Then something shifts.
The sadness curdles. It tightens. Sharpens.
Anger floods in so fast it almost makes me dizzy.
I push myself to my feet, hands clenched into fists. How dare he? How dare he walk out like that? How dare he decide what I feel for me? How dare he punish me for seeing him and not recoiling the way he expected?
I didn’t flinch. I didn’t pull away. I didn’t run.
And he still left.
My jaw tightens as I turn and stalk through the apartment. The living room camera is the first thing I grab. I don’t hesitate. I unplug it with a sharp pull and throw it to the floor. The one in the kitchen follows. Then the bedroom.
I don’t pause. I don’t second-guess myself.
Each camera goes dark in my hands, one by one, before I drop them into a box I pull from the closet. When I’m done, I snap the lid shut harder than necessary.
So that’s how it’s going to be.
He wanted control. He wanted distance. He wanted the dark.
Fine.
I carry the box to the kitchen table and leave it there, like a challenge.
My heart is still racing when I sit down at the table. I grab a notebook from my bag and flip it open, the paper rustling loudly in the silence. My hand trembles as I pick up a pen, but once I start writing, the shaking stops.
I write everything.
Every detail he’s ever shared, small things, offhand comments, pieces of himself that slipped out during late-night conversations. His first name. His job before the accident. The type of aircraft he flew. The way he talks about discipline, about routines, about watching from a distance. The limp. The gym. His family. LA County. The timelines that don’t quite add up.
The more I write, the clearer it becomes.
He didn’t disappear into nothing.
He exists. Somewhere solid. Somewhere real.
By the time I set the pen down, my chest is no longer aching. My breathing is steady and I’m more focused and determined than ever.
I stare at the pages in front of me, at the outline of a man who thought he could vanish when things got hard.
A slow, humorless smile curves my mouth.
“Okay,” I murmur to the empty apartment. “My turn.”
Time to stalk my stalker.
Chapter Eight
Zane
It’s Valentine’s Day.
The irony would almost be funny if it didn’t hurt this much.
I’m alone in my apartment, lights off, the city bleeding in through the windows in muted tones of red and white. I don’t turn anything on. I don’t need to see the reminders; flowers in grocery stores, couples on the sidewalk, the world celebrating something I managed to destroy with my own two hands.
I’ve been shot at. I’ve burned. I’ve lost my parents. I’ve fallen out of the sky. I would do it all again, every bone-breaking, lung-crushing second of it, if it meant I didn’t have to sit with this feeling lodged in my chest. This slow, grinding ache that doesn’t fade no matter how many hours pass.
