Or I could walk the four minutes to the station, sit across from an officer, and try to explain.“ My name is Katherine Elliot, and I’ve been receiving threatening notes, and I need your help.I’ve thought about it often enough.When I was eight years old, I saw a man abusing his son. And others. He was going to hurt me…
God no. I know where that story ends.
There would be so many questions. With answers that don’t end well for me. There would be an investigation, which would lead them to talk to my parents. They’d never let me live it down. Especially notwhen it hits the papers. If there’s one thing my parents hate more than failure, it’s public failure. Dare I besmirch their family name, they’d blow a fuse. My brain keeps spiralling, imagining the crime podcasts. The comments sections. The retaliation.Fuck no.
And the boy. Or man, now, I guess.
They’d find him, and everything he’s gone through, and pull it all out in the open. Treat his life like a circus act there to satiate their bloodlust. Their longing for regurgitated pain.
I set the phone down and look around my cosy flat. At the life I’ve escaped to for a few years, before I have to go back to the gilded cage I come from. My fingers settle on the stone heart resting against my chest. I could leave it all tonight for safety. Go back home to my parents’ house.
But if this guy knows about the past, then he’ll know where my parents live. It might delay whatever he’s doing, but it won’t necessarily end it.
Running isn’t an option.
So it’s the police, or putting my trust in the heart-eyed man watching over me. At least one doesn’t want to wait for escalation before acting. Hell, he might even have caught the guy by now. Entangling myself with this obsessed ghost from my past isn’t a sensible option. I should go to the police and beg for their help, then settle down with a guy like Darren, instead of dreaming about a man whose face I don’teven know. Someone sensible and steady without a past.
Someone who wouldnevercount the minutes since he last saw me.
Fourteen years, one month, two weeks, three days, fifteen hours and thirty-three minutes.
How can anyone compete with that? The small dark-haired boy with bruised knees and nothing to give, holding out the heart-shaped treasure he’d found without a second thought. God, it’s no wonder I’ve kept a part of my soul for him all these years. How could anyone match up to this boy I’d idolised at eight? Even when I received the notes I’d assumed were from him, I’d never fully believed he could have sent them. Not him.
I don’t know who he is as an adult, but I know the bones of him beneath whomever he’s become.
I may not know his name, nor his face, but I know that he’s good. Under whatever he’s gone through, he cares enough to protect a woman he barely knows. The way he’s gone about reintroducing himself to me is unhinged, but I can’t help but want him never to stop. It’s insane, but when he’s near me, even if it’s creeping outside my window, I’m glad that he’s there.
He makes me feel safe. And knowing my darkest secret, he still wants to be near me.
Darren wouldn’t. I’m not even sure Ellie would.
Going to my room, I climb across the bed and open the curtain just enough to peek through. He’s there, notlooking at the window, but minding the alley for me. Those pink hearts stand out in the dark, a sight that soothes me instead of striking fear into me. I consider going out to talk to him, but the adrenaline spike has dipped, leaving me feeling hollow, tiredness weighing me down into the comfort of my bed,
I don’t know who’s more unhinged, him for being out there, or me for liking it.
Yawning, I snuggle into my pillow, keeping an eye on him until sleep gathers around me, knowing no one will harm me while he’s there.
THIRTEEN
KAT
After three days,I’m back in the library. Try as I might at home, I can never get into the headspace to work in the cramped flat. Avoiding telling Ellie the truth about Heart Eyes, the stalker, and my past is also painful. It’s like swallowing down the truth is giving me an ulcer or something.
But the library brings a calm I sorely need.
I close down my assignment, I’m failing to make any useful advance on it anyway, and pull up my search engine.
It’s not the first time I’ve searched for that slice of my past. Over the years, late at night when the memory surfaced, I’d reach for my phone and hunt for a name. Or a face. For something that would solidify that summer as more than a childhood memory. After that day, he disappeared. I had no idea what had happened tohim from the moment we parted that evening. I still don’t. I’ll need to find out.
Since chasing off the stalker and guarding my window, I hadn’t seen him. The occasional feeling of being watched passes over me, but otherwise, he’s remained distant. Which means the burning questions I have piling up in my head go unanswered.
This time is different. I might not have his name or his face, but I know he made it out the other side of his childhood. But who else could know about me? And does that person know about him, too?
Focus, Kat.
I type what I know into the search box, in a variety of different permutations. The name of the cottage on the edge of my parents’ estate, my parents’ details, the date they lived there, and the name of the local village. As far as I remember, he never attended the school, nor was he allowed to leave the cottage. Few people were aware he even lived there.
The library empties, and I’m only half aware.
