dave Matthews variety. I think the votes are now in, and we maybe made a mistake with our initial forecasts. A few interesting incidents and some minor points worth adding to our arsenal are about all we got out of the cheesy, tropical, rum soaked doofus routine. Perhaps tying in with Marvin’s theory that women really just want a good line of bullshit, the Dave mindset assumes a greater luster, now, somehow perpetuating this vibe of being half out of it, yet fully capable of mumbling all sorts of quasi-intellectual nonsense, non-stop. Which is admittedly maybe not too much of a stretch anyway.

As attended by the foursome of Helena, Stella, her boyfriend Jack, and me, it’s a great show, although nearly every significant development will occur after the last note is played. Simply put, although I recall the end of it, the same cannot be said for much else that follows. But the strange part about this is, these gaps in my memory make no sense based upon the knowledge at hand.

We tailgated in the parking lot before the show, during which time Helena and Stella kept mixing up White Russians for all four of us. Still, this does not seem like an overabundance of drink, particularly as I consume nothing whatsoever during the concert itself. And yet for some reason I feel like I am getting more and more messed up as the evening progresses. An impression somewhat bolstered, or at least justified, when I look over to the far side of Stella and see that Jack is totally passed out. Yet here Stella and Helena return at one point with another mixed drink each, for the two of them alone, giggling and bubbly, seemingly not the least bit intoxicated themselves somehow.

“What’s his problem?” I ask, nodding over at Jack.

“Oh, that’s his cold medicine!”

“Yeah, that’s his cold medicine!” they tell me, and giggle some more.

I’m in okay shape as we leave the place, and recall stopping for gas, also that we dip into some bar for what I am certain was just a single Budweiser for me personally. Helena had gone off to get a round for us, and returned with these, though never asking what I wanted. In the name of being a good sport I choked this swill down, although…this is again the last thing I remember, until who knows how many hours later. There’s this brief image of me on her living room floor, stretched out on my belly, face propped up on elbows, facing the TV. Helena, Stella, and some other chick are chatting on the couches, as two little kids, a boy and a girl, run around the place.

Cut to my next memory, which is waking up at some point after five a.m., according to Helena’s beside clock. For yes, I am in Helena’s bed, in just my boxers. I don’t think we had sex, because why would I put my boxers back on? But then again…why am I just in my boxers? I might also be a smidgen sticky down below, though not in the right frame of mind to investigate further. She is not in bed at the moment, because what slowly awakened me was, from her attached master bath, the sound of Helena turning the sink faucets on and off, over and over again, emitting little exasperated gasps as she does so. She is clearly washing something, but I can’t tell for sure what.

And pass out again until daylight. By now Helena has returned to bed and is out cold. Waking up, I can find my clothes scattered all over the place near the foot of her bed — another strange development — and yet in flipping the house upside down, even briefly disturbing my slumbering ex-girlfriend, somehow I can only locate one of my sandals. Therefore leave the house just like this, holding it.

Reexamining the evidence, this night is a huge mystery to me on many levels. Until my mind seizes upon a theory, days later, as preposterous as it sounds. I eventually air out these details to Dylan, to see what he thinks about my hypothesis. Let’s see here…Helena and Stella mixed every single drink we had, in the parking lot before the show. After that I just drunk a single beer, which Helena had gone to the bar to retrieve for me, and brought back to our table. Jack was even worse off, at the show, at least, thanks to their handiwork, and I did not see him upon returning to their house. Conclusion? I believe Helena with occasional help from Stella was slipping something into our drinks.

I would not put it past her. She is just this mischievous and you could even argue her naughty side is one major reason we broke up. Much later, having still not seen her since, we are on the phone late one night and Dylan is present as my witness, when I figure out a way to possibly determine this. To frame it in a favorable manner without pointing any fingers.

“I don’t know,” I tell her with a laugh, as we’re reminiscing about that concert, “for some reason I kept feeling more and more messed up as the night went on. Then I started to think, hmm, I wonder if the girls put something in my drink…”

She chuckles and says, “we might have. That sounds like something we would do.” Though not exactly confirming it, this is pretty much all I need to hear.

And Dylan apparently agrees, once I’m off the phone. “Mmm hmm,” he says, knowingly, nodding as I relate these details to him.

Today’s Recommended read: Enchanting (Book One) by Gracie-May Harding.

Daphne’s life hangs in the balance.

Her heart is racing, and she can barely breathe, but she must keep moving, or he will catch her.
His manipulation has no end, and he will use any means to make her return.

She escapes to another town but fears being found. She fakes her identity to keep her anonymity safe among the town folk. She wants to make enough money to afford the next ride out of town to keep moving.

A local shop owner takes pity on Lana when she stumbles into her store and senses she needs help.
Max, the shop owner’s son, thinks Lana is hiding something.

Lana knows she must keep moving, but how long must she stay safe in this town?
Can Daphne finally leave behind the emotional torment and manipulation he held over her?

Daphne has tried to leave her past behind — but can she truly outrun the demons that haunt her? Will she find herself right back where she started, or will he be the one to destroy her?

Find out in this romantic, suspenseful novel.

Enchanting is a suspenseful small-town romance. It is the first book of the Enchanting Starting Over series and must be read in order.