With movement.
With travel.
With the sense of being guided—quietly, relentlessly—into a colder world where my rules didn’t matter.
I stepped into the back seat, the leather cool beneath me, and as the car pulled away from my condo, I looked out at Charleston’s soft winter morning and realized I wasn’t scared of going north.
I was scared of how much I wanted to.
And somewhere inside that fear—deep, hot, humiliating—was the dangerous truth I’d been circling since the letter:
If he was real …
I didn’t want to survive him unchanged.
5
Airports had always made me feel anonymous.
I’d liked that once—the way you could disappear into motion, become nothing but a boarding pass and a destination code. I’d built entire stretches of my career on that anonymity. Fly in. Fix things. Fly out. Leave no trace that I’d ever been there except policy memos and funding allocations.
This time was different.
This time, every step I took through Charleston International felt observed.
Not watched in the obvious way—no eyes following me, no man lingering too close—but in the subtler, more unnerving sense that someone knew where I was without needing to look. Like my presence itself was being tracked. Logged. Anticipated.
I moved through security with my spine too straight, my awareness dialed too high. The absence of panties beneath my tailored trousers made every motion deliberate. The brush of fabric against skin was a quiet provocation, a reminder threaded into my body with each step.
You asked for this.
I hated how often that thought returned. Not accusatory. Not shaming.
Factual.
I reached my gate early. Too early. The seating area was half-full—business travelers hunched over laptops, a couple with a toddler negotiating a meltdown, a woman in athleisure scrolling furiously on her phone. Normal lives in motion. Predictable trajectories.
I chose a seat near the windows, set my bag down at my feet, and folded my hands in my lap like a woman waiting for a verdict.
My phone stayed silent.
That was worse than the messages.
Silence meant I didn’t know where I stood—or knelt—in his awareness. It meant he didn’t need to check in. Didn’t need reassurance.
I stared out at the tarmac, watching ground crew move with practiced efficiency, and tried to slow my breathing.
I was going to New York for work.
That was the story.
The summit was real. The itinerary impeccable. Abigail had already forwarded me a polished agenda with speaker bios and breakout sessions that bore all the hallmarks of legitimacy.
Violence prevention. Community intervention. Strategic funding models.
All things I knew how to talk about with my eyes closed.
What I didn’t know how to talk about—what I couldn’t even fully articulate to myself—was the way my body reacted to the knowledge that somewhere north of here, a man had arranged this like a chess move.
