Chapter 2
843 Words
Edward
She reads my message in her living room, i can see the glow of her phone light up her face from where i stand in the shadow beneath her window.
“You really caught me.”
Four words I’ve never said to anyone. Four words I shouldn’t have sent. But the monument i saw her picture on that app again,smiling,unguarded, hopeful… something inside of me snapped.
She doesn’t answer right away.
She chews on her bottom lip, brows pulling together the way they do when she’s thinking too hard. I’ve watched her do it while studying, while paying bills, while pacing on the phone with financial aid.
And now she’s doing it because of me.
My phone vibrates.
Grace:
“I didn’t think i caught anything”
She shakes her head after sending it, embarrassed, like she already regrets being honest. The urge to walk inside and tell her she has no idea what she does to me hits hard and fast.
Instead i text:
“You did. Hard.”
Her breath stalls. I see her chest rise and freeze. She presses a hand to her sternum as if she’s trying to calm her heartbeat. Little to her knowledge mines beating out of my chest as well.
Her reply comes slower this time as if she’s studying what she just wrote. As if she’s debating sending it GOD please send whatever you have wrote baby girl.
Grace:
“I guess I’m a little surprised you even noticed me”
I have to stifle a laugh. She has no idea that noticing her became my full time job the day she walked into my shop with that oversized law textbook and a tired smile. I type
“Believe me. I noticed.”
She swallowed hard i hear it even from where i stand outside of her apartment. Silence fills her apartment. That heavy kind that says she’s felling something she doesn’t want to say out loud.
Then she picks up her bag, glances at her text book on the coffee table and drops onto the couch like the weight of the world has pinned her there. I send another message
“ you still have that night class?”
I know it sounds creepy but she told me about it that day in the coffee shop. She jumps a little, surprised, even though we’ve only talked about it once before.
Grace:
“Yeah… why?
Her foot taps anxiously. She does that before test,before emails she’s scared to open before phone calls she doesn’t want to make.
I look at her through the glass, and the decision makes itself.
“Stop by the shop after. If you want.”
Her lips part.
Her thighs press together.
She’s not even aware she does that when she gets nervous or when she’s imagining something she shouldn’t.
Then she whispers softly to herself, so soft i almost don’t hear it:
“Why do i want to?”
My phone buzzes.
Grace:
“Okay. I’ll come.”
Heat surges through me fast, overwhelming, dangerous.
She stands tucking a strand of hair behind her ear smoothing her sweater, glancing at the window as if she feels me watching. She doesn’t see me. She never sees me
But tonight she’s walking straight into my space I don’t know how the hell I’m going to hide what she does to me when she’s finally close again.
Grace:
I shouldn’t have said yes. I keep telling myself that as i pace my living room,pretending I’m not shaking. My textbooks are open, my highlighters scattered, but none of it matters my brain is full of him
EDWARD.
The man from the coffee shop.
The man who looks at me like he sees more than I’m ready to show.
The man who texted me four words that wont stop echoing through my chest:
You really caught me.
I’m not the type who catches men like him. I’m the girl lugging loan forms, eating Ramen four nights a week, fighting to stay afloat in classes full of people who don’t understand what “tuition deadline” actually means.
But when he messaged me it felt different.
Real.
Heavy in a way that scares me.
I grab my bag and pause in front of the window,staring out into the dark for a moment before i lock up. The street is quiet. Empty.
I tell myself im not looking for him.
I tell myself im not imagining things.
But i feel watched, not in a threatening way but in a way that makes my stomach tighten and my checks warm. Like someone out there sees me like really sees me. My phone buzzes its him
“Ill keep the lights on”
A soft breath escapes me. I shouldnt want that as much as i do. But i do. GOD help me i do. Tonight im going to him. And im terrified of what that means, because something tells me this isn’t causal,light or harmless.
It feels like the start of something i wont be able to undo.
- Writer
