Page 17 of Jealous Stalker
He picked up the phone, knowing it was recording him.
That’s what plays over and over in my head, hours after I woke to find it lying next to me on the pillow.
Not thrown. Not forgotten.
Placed. Gently. Like a gift. Or a warning.
I watched the video twice before I tried to delete it—because keeping it felt dangerous, like it could burst into flames in my hands. But I couldn’t in the end.
The edge of his shoulder in the corner of the frame. The way his fingers curled around my phone like he’d touched it a thousand times. And then his face—only half of it—tilted down. Just the shape of a jaw, the flicker of stubble, the glint of something sharp and aching in the dark.
He didn’t speak.
He justbreathed.
One minute of slow, deep inhales. Like he was memorizing me. Like he was trying not to say something he’d regret.
Like he wanted to.
I should be terrified.
But what I feel?
Is wanted.
Not admired. Not glanced at from across a room. Not swiped on and forgotten.
Wanted.
Completely. Obsessively. Wordlessly.
The thought sticks to the back of my tongue as I get dressed—slow, uncertain, my body still tingling like he’s somehow still here. I pull on soft jeans, an old sweater. Try to ignore the way my nipples pebble beneath the thin fabric. The way my thighs still ache from the tension he left behind.
My apartment feels too quiet after the night before. Too still.
Tooempty.
So I do something I hadn’t planned on. Something I can’t explain.
I pour a second cup of coffee.
The first is mine. Sweet. Creamy. Two pumps of vanilla.
The second?
Is for him.
I don’t know what he drinks. If he drinks it at all. But something tells me he’ll know what it means.
I carry them both to the small café table near the window. Set them down.
One in front of the other.
And then I walk away.
I sit in the living room, half-hidden behind the bookshelf. My heart beats fast. My palms are sweating. It’s stupid. So stupid.
But maybe he’ll see.
