Page 59 of To Love the Stars too Fondly

My eyes suddenly stung. No, I’d had a stalker before. Not that I was much of a threat, though.

Did she hurt as much as I did? Did she hurt enough to do something stupid? I thought of her scar, how she’d let me caress it; she had opened her whole heart, yet still managed to shut me out.

“Terra?”

I jumped and whirled around, only to see Chiara.

Heart pounding, my hand flew to my chest. “Oh my God, you scared me.” A pause. Her scrutiny was boundless. “I was just taking a walk on my break. I-I wasn’t going to go in or anything. That would be weird.”

“It would,” Chiara affirmed, her judgement cutting right through my resolve.

“I may have been fantasizing about it a little though.” Admitting some fault meant she wouldn’t assume the worst, right?

Chiara looked past me to the glass doors of the gym, half-covered by padding to protect it from the sun.

She took a breath to speak, but I blurted out: “Is she okay?”

Chiara met my gaze again. “Yes.”

“It just worries me. I think you can understand why.”

When she nodded, some judgement left her stance. “She worries me, too. But she’s not a danger to herself right now, I promise.”

“Thank you. I’ll, um, leave you alone now. I gotta get back.” I began my exit, only for Chiara’s voice to pull me back.

“It did mean something to her.”

I turned around, speechless at the admittance.

“That girl is going to be fighting her demons her whole life,” Chiara continued, “but I do think you helped her release a few. I…” She hesitated, then finished with, “…wish she could have been ready to have someone like you in her life.”

She left me alone. I watched her march up the steps and disappear into the gym.

I didn’t cry so much anymore. But my tears fell freely as I wandered my way back to work.

At some point, I’d stopped looking over my shoulder when I rode my bike home.

The apartment was empty, as it was most days. I dropped my purse on the couch and went to my room to change, as was my habit. Then, I collapsed into a nap, as was also habitual lately.

Soon enough, my depression lull continued as I dragged myself out of bed and to the TV, hungry but too apathetic to give a shit.

A knock interrupted my lethargy. I checked the time. 6:15 PM.

Must’ve been maintenance. With no aplomb, I opened the door—

Cliff. On my doorstep.

I was too stunned to breathe, much less slam the door. By the time I got my bearings, he was already shoving his way inside. “Hey, hey!” he said when I tried to shut the door. “I’m not here for funny business. I just wanna talk, okay? Can we do that?”

No, I cried internally, but I’d forgotten how to scream. He pushed me; I fell, and the door slammed behind him.

He held up defensive hands as I scrambled back, still on the floor. “You’re so dramatic,” Cliff said, planting himself between me and the front door. “I’m so sick of your ‘hard to get’ bullshit.”

I frantically shook my head, pulse pounding in my ears. “Please just go.”

“Terra, here’s the thing. I accept that you got yourself a dyke girlfriend. I wish you’d picked a hotter one, but if you want to get railed by some ugly-ass butch dyke, that’s your business. She is rich, and that’s where I need your help.”

I remained frozen. A fawn caught in the headlights.