My first instinct is to look up and seek out the area for a familiar face now that I’ve figured out where they are in the room, but I don’t. I need to be calm and smart about this. Alerting Conor about it now could send the stalker panicking.
Think, Arianna. Think!
An idea pops into my mind that I decide to immediately act on. “I’m going to start vlogging,” I tell Conor, who responds with a grunt, too focused on the game. I smile at that before slowly turning around and holding my phone up in selfie mode, as I often do when shooting a video for my channel. As discreetly as possible, I scan the faces of the people around the tables, and that’s when I see a familiar face.
And my heart drops to my stomach.
I don’t know what I was expecting to see. Perhaps the face of one of my uncle’s friends coming after me after everythingthat happened with Uncle Gio. Or maybe some crazy fan I met long ago. Any of those choices would have made sense.
Not her.
Mia Stanapolis.
A friend. At least she’s someone I considered a friend. Heck, just a few months ago, we attended an influencer’s event together and spent the entire weekend hanging out and vlogging together. Perhaps calling her a friend now is a stretch, seeing how things have been strained between us.
It all began after the influencer’s event when she started to get clingy and pushy, sharing my personal information on her channel to gain traction. My requests for her to take down those videos were ignored, seeing how they were the most watched on her channel. But that’s the thing about the internet and gossip. People move on quickly. There’s always something happening. When selling me out didn’t serve her anymore, she tried to reach out to me, but it was too late.
Bridges were burned, broken and shattered beyond repair. And Mia, well, she refused to accept that whatever friendship we had was over, so she turned to messaging me at odd hours and begging to collaborate on other videos. Eventually, I had to block her. It’s been months since I’ve thought of her, and maybe that’s why I didn’t think to connect her to my stalker.
Christ, I know that things didn’t end well between us, mostly because of her, but nothing warrants this. Did she really just follow me across the country and stalk me for days because I stopped collaborating with her?
None of this makes any fucking sense.
I keep my eyes on Mia, and when she gets up from her table and leaves, going in the direction of the bathroom, I decideto follow. I tell Conor that I’m going to use the bathroom and don’t wait for his answer before heading after Mia, ignoring the men who try to get my attention as I follow my stalker. Perhaps I should be scared about going after my stalker without Conor, but Mia is my height and size. I don’t believe she could beat me in a fight if it came to that. She’s not even the violent type, just annoying.
When Mia slips into the bathroom, I rush to follow her but stop myself before I can enter. A thought slips into my mind, and I figure that maybe I should help a friend out. Since she wanted a collaboration, this is our chance, so I start live streaming on my channel and keep my phone by my side before finally slipping in.
Mia doesn’t seem all that surprised to see me when I enter, and she waits for the only other woman with us to leave before finally turning to face me. I step closer, making sure her face is visible on the livestream.
“I know you’re a fan of my work but this is taking it to the next level, don’t you think?” I hiss, my voice chilling to ice. “Stalking and following me across the country? That’s pathetic, even for you, Mia!”
“Oh, please. The pathetic one is you,” she spews, pushing from the sink and stomping toward me, the venom in her eyes forcing me back a step. “You are the loser who dumped the plans you made with your best friend for some dick!”
“What?”
“This trip was ours to make!” she rages, moving back to the sink and slamming her hand on the basin. “I hoped we’d collaborate on another vlog together, but you turned me down, locked me out of your life like I was nothing. Like I wasn’t fucking in love with you.”
Her words are like a hammer, and they slam into me with enough power to knock me back another step. “W-what are you talking about?”
"We could have been an influencer power couple. You told me about this trip, remember? I figured, why would she tell me her plans for a cross-country trip if she wasn’t hinting at traveling together?” Mia says, speaking to herself more than she is to me before turning back. “I helped you plan this fucking trip, but you chose to bring a man with you!”
I’m speechless…horrified. How the hell did I not see how insane she was when we had become friends? Christ, I didn’t lead her on…did I? I remember the conversation we had about the trip, and at the time, I only thought we were sharing our dreams. I didn’t realize Mia thought we were talking about a trip we’d take together. Heck, she didn’t help me plan the trip. I remember her making suggestions on places I could visit, but... Christ, how could she have misinterpreted our entire relationship?
“Why did you follow me?” I ask, twisting my hair with my fingers as I often do when I’m stressed. “Don’t you see how crazy it is to follow someone for days and secretly take pictures of them like you’re some kind of stalker?”
“I was hoping we could still go on the trip together. That somewhere we’d accidentally bump into each other, like at the Sleeping Bear Dunes, and blame it on fate and rekindle our relationship, but then…I saw him.” Something dark crosses her eyes, turning the green in her eyes into an earthy gray. “You kissed him.”
Mia turns back to the mirror, knuckles turning white as she grips the white basin and meets my gaze in the reflection. “You kissed him, and I wanted to kill you. Heaven forgive me,but I daydreamed about shoving you off the cliff at the Grand Canyon or paying some hitman to take you out at the Navy Pier!” And then she turns to me. "But I could never get too close, so I have to mess with your car, but the fucking man you keep around ruined my plans!”
“So, when you saw me with Conor, you decided to kill me instead? How does that make any sense, Mia?”
“Because if I can’t have you, no one can!” she snarls. “And once you’re gone, everyone will know who I am. I’ll be the heartbroken friend who lost her soulmate. They’ll follow me because they feel sorry for me. Your death will make me famous.”
"You’re insane!”
“Maybe.” She shrugs, her eyes glittering with something unhinged. “But I’m going to be a very famous kind of insane.”
“Why didn’t you just approach me? Talk to me like a normal person?”
