Page 128 of Faking the Goal

"What am I supposed to do now? How exactly do you reject someone you've never met? Tape a note to my door? Dear Mysterious Stalker, thank you for your interest, but unfortunately I'm not accepting applications at this time?"

The corner of Kentaro's mouth twitches despite himself.

"I'm serious."

"I know."

"I don't want to be stalked."

"I know."

"I feel like that's a very reasonable boundary."

"It is."

He guides me back toward the couch, and once I'm sitting, he takes the spot beside me.

"The first thing you need to do is file a police report."

I groan.

"I figured."

"And you need to show them everything. The messages, the picture from tonight, the flowers, the package, the card. Anything you've kept from before."

My eyes drift toward the pile on the coffee table.

"I threw most of the old stuff away."

"Then give them whatever you still have. Screenshots, call logs, pictures. Anything."

I nod weakly.

"...Do I have some giant target painted on my forehead or something?" I mutter, staring miserably at the floor after a while. "Why does this keep happening to me? Why me?"

Kentaro is quiet for a moment before he answers.

"I read a study about stalking a few years ago. It talked about how relationship status can factor into who certain stalkers fixate on, especially the ones who convince themselves they're pursuing someone rather than harassing them. If the woman is single, there's nothing directly contradicting the relationship they've invented in their head. They can tell themselves she hasn't responded because she doesn't know them yet, or she's playing hard to get, or they just need to prove how serious they are."

His eyes flick briefly toward the card. "Basically, they can keep finding ways to interpret rejection without accepting it as rejection."

I squint at him.

"...Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"No."

"Good, because it doesn't."

"I'm not saying having a boyfriend magically stops a stalker," he says. "Some don't care. Some can even become more aggressive when they see the boyfriend as competition."

"Fantastic."

"But others lose interest when the fantasy becomes harder to maintain, especially if what they're fixated on is the idea that eventually the woman will choose them. And this guy already seems convinced the two of you are heading toward some kind of relationship," Kentaro adds. "He isn't writing to you like someone who just wants to scare you. He talks like he thinks he's courting you."

A fresh wave of disgust rolls through me.

"Please never use the word courting in reference to my stalker again."