CHAPTER 5– CRACKS
863 Words
I was seven the first time I understood that the people meant to protect you could also be the people you learned to fear.
I don’t talk about my childhood much. Not about my mother’s endless stream of bad relationships, or the apartment in Queens that always smelled faintly of cigarettes and stale beer, or how I learned to tell what kind of night it would be from the sound of footsteps outside the door.
I buried most of it years ago.
Built over it, really.
Good grades. Scholarships. A stable job. My own apartment. A life that looked normal from the outside.
I was fine.
At least that was the version of the story I preferred.
Thursday morning I woke before dawn with that familiar tightness in my chest — the old kind with no obvious trigger. Nothing bad had happened. Nothing was actively wrong. My body just sometimes remembered things my brain tried not to.
I made coffee and stood by the window .
My college therapist used to tell me to breathe through moments like this instead of fighting them. I stopped seeing her two years ago after convincing myself I didn’t need to keep paying someone to listen to problems I already understood.
By the time I left for work, I felt mostly normal again.
The photograph was waiting for me when I got home.
It had been slipped under my apartment door inside a plain white envelope with no stamp or address. Someone had delivered it by hand.
I stood in my kitchen staring at it for a second before opening it.
Then my stomach dropped.
It was me.
Outside the coffee shop on Mercer Street.
Dark coat. Hair tied back. Coffee in one hand, phone in the other. Completely unaware someone was standing far enough away to photograph me without being noticed.
There was a timestamp in the corner.
September.
Three months ago.
Before the gala.
Before Steven officially entered my life.
I sat down on the hallway floor without really meaning to. The photograph rested loosely in my hands while cold air crept in from under the door.
Three months ago I had been nobody special. Just another architect with routines boring enough to become invisible.
At least I thought so.
I turned the photograph over.
Nothing written on the back this time.
No message.
But somehow that made it worse.
Because the picture itself already said enough.
I see you.
I’ve been seeing you.
Long before you noticed me.
I should have called the police.
I knew that immediately.
A stranger had photographed me. Knew where I lived. Had been watching me long before introducing himself.
Normal people would have reported it.
Instead, I slid the photograph into the kitchen drawer beside his business card and stood there staring at it for a long moment afterward.
The strangest part was that I still couldn’t fully call what I felt fear.
It should have been fear.
But it wasn’t.
Friday morning I got to work before seven-thirty because sleeping had become frustrating and being awake at least gave me something to do.
The east wing was quiet that early. Grey morning light spilled through the windows, making everything look unfinished.
I opened my drawings and focused on calculations. Measurements. Structure loads. Things that made sense.
Architecture had always calmed me because it followed rules. Things either held weight or they didn’t. No hidden meaning. No guessing.
I had almost settled into the work when I sensed someone behind me.
“You’re here early.”
Steven.
I kept my eyes on the screen for another second before looking up.
“I could say the same.”
Something touched the edge of my desk.
A coffee cup.
I frowned slightly and looked from the cup to him.
“You take it black,” he said. “One sugar when you’re tired.”
My hand stopped moving.
“How do you know that?”
He held my gaze calmly.
“I pay attention.”
“To me specifically?”
“Yes.”
Just like that.
No hesitation. No attempt to soften it.
Yes.
Simple and honest in a way that should have unsettled me more than it did.
I picked up the coffee before I could talk myself out of it.
The cup was warm against my hands.
He watched me quietly, and for a second something shifted in his expression. Small enough that I almost missed it.
Relief maybe.
Then it was gone.
He straightened slightly and stepped back toward his office.
“The Mercer site visit is Monday,” he said. “Eight a.m. Dress appropriately.”
“I know how to dress for a site visit.”
“I know.”
That pause again.
“I know a lot about you, Anna.”
Then he disappeared into his office and closed the door behind him.
I sat there for a long time afterward with the coffee in my hands and the photograph still burned into the back of my mind.
Whatever this was, it had started long before I understood I was part of it.
And somehow, despite everything, I still drank the coffee.
Every drop.
- Writer
