My hackles rise.
Vinny sets it down and picks up the stack of printed pages.
Lyrics. They’re highlighted and annotated in the margins. Certain lines are circled over and over.
You’re the only one who really hears it
Forever fits inside one night
You chose him
Next to them, in looping handwriting:
This was ours. You said it while looking at me. You promised.
I exhale slowly through my nose.
“She seems completely convinced,” Ollie says quietly.
Vinny nods once as he opens the velvet pouch.
Inside is a guitar pick. It’s one of mine. From a show. It has my logo stamped in gold. I don’t even remember throwing it.
On the back, scratched in with something sharp:
Still yours.
The kitchen feels smaller now. Like something has shifted the axis by a few degrees.
I drag a hand over my face. “She needs help,” I say, and I mean it.
Not mockery. Not cruelty. Just fact.
“This is escalating behavior,” Vinny replies evenly. “She’s violating distance restrictions. Leaving items constitutes contact.”
Ollie’s hands are flat on the counter now. “She was here,” he says.
“Yes,” Vinny confirms. “Concierge confirmed visual identification. They contacted me as soon as she left the building.”
I close my eyes briefly. She was in the same building. In the same lobby where we walk in and out like normal people. Where Ollie signs packages. Where we argued about whether we needed cake.
The normalcy of it is what unsettles me.
Ollie steps closer to the island and studies the photo without touching it. The muscles in his jaw pulses, but his voice stays level. “She doesn’t get to claim your art,” he says. “Or your past.”
Vinny pulls out his phone. “I’ll photograph everything. This goes straight to legal.”
“Police?” Ollie asks.
“Yes.”
I look at him. “Are they going to treat it like harassment or like…?”
“Violation,” Vinny answers. “Which helps us.”
I lean back against the counter, forcing myself to breathe evenly. My anger is there, simmering, but it isn’t chaotic or spiraling. It’s protective.
“She thinks she’s part of something,” I say quietly. “She thinks the songs were conversations.”
