He Knows Me

He knows me. 

His eyes could burn a hole in my back with the way he stared at me in the halls. My breath would hitch as I felt his presence walk past, lock shifting into place with the turn of my key as I left my apartment to go get a morning cup of coffee. His hand brushed against the tail of my coat. In a moment, he was gone, shuffling behind his wife as they made their way back to their own home. She was blissfully unaware, and even as I left the building I heard him laughing at something she’d said, it echoed throughout the building. I swear it was the most hollow sound I had heard. 

I couldn’t understand how this was happening again, a stalker, an over observer, and obsessionist. 

My mother had always told me I was nothing too special, nothing incredible to look at, and that if I was going to catch the attention of a man I would need to learn. She was a cruel woman. She was a wicked woman, the kind that makes you pick the stick she’s going to bring down on your knuckles if you dust the flour incorrectly. Cooking was a skill she thought I needed. Nothing that will scar, she would mumble after each hit, saying I would need all the help I could get. 

She was wrong. I’d been driven from three different homes, all within the last two years. Each was accompanied by its own set of prying eyes. Wandering hearts. Men with wives, men with children, men with loving homes. Yet still, they were drawn to me. Their wives were always so heartbroken when they found out, because they always did the way women do, and I just couldn’t stay. Especially not when the obsession seemed as though my life could be at risk. 

Each man had been bold enough to come into my home. I am not a silly girl, alone in big cities with no locks, I always made sure the door was well barricaded. Still, they came. 

Howling winds drowned the screams, but the sound of a pounding heart still makes the hair on my arms stand straight. These are not memories I revisit often. Always a chill in the air as I stood in the street, watching the red and blue lights twinkle against the outer walls of a shattered home. 

It was happening again. Jonathan would steal glances in passing. Though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy them at all. Jonathan is handsome, devilishly so. His eyes are deep chocolate pools, and one would think I’d learned my lesson, but still I wanted to swim in them. 

Maybe this time would be different, that weight in the air that hung between us could be something other than what it had been in the past. It had started so innocently. Something so simple as an orange dropping from my grocery bag as I struggled to get into my new apartment. The timber of his voice was like the bass of a cello. He joked that the locks here are sticky. It was one of the rare times he had been unaccompanied by Madison. 

My mouth had gone dry, and some semblance of a thank you blew from my lips like chalk in the wind. Since then it was stolen glances, brief grazes of his hand in the hall. This time was different as my own eyes wandered too. Curiosity, lust, naivety. 

It came to be that somehow we always made sure to be in the hallway at the same time. Electricity between us was palpable. Undeniable. Nothing I’d felt with the last two men who had let themselves become taken by me. 

Madison’s voice was always a shrill interruption of our silent exchange. A reminder that he was taken, that he was being held somewhere he didn’t belong. I knew how that felt. To have somebody control you, pull you behind them, puppeteer your life. Maybe that’s how our connection became so deep. 

He became a part of my every waking thought, and I his. We couldn’t take this being apart for much longer. These things always had a way of coming to a head. 

I scratched feverishly at the paper that had lain in front of me. A rare note that I’d slipped under his door in the late hours of the coldest night this year. We needed to meet. We couldn’t continue like this, it was agony. Pure agony. 

Tonight. We were finally going to meet tonight. 

I had found the perfect place. An abandoned house that sat outside the city, away from the hum of cars and the distraction of everything all too real. We would pretend as if it was a house of our own. 

A thud broke me from my daydream as I merged onto the highway, acceleration must have dislodged something in the back, but right now I don’t want to focus on it. I flick the radio on, turn it up, and roll the window down ever so slightly, letting the cool night air slip in and across my skin. All of my senses felt so alive. I could feel the change in the air as my car took me to the outskirts of the city. The gravel crunched beneath my tires as I pulled up to the little blue house. 

Jonathan seemed like the kind of man who’d buy that house for us. I could see our kids playing in the yard. I’d brush the leaves from my daughter's hair and tell her she was beautiful, and he would kiss my head and say the same. Tonight was the first step towards that picture. 

I had to pry myself away from the ideas fluttering around in my mind. I needed to unload everything I’d brought. I wanted tonight to be special, and abandoned houses aren’t exactly romantic. 

Sweat had formed in beads on my upper lip as I stood waiting on the porch. It wasn’t easy, but it’ll do for tonight. The chill in the air was welcome as I brushed the sweat on my sleeve, just in time to see the moonlight glint off of a familiar car. 

I knew he would come, but my heart still leapt with joy. He threw his door open like he couldn’t get out fast enough. He strode towards me and I felt my cheeks ache as my smile widened with every step. 

“Jonathan,” I squeaked. 

He blew past me, broad shoulders nearly knocking me to the ground as he burst through the front door. I’d be excited to see our new home too. I stumbled in behind him, shutting out the breeze behind us. 

The floors creaked with the weight of his steps as he raced from room to room. So sweet how he was che-

“Where is she?” He’d come toward me in an instant, so fast I could barely think, my back pressed into the door as he towered over me. 

“You don’t have to worry about Madison, I made sure everything would be perfect.” His breath was hot, panting in my face, before he whipped away from me. 

“MADDIE?” 

My stomach turned. This isn’t how I’d imagined it. 

“Honey,” I reached out to touch him, needing the reassurance his arms would bring, but he ripped his arm away the second my fingers so much as grazed his skin. 

Another twist in my gut as his face contorted in disgust, “Don’t touch me. I just want to know where my wife is.” His voice was gruff, angry, viscous. Nothing at all like the Jonathan that had picked up my oranges and warned me about sticky locks. 

I could feel my heart cracking. 

“Please,” His fingers dug into my shoulders as he grabbed hold of me, his voice now pleading, “Please just tell me where she is, and I’ll get her and leave and we can pretend like this never happened. I won’t tell a soul.”

“What about us?” I placed my hands on his chest, like I’d dreamed of so many times, only for him to brush my hands away, stepping away from me once more. 

“What’re you, like, insane? I don’t even know you.” 

Her voice cut through the air, like so many times before, calling his name. Interrupting us. 

No. No. No. 

This isn’t how it is supposed to be at all. 

This time was going to be different. She was only a means to an end. This was only temporary while he adjusted. Which he will. 

Sometimes love is difficult. Sometimes you just need to break an existing bond. He knows that. 

He was scratching at the door she was behind like a crazy person. I pressed my blade into the back of his neck. 

“You know me. You love me. Or she dies.”

Things will be different this time. I know it. 

I’d really hate for him to end up with the other two.