Or rather — IthinkI see him.
Dark hair. Familiar walk. A flash of a jacket I swear I’ve seen before.
Daniel.
My stomach plummets. My hands start to shake so badly I nearly drop my coffee. He just walked past the window, I swear.
I turn to look again, and he’s gone. Just… gone. Like smoke.
That’s the second time I’ve seen him in as many days.
My breath goes short. My chest tightens like a fist is closing around it. I grip the edge of the table, counting in fours like every therapist I’ve ever had told me to, but my brain is screaming too loud to hear anything.
Inhale, two, three, four.
Exhale, two, three, four.
People are looking at me now. A woman with a pram gives me the kind of pitying look usually reserved for stray dogs in charity adverts.
Eventually, it passes. My heart slows. My breathing evens out. But I feel hollowed out, like I’ve been scooped from the inside.
Daniel was here again. That’s not a coincidence. Why is he hovering around here?
What does he want from me?
Again, another thing I don’t want to think about today
Pete. James. Sam, Chris. Evelyn. Daniel.
They start to blur, like names on a memorial.
Too many names. Too many people grasping at my life.
There’s only one I should be focusing on.
Pete.
Just Pete.
Heading home, I try to distract myself with chores. Laundry, hoovering, the ceremonial clearing out of the fridge (goodbye, three-week-old hummus). Anything to fill the hours until I see Pete again tonight.
By evening, my nerves have been wound so tight they hum. I shower, change into something casual-but-not-too-casual (the eternal gay dilemma), and drive over to Pete’s.
The house is dark when I pull up.
I knock.
Nothing.
I try Pete’s phone. Rings. Rings. Straight to voicemail.
I walk around to the back — not creepy at all, just a concerned boyfriend checking for signs of life — but the place is empty. Even the garden feels wrong, like it’s holding its breath.
I get back in the car and start to drive home, stomach knotted.
It’s halfway down the hill that I see it.
A car. Behind me.
