“I’m respecting boundaries,” she continued, pleased with herself. “You asked me to leave the inn, so I did. I didn’t want to impose.”
“You pitched a tent,” I said. “On the sidewalk.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “That way I’m not in your space. I’m adjacent.”
I closed my eyes for a second, feeling tension mounting in my temples. When I opened my eyes, she was holding something out to me.
“I made you a scarf,” she said proudly.
It was… a scarf, in the loosest sense of the word. Several colors that did not belong together. Stitches uneven, tension wildly inconsistent. It looked like it had been knit with enthusiasm rather than skill.
“It’s mismatched on purpose,” she added. “I didn’t want it to feel too polished.”
“Thank you,” I said, because my mother had raised me to be polite even in the face of absurdity.
She looped it around my neck without waiting, patting my chest when she was done. “There. You look so much warmer.”
“Glenna, you know this isn’t appropriate, right?” I gently questioned.
“And these,” she said, reaching back into the tent and pulling out two lumpy socks. “Still working on the second heel. I like to take my time.”
She hummed as she handed them to me, the melody unmistakable. An old song I barely remembered writing, back when I thought heartbreak had to be loud to count.
“You know all the words,” I said quietly.
“Of course I do,” she replied. “I know all of you.”
That was the moment I realized just how badly I had miscalculated the situation. Not because she was threatening. She wasn’t angry or threatening at all, but she had an absoluteconviction that she belonged wherever I was, that my life was something she could simply attach herself to and inhabit.
“I need you to pack this up,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “And leave.”
She tilted her head. “But I just got settled.”
“I’m calling my lawyer,” I said, more to myself than to her, something I should have done immediately after leaving the inn this morning.
She smiled. “You always say that when you’re overwhelmed.”
I reached for my phone, fingers moving on muscle memory, and stopped.
A restraining order would take time and I would need proof of her behavior.
Instead of my lawyer, I scrolled to Ephram’s name and hit call.
He answered on the second ring. “Ephram here.”
“I have a situation,” I said.
There was a pause. “Define the situation.”
I stepped a little farther away from the tent and lowered my voice. “There is a woman camping directly outside my shop.”
Another pause. Longer this time. “Camping? As in a tent?”
“On the sidewalk. She’s one of my previous stalkers,” I revealed.
“Is she armed?” Ephram asked.
“No.”
