No wonder time’s flying by. I’m sleeping it away, or wasting it in class, feigning interest while turning over the information I’ve gathered thus far inside my head.
In the evenings, when Hailey’s down for the night, since there’s nobody who needs torturing and no people to see, I read through Aalyiah’s texts. A small chunk every night. A page here, three there...
I can’t stomach more. I need breaks. Short breaks, but breaks, nonetheless.
Some of their interactions send me halfway to the grave. Some pump my blood pressure so high I should be in cardiac arrest.
I’m almost through the entire exchange, maybe two hundred pages left, and I’ve not found one mention of Hailey, Rhett, the evidence, or even one nosey question from Alex.
So what is it your dad does?
Nothing of the sort. Alex wasn’t as dumb as I pegged him for. He didn’t leave any trail. At least not on this phone. Jackson and Ryder haven’t located the other one yet.
Every other minute of my day is spent watching Hailey. With amusement I’ve realized I’m a stalker. Not a crazy one—yet—but, nevertheless, a stalker watching her all day long.
I watch as she leaves the dorm building, always half-asleep, stumbling across campus to the cafeteria. I watch while she eats breakfast, her favorite foods etched into my memory: BLT sandwich takes the crown. Then waffles, French toast, and on the days when the bags under her eyes are more prominent it’s either cereal or a fucking apple.
I watch her head to class with Chloe, Rachel, or Amari, and in the afternoons I’m her shadow, out of view but trailing her footsteps wherever she goes.
She’s a loner in the evenings. She either writes or reads her diary, and occasionally another book from Agatha Christie.Watching her obsess over her own past or smile when Poirot finds a clue shouldn’t be interesting. Hermemoriesare interesting, not Hailey.
Yet she is.
I spend hours watching from a distance, more drawn to seeing her write than read. The rhythm of her hand moving along the page, long strokes forys andgs, the dots sharp like little stabs. The occasional lip-chewing pause while she thinks, the slight headshake before she crosses something out. I can tell if she’s writing a memory or jotting down questions and possible answers based solely on how she guards her words.
If she restlessly shifts in her seat, protecting the pages whenever someone passes too close for comfort, she’s writing memories. If she doesn’t notice people whizzing by, she’s focused on the possible answers to all those questions she poses in the margins. I meticulously catalog all the inconsequential details, memorizing the nuances of her expressions, how she bites the tip of her fineliner when she reads the memories back and how she always has more to add.
Sometimes, when the need grows too visceral, I approach, though I’ve been careful not to since she bolted out of my car last week, running as if she were chased by vicious dogs.
I broke into her room that night. Of course I did, I couldn’t stop imagining what nightmare she’d fallen into. I had to know exactlywhatshe saw, but there were no new flashbacks in her diary. Not that night and not any night since. I found all the stuff about her mom though, she’s been writing that in the back, for some reason. But that doesn’t help me now.
I know she’s regained at least three new memories. Her eyes turned dull on Monday, then again when I interrupted her reading in the almost empty cafeteria late on Tuesday. And again, when she spilt hot coffee all over herself this morning.
Including the flashback from the car, that’s four glimpses into the past, but nothing on the page.
Whatever she remembered this week wasn’t as intense, but the sadness in her eyes drove me crazy late into the nights.
Why isn’t she writing about whatever she saw?
I need to know what she saw.
I’ve been holding back from getting close to her all week. I should keep at a safe distance. It’s enough that—in a way—I’ve been compromising the task when I’m alone, fucking my hand to thoughts of Hailey’s round, perky ass, full lips, and what I imagine to be a pretty, pink pussy.
Once the orgasm has rattled through me, I’m fine. Ashamedsheis the shining star of my fantasies but in control of my actions...
Too bad that soon enough I somehow find myself wherever she is... and it’s not only during the day now.
Careful not to make a sound, I close Hailey’s bedroom door behind me, my eyes dart to her nightstand for confirmation that the diary’s there.
It is, so now I’m a creep, watching the sleeping beauty.
She’s tangled in the sheets like every other night, though tonight she’s facing the wall, not me. That’s disappointing. I enjoy her unguarded face.
Though I admit... in this position my view is fucking exquisite. She has one leg draped over the comforter, the soft curve of her hip bathed in the moonlight.
I’ve seen countless boobs in my life, dozens of pussies, women in the throes of ecstasy, their bodies shaking and asses bouncing as I powered inside them, but Hailey’s hip is somehow the most arousing, stimulating sight.
It’s so fucking erotic it should be illegal.
