I told myself not to look back.
I didn't want to give him that satisfaction — the silent confirmation that his presence still lingered with me after I left the café. The street was busy, the afternoon light sharp and unforgiving, and yet everything felt distant, as if I were moving through a version of the city that existed slightly out of sync with everyone else.
My steps were steady.
My thoughts were not.
Elias.
I repeated his name silently, testing the way it felt inside my head. It shouldn't have meant anything. Names were easy. People shared them all the time.
But his didn't feel casual.
It felt intentional.
By the time I reached my apartment, my chest ached with the effort of holding myself together. I locked the door behind me and leaned against it, closing my eyes for a brief moment.
This was a mistake.
I hadn't crossed any real line — not yet — but something about him made me feel like I was standing dangerously close to one.
I pushed myself away from the door and moved through the apartment, dropping my bag on the chair, my keys clattering too loudly in the silence. The space felt different now. Smaller. Less secure.
As if someone else had learned how to see me inside it.
That night, I dreamed of eyes in the dark.
---
The days that followed should have diluted the memory.
They didn't.
I didn't see him again — not at the café, not on the street, not reflected in windows or mirrors — but his absence carried the same weight as his presence had.
I found myself noticing things I never had before.
The way my shoulders tensed when someone stood too close behind me.
The way I paused before crossing streets, scanning faces without knowing why.
The way my body reacted to quiet — not with comfort, but with alertness.
I hated it.
I hated that a stranger had altered something so fundamental inside me with nothing more than attention.
On the fourth day, my phone buzzed with an unknown number.
I stared at the screen longer than necessary.
Unknown Caller.
My pulse quickened.
This was ridiculous.
I answered anyway.
"Hello?"
There was a pause on the other end — not awkward, not hesitant. Measured.
"You shouldn't answer numbers you don't recognize," Elias said calmly.
I froze.
My breath stalled halfway through my lungs. "How did you get this number?"
Another pause. Shorter this time.
"I didn't steal it," he said. "If that's what you're thinking."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"No," he agreed. "It doesn't."
I pulled the phone away from my ear, checking the screen again as if it might explain something logic couldn't. My mind raced, grasping for explanations that didn't make sense.
"This isn't okay," I said tightly.
"You're right."
The agreement threw me off balance.
"Then why are you calling me?"
"Because you keep telling yourself you imagined me," he replied. "And I don't like being mistaken for a figment of someone's exhaustion."
Anger flared — sharp, defensive.
"You don't get to decide what I think."
"No," he said softly. "I decide what I know."
I closed my eyes.
This was too much. Too fast.
"How did you know I'd answer?" I asked.
"I didn't," he said. "I knew you'd hesitate."
Silence stretched between us, thick with something unspoken.
"You're crossing a line," I said finally.
"Yes," he replied. "That's why I called instead of showing up."
My heart hammered against my ribs.
"You're supposed to apologize now," I said.
"I would," he said evenly, "if I were sorry."
I laughed — a short, disbelieving sound. "You're arrogant."
His voice softened, just slightly. "No. I'm careful."
I ended the call before he could say anything else.
My hands shook as I lowered the phone.
---
That night, sleep refused me again.
I paced the apartment, my thoughts looping back to the same question no matter how hard I tried to redirect them.
Why does he know how to find me?
I wasn't naïve. I understood how the world worked. Information wasn't as private as people liked to believe.
Still — something about the timing, the certainty in his voice, unsettled me.
The next morning, I decided I wouldn't let this continue.
I changed my routine.
Different café.
Different route.
Different times.
Control restored, I told myself.
For three days, it worked.
On the fourth, I found a folded piece of paper tucked beneath my windshield wiper.
My heart dropped into my stomach.
I stood frozen on the sidewalk, staring at it as if it might explode.
Slowly, I pulled it free.
No envelope.
No name.
Just a single line, written neatly in dark ink.
You're not wrong to be cautious. You're wrong to think you're invisible.
I scanned the street, my breath shallow.
He was nowhere in sight.
That was worse.
I crumpled the note in my fist and got into my car, my hands gripping the steering wheel too tightly. My thoughts spiraled — fear tangling with something I didn't want to acknowledge.
Because beneath the unease…
there was recognition.
He wasn't chasing me.
He was watching.
And somehow, terrifyingly, he had learned the spaces between my patterns — not to invade them, but to step precisely where I would notice.
That night, my phone buzzed again.
This time, the number wasn't unknown.
It was saved.
Elias.
I didn't remember doing that.
I stared at the name until my vision blurred.
Then, against every instinct screaming at me to stop, I answered.
"This ends now," I said before he could speak.
"I know," he replied calmly. "That's why I'm calling."
A pause.
"You don't want this," I said.
"No," he agreed. "You want answers."
My throat tightened.
"What makes you think you're entitled to give them?"
"Because I'm the only one who's been honest with you from the start."
My chest rose and fell sharply.
"And what exactly have you been honest about?" I asked.
"That I was watching before you fell," he said. "And that I didn't start because of the fall."
My breath hitched.
"What does that mean?"
Silence.
Longer this time.
Then, quietly: "It means you weren't an accident."
The call ended.
I stood there, phone pressed to my ear, heart pounding, every nerve on edge.
He hadn't threatened me.
He hadn't chased me.
He hadn't lied.
And that was what scared me the most.
Because for the first time since this began, I understood something with unsettling clarity.
I wasn't the one deciding how close this would get.
He already had.