Death of a Baseball Cap

I had spoken maybe 20 words to him in the year he had lived below me. 

Jeb, or maybe it was Jeff, had first introduced himself by peaking around the corner as I was mid-flight up the stairs, torn box wobbling between my dainty arms. It was the fifth of April, my move in day, but the sun against my back made it feel more like August. I quickly tried to hide the sweat seeping through from my bra line whilst I brushed him off with a friendly nod. He hadn’t budged when I returned back down the stairs. 

“Need any help?” he eagerly asked.

I stumbled over my words as I muttered, “Oh, umm, thanks, but I only have a couple more.” 

I hadn’t realized that he took that as a yes. I was breathing too heavily to speak again, so I leaned against the breezeway and studied him as he effortlessly pulled the last boxes from my trunk. Something about him intrigued me as much as it frightened me. He had kind eyes and dark hair that swept down over his thick brows. He must have been over 6 feet tall, wearing a striped tracksuit paired with a sparkling white pair of Nikes. Attractive, but something felt off. 

Suddenly, I watched my hat fall out of the top box to the ground. I snapped out of my gaze and ran to the car to snatch it up. Catching a glimpse of my frayed bangs in the car window, I plastered the cap to my head. Jeb seemed amused.

“Favorite hat?” He quipped. 

I let out a soft laugh and shrugged.

It was my favorite hat, to say the least. It actually wasn’t my hat at all, but rather I had bought it for my ex-boyfriend, Ryan. He was always particularly fussy about what went on his head, and on a whim, I had found a soft, yet sleek black cap at a gift shop during a ski trip we took to the mountains. I gave it to him on our trip back home, and he seemingly never took it off. After we split for the umpteenth time, I decided to casually slip it into my purse on my way out of his house. It smelled like a perfect mix of his cologne, top shelf whiskey, and the mountains – a scent I longed for.

“Okay to set these in the living room?” Jeb asked as I was brought back to reality.

I nodded again and followed him up to the apartment. He sat down the boxes and took a long look around. I noticed him meticulously scanning my belongings.

“Thanks,” I said, interrupting him.

“Yeah, I’ll see you around… I hope,” he replied as he walked out.

I suddenly felt shivers -- a stark contrast to only a few minutes ago. I pulled off Ryan’s cap to place it into my dresser, and ran into the bedroom where my mom was drilling away. She’d been unaware of Jeb the entire time, focused only on the placement of my wall hangings.

“Mom, do you think this is the only unit available? I was just wondering.”

“No,” she snapped back.

“No... as in there are others?”

“No, as in you aren’t getting out of anything this time.”

I turned my back to her as I let out a heavy sigh. I think she felt my eyes rolling from the other side. 

“I’m not wrong you know,” she taunted back at me. 

And she wasn’t. I had a habit of running. This was the third time I’d ran from Ryan, although I’d covered it with the excuse to take a job in the city. We were as terrible at being apart as we were together. I had to try though.

“And what if my neighbor murders me?” I asked.

I heard her laugh as she trailed off into the kitchen. There was no time wasted with my mom. She began hastily arranging my silverware drawer before I could get in another word. Nothing else was said.

I did my best to avoid Jeb after my mom left. It was exactly 2 weeks and 4 days before Jeb stopped asking me if I needed help settling in. It would have gone on for longer had I not started using the back staircase to get to my apartment. He seemingly got the hint. Whenever we bumped paths from then on, he gave a polite, close mouthed grin but rarely spout out a hello. I felt guilty every time.

After a few months, I started using the front entrance staircase again. On the Saturday after Christmas, I went for a run. I was in front of Jeb’s apartment when I heard my phone ding. I pulled it out to find 27 notifications. My friends had all linked to Ryan’s social media pages.

And there it was – he was engaged to someone else.

I stood in shock, breathless, when I heard someone approach from behind me.

“Everything ok, Sarah?”

It was Jeb.

“Oh, hi Jeb. I’m good.”

He cocked his head to the side and squinted his eyes. Maybe I did have his name wrong. I quickly ran up the stairs and closed the door behind me. I grabbed Ryan’s hat out of the drawer and clutched onto it as I melted down into the floor. I laid there lifeless for the remainder of the day. Five years down the drain for a girl he had only been seeing for two months. My legs were so numb that I wasn’t sure how I would ever stand again. But my tears stopped when I thought back to Jeb – had I ever told him my name was Sarah?

As unsettling as Jeb was, his creepiness gave me the strength to get out of my apartment and stay late at work every day. Still, I found myself in bed with Ryan’s hat every single night. The smell started to wear off over time, which only made things more painful. I eventually placed it back into the drawer after a couple months.

When Valentine’s Day arrived and the yearning for Ryan returned, I opened the drawer back up to find that the cap was missing. I frantically pulled open all the drawers, diving through my clothes to find it. I screamed as I buried my floor in bras and socks. I was so devastated that I called in sick to work and spent the rest of the day searching my apartment. Finally, a friend called me up to take me out. She dropped me off at my apartment after we spent a long night at the bar.

“You good if I drop you off here?” she asked as she parked in front of the building.

“No problem,” I said, stumbling towards the stairs.

As I reached the top step, I saw a dark figure out of the corner of my eye. I assumed it was Jeb, and tried to sneak my way to my door. I nearly tripped as his body came into focus. He was wearing his usual ultra clean tracksuit, but my eyes went straight to the black cap he was wearing.

He turned towards me. I slowly tried to back away before my drunken demeanor got the best of me, and I ran into the railing.

“Sorry if I scared you. I’m just waiting for a friend,” he assured me.

I opened my mouth but no words came out. I continued to stare at his cap. After a few moments, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw a small, unfamiliar blue logo on the side. I muttered something to Jeb about having a good night before stepping into my apartment.

The back staircase was once again my route after that unsettling night, and I never ran into Jeb again. I constantly tip-toed in my apartment to avoid him knowing when I was home. After a few weeks of feeling like a prisoner in my own home, I opened my curtain shades to see a moving truck. Jeb was moving out. That night, I blasted my music and gleefully danced around my apartment.

When I opened my dresser drawer to change for bed, there it was – the ball cap. Right where I had left it before. I heard my mom’s words echoing of how I would lose my own head if it weren’t attached to me. I again clutched the cap every so tightly, and fell to the floor in disbelief.

I woke up on the floor the next morning, the cap still tightly in my fists. I sighed and realized I hadn’t thought of Ryan much before finding it again last night. I drew the cap towards my nose and burst into tears as there was a faint smell still lingering. When I pulled it away from my face, I noticed something along its underside and dropped it in horror. Three white letters had been etched into the underside:

J.E.B.

I didn’t attempt to comprehend what had happened. I threw the cap into the fireplace and watched it burn. Better it dead than me.