“I’m going to have to raincheck on dinner. I don’t feel well.” And I’m not even lying. A sick churn is growing in my belly, and I need to sit down, or I might throw up.
“That’s a shame. We’ll try again when you’re feeling better. I hope it’s nothing serious,” he says with effortless charm.
“Just a bug, I think.” I step out of my heels and walk over to my apartment door to stick my eye through the peephole before sliding the lock on. “I’ll, um, call you.”
“You sound…”
A car alarm blares down the phone, startling me. My eyes slide to my apartment window.Wait a second.Was that car alarm down the phone or outside my apartment?
I rush over to the window and peer outside. “I sound what?”
Breathy and slightly panicked. My gaze lands on a silver car parked halfway down the street, and my heart stutters. Have I seen that car before? I try desperately to remember. I have walked up and down those roads for weeks now. Why can’t I remember if I ever saw that silver car?
“Anxious.” A car door slams, and my pulse leaps in response.
I lean closer to the window, narrowing my eyes. Itseemslike someone’s in the driver’s seat. But are they? Is it just in my head? Am I panicking for no reason?
“Really?” I squeak. From Oscar’s pause, he can probably hear my heart jack-hammering against my chest.
“Did someone say something about me?” he asks so innocently that I almost tell him yes.
I laugh, and it rings false to my ear. “No, nothing like that.”
“Then we’ll do dinner another time. As friends. It’ll be fun.”
“Maybe. I have to go.” I hang up as quickly as I can.
What if he inserted himself into my life to hurt me?
“I’m being paranoid,” I whisper to myself, biting my nail as I pace with my cell phone clenched in my right hand.
I stop pacing and stare into space.
“What if you’re not?” I ask myself.
I rarely sit on my couch. After something bit me in my bed, I’ve never found sitting on any soft furnishing comfortable or relaxing. But my mental state is shot, so I thump onto the couch, yelp, almost dropping the phone when it vibrates in my hand.
Oscar’s name flashes up on the screen.
I stare at it.
Why would he be calling back? What do I do?
I stare at the phone until it stops vibrating. The screen goes black.
Two seconds pass in silence.
His name flashes up as my phone starts vibrating again.
Every internal alarm I have is blaring so loud I’d be a fool to ignore it.Could he be outside?I scramble to my feet and dart to the window. When I peek out, a shadowed figure is standing beside the silver car.
I stop breathing, even as I continue to gnaw furiously on my thumbnail.
With my heart in my throat, I watch the shadowed figure—definitely a large man from his build—open the door and slide into the driver’s seat. I canalmostsee his face from the dim light spilling out of the car. My phone stops ringing right before the door closes.
It’s him. Ithasto be him, right?
The silver car’s headlights flash on, and I don’t dare take my eyes off it until it’s gone. Only then do I rush to my apartment door.
