Page 72 of Letters From A Stalker

My heartbeat changes. Not faster at first, just heavier. I sink onto the edge of the couch because standing suddenly feels unnecessary.

How long?

The question moves through my head before anything else. How long has somebody been watching closely enough to decide he knows when I sleep? I look toward the windows again before returning to the page.

And I know this: no one will ever look at you the way I do.

That should only frighten me. It does frighten me. The appropriate reaction is present and accounted for, somewhere between the tightening in my stomach and the cold sensation slowly climbing along the back of my arms. What I don’t understand is why there is another reaction beneath it. Not pleasure. Not yet. Something closer to being caught off guard.

I continue reading.

You move through this world pretending you’re ash, pretending you’re dim.

But I see the fire you try to hide. It pulls at me. It consumes me.

My eyes remain on those lines longer than they should.

I see the fire you try to hide.

I hear Kai’s voice from our last session telling me how quickly other people’s opinions arrive in my head before my own does. I hear myself telling him how carefully I decide what parts of my life are safe enough to share and with whom. Then this stranger tells me there is something underneath all of it. Something burning. I hate the tiny, traitorous part of myself that reacts to that.

The next lines should cure it.

I will not be like the others who left you.

I will not turn away.

I will follow.

My breathing slows as my attention fixes on the final sentence.

I will follow.

There is no way to make that romantic. Whatever else the person writing this believes he is doing, those three words strip away any comfortable interpretation. He is watching me. He intends to continue. Thursday night wasn’t necessarily imagination anymore. I glance toward the windows for a third time, and suddenly the room feels different around me. Not unsafe exactly, but visible.

The large windows on my house, that ultimately were one of the reasons I bought it, now feel like portals allowing just anyone to see into my soul. The trees outside make the space feel open without sacrificing privacy. Except apparently the privacy part may have existed entirely in my imagination.

I pull my attention back to the letter.

I will take.

That line sits alone long enough to make something low in my stomach tighten. The reaction annoys me immediately. There is nothing sexy about this, for fucks sake. Nothing.

And yet… my eyes move on.

I will replace your nightmares with desires.

I will make you remember what it feels like to burn.

And finally:

You are mine, Little Ember. Even if you don’t know it yet.

—Man in the Shadows.

I reach the end and remain exactly where I am, the page resting between both hands while the house continues making ordinary evening noises around me — the heating system shuts off, a car passes outside. Somewhere down the block, a dog barks twice and then stops.

I should call someone. That thought is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. The police would be the rational choice. Tessa would probably arrive at my house before the police if I told her what happened. Daniel would come too, although he would spend the drive insisting he wasn’t panicking while absolutely panicking.