Page 43 of Letters From A Stalker

I glance back. Whatever she wants to say seems to change before it reaches her mouth.

“Be careful.”

I give her a small nod and leave. By the time I reach the underground garage, irritation has settled into every muscle in my body. It’s directed at everyone. At Julia for being stubborn and insisting on going home. At myself for not stopping her leaving. At Mara for noticing. At the fact that I'm thirty-seven years old, licensed, educated, and fully capable of listing every ethical reason why what I'm considering is unnecessary. Yet none of those reasons has been convincing enough to make me take the elevator back toward my office instead of the garage.

My bike is parked in my assigned spot across from the visitor section. I know Julia's address because it's in her file. The only thing I don't know is what she drives. That becomes irritating the second I scan the visitor spaces and realize several cars are pulling out at once.

“Fuck.”

I put my gloves on and reach for the helmet just as headlights sweep across the concrete. A black Ford turns out of one of the visitor rows and passes several yards in front of me.

For half a second, all I see is the windshield reflecting fluorescent garage lights but then it passes beneath the brighter fixture near the exit and I catch her. Dark green sweater. Chestnut hair. Something tight inside my chest releases before I can stop it.

There you are, little ember.

I swing one leg over the bike, pull on the helmet and start the engine as her taillights disappear up the garage ramp. By the time I emerge onto the street, she's already moving with traffic so I stay back. Not because I'm hiding. And that's the first lie, of course I'm fucking hiding. The last thing she needs after the session we just had is to glance into her mirror and discover someone's following her. So, I keep several vehicles between us as much as traffic allows it, closing the distance only when I risk losing sight of her.

At first, she appears to be driving normally. The speed is steady, she stays centered in her lane. Brake lights respond when traffic slows. Nothing that would justify me being here. Not until I get close enough at a stoplight to see her face reflected in her driver's-side mirror and my stomach drops. Her eyes are forward, but there's no awareness in them. She's looking at the road without really seeing it. I know that look, the look of autopilot and functioning without any awareness of what is happening outside of your own bubble. I spent too many years watching it appear on my mother's face before I ever learned the word dissociation.

Julia moves when the cars ahead move. Brakes when the lights ahead of her turn red. Follows the lane with the mechanical precision of someone relying almost entirely on habit. Technically, she’s functional, but mentally she’s somewhere else, and my skin crawls because I know where that is. Because I’m the one who dragged her back there.

“Jesus, fuck, little ember.” I curse inside the helmet.

The light turns green and she moves with the traffic. I close some of the distance between us. Not enough for her to notice me, but enough that I can see what the fuck is happening around her. Traffic thickens near the larger intersection ahead, several lanes narrowing and splitting as drivers position themselves for their turns. Julia is in the lane she needs to be in. But that’s when I notice an SUV several cars ahead that has been weaving through traffic since the previous light. Silver, oversized and driven by an asshole who apparently believes turn signals are optional and every open three feet of asphalt exists solely for him.

He cuts left. Then back right, then pushes between two cars with barely enough room for either driver to brake, which earns him a horn. Every time he moves, my irritation rises because his lane is slowing down but Julia’s is moving now, and I see what he's about to do before she does. He starts moving into her lane, only there isn't enough room.

Julia doesn't react because her eyes are still fixed straight ahead.

“Fuck.”

Without giving it another thought, I accelerate, revving my bike so that he can hear me. The bike shoots forward between lanes before the asshole can finish moving over, and I position myself alongside his front quarter panel, forcing him to give up on the merge or hit me instead. Which, I would fucking love to see him try, but he steps on the break and his car jerks from the sudden stop at the same time his horn blares. I turn my helmet toward him.

He looks exactly like the asshole I expected him to loom — one hand thrown in the air, mouth moving behind the glass, probably cussing out all of my ancestors. I can't hear him, but I don't need to. He tries edging forward again, his front bumper only inches away from my left leg and my temper spikes. I twist the throttle hard enough for the bike to answer with a deep, aggressive roar that cuts through the traffic around us.

Stay in your fucking lane.

He gestures again, nervously turning his wheel to the left but I hold my position. Behind me, Julia's black car keeps moving toward the right-hand lane she'll need to take through the intersection, still completely oblivious to the fact that a few seconds ago the SUV would've forced itself directly across her path. There’s a small opening between the car in front of her and hers and the SUV driver tries once more.

Wrong fucking move.

I accelerate just enough to get fully ahead of him, then shift toward the right and position myself where his only safe choice is to follow straight instead of cutting back to turn ahead of Julia.

He slams his hand against the steering wheel. He’s yelling and gesturing which only makes every ugly piece of my temper wake. I could stay where I am, I could get off the bike, walked over to his fucking piece of shit SUV, drag him outside and deck him just once. That’s all it would take. Instead, I just motion with my index and middle finger that I have eyes on him and speed up after Julia who has already successfully turned and is driving down the road. She passed the intersection safely and everything else stopped mattering, though my pulse is still hammering. Not from the maneuver itself, I’ve done dumber shit than this. But from the image of him trying to fucking cut in front of her and the way she just stared dead ahead without even noticing. And that becomes my newest justification.

See? She shouldn't be alone.

The thought is convenient enough that I almost call myself on my own bullshit. Almost.

Julia's car turns down a quieter street and I let the distance between us grow. The buildings change first, commercial blocks giving way to rows of mature trees and Craftsman houses sitting behind deep lawns and wide porches. Most of them are renovated without losing the heavy wood trim, broad windows and low rooflines. The street curves slightly toward the end, where the houses thin and a darker wall of trees begins beyond the last few properties.

Julia keeps driving. My chest tightens when I realize where she's going. Her house is the last one on the left side of the street, leaning against the thick woodland that stretches along the remaining length of her street and towards the rest of the houses on the right side of it. And then she turns towards that small Craftsman. Large front windows, a driveway cutting along the side with trees running thick behind the lot and spreading around one side of the property until the house seems almost tucked against the woods. Of course she chose this. Somewhere quiet and separated enough from everyone else to breathe. Her car stops in the driveway and I keep going. I slow couple of houses down.

This is where I leave, right? She made it home safe. I made sure of that. Everything I told myself was the reason behind following her home has been confirmed. She didn’t crash, she didn’t stop somewhere to sit alone in the car. She’s home and she’s safe, so I should keep riding. Right?

Wrong.

The voice in my head has zero problems with admitting the real reason behind me basically stalking my patient. Because that’s what this is. Let’s call a spade a spade and not beat around the bush.