The café had become a map of familiar silence—each chair, each creaking floorboard, each amber light overhead, marked by moments I hadn’t planned for. And then she wasn’t there.
Three days. Then five. Then ten.
I started showing up just before sunset, pretending I had work to do, pretending my seat was still mine. But without her, the corner felt abandoned. The whole place did.
She didn’t owe me an explanation. We weren’t anything official. But I felt the absence of her like a skipped heartbeat.
Then, the eleventh day. She walked in like a question. Face tired. Lips chapped. Wearing a long coat despite the spring chill lifting. A bruise—not purple, not new—beneath her left eye, half hidden with makeup that didn’t quite blend.
She walked right past me. Then paused. Sat down.
“I had to disappear for a bit.”
I nodded, but it wasn’t enough.
“You okay?”
“No,” she said. “But I’m here.”
She didn’t speak again for several minutes. Neither did I.
The moment I saw him again, sitting in the same place like he’d never moved, something inside me cracked.
I didn’t come here for him. I didn’t even want to see him. But I knew I needed to.
He didn’t ask where I’d been, not really. That alone made me want to cry.
I hated feeling like I owed people my pain just so they’d believe it was real. Like I had to prove I was still healing to be allowed to exist quietly.
I pulled the scarf tighter around my neck even though it was warm. He noticed. Didn’t say anything.
That silence felt safe.
So I gave him a piece of it.
“I saw him. Three days ago. He stood outside my building. Smiling. He held his phone up like he was recording.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No. That’s the thing. He didn’t have to.”
There’s a special kind of fear that doesn’t shout—it whispers. It’s not a scream in the dark. It’s the sound of footsteps that stop one floor below your apartment.
The silence between us thickened, but not uncomfortably. I didn’t try to touch her hand, though I wanted to. She wasn’t someone who needed saving. She needed space to breathe.
“You could go to the police,” I said finally.
“They already know,” she said, eyes unfocused. “Restraining orders are just paper. He knows how to disappear. Like a virus.”
She handed me her phone. “I need you to read something.”
Messages. Hundreds of them.
All from private numbers.
Most were blank. Some had pictures—buildings, streets, the back of a girl’s head who looked too much like her. All timestamped, random hours of the day.
“I block one number,” she said quietly, “he finds another. He doesn’t need to touch me to own me.”
I wanted to say something. Anything. But nothing came out.
She looked at me suddenly. Eyes sharp, defensive.
“I’m not asking for pity.”
“I’m not offering it,” I said. “Just asking if you want company.”
Her body softened, but her eyes didn’t.
“For now.”
I shouldn’t have shown him those texts.
I shouldn’t have shown anyone.
But I wanted someone else to see the madness—to confirm I wasn’t imagining it.
Because sometimes I doubt myself. That’s what he used to do—make me doubt everything. I'd lose a key and wonder if I ever had it. I’d hear a phone ring and forget what I was doing. I started hiding things from myself just so I wouldn’t lose them.
Gaslighting is funny like that. You don’t even notice the fire’s gone out until you’re freezing.
But this guy—he didn’t flinch. He didn’t recoil from the chaos. He sat there like he’d been expecting it all along.
And it terrified me.
Because what if I wanted to trust him?
And what if I was wrong?
Again?
Two days later, she left something under my coffee cup when she walked out.
A note.
“If I don’t show up in 3 days, call this number. Don’t come looking. Don’t follow. Just call.”
There was a name. A woman. A shelter.
I memorized the number before burning the paper.
That night, I walked past the café three times before I went home. Just in case.
And when I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of blue scarves and broken doors.
I told myself I was done running.
But it’s hard to stop when your legs still remember how.
Three nights ago, I saw the red car again. Different driver. Same model. Same crack in the tail light.
Paranoia? Maybe. Or maybe he’s not even trying to hide anymore. Maybe he’s just reminding me that I belong to him, no matter who I talk to, no matter what new life I try to build.
But I couldn’t stay home, not again.
So I came back.
To the café.
To him.
This time, she sat down before I could say anything.
“I lied,” she said.
I blinked. “About what?”
“I wasn’t just engaged to him. I lived with him. I wasn’t allowed to have friends. I wasn’t allowed to work. I wasn’t allowed to have my own bank account. He said if I left, he’d ruin me.”
I stayed quiet.
She looked at me like she expected judgment. When she didn’t see any, she exhaled something that had been trapped too long.
“I used to think I was strong. That I’d never become one of those girls.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Turns out, the only difference between strong and stupid is who’s telling the story.”
I leaned forward.
“You’re not stupid. You survived.”
She looked at me again, softer this time.
“Not yet.”
It’s strange, how easy it is to sit beside someone who doesn’t try to fill your silence with noise.
He didn’t tell me I was brave.
He didn’t say I was inspiring.
He just listened.
That made him dangerous.
Because that made me want to trust him.
And if I trusted him…
What would he do with that?
Two days passed without a message. No blocked calls. No strange cars. No ghost photos.
She smiled more.
Not often. Not wide. But enough to break something in me every time she did.
Then came the text.
From an unknown number.
“Heard you’ve made a new friend. He’s next.”
Attached: a photo.
It was me.
Walking into my building.
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