Her Stalker

2

Chapter 2

He staggered as he tried to hold the table for support. His hand brushed against the alcohol on his desk, causing it to fall and shatter. Staring at the mirror in front of him he couldn’t recognize himself anymore. She was right. He really needed help.

His eyes held no emotions. He didn’t feel anything. He couldn’t, even if he tried. The only thing he could feel was a sense of guilt and anger hovering around him, enveloping him in misery.

'How could she?' he thought with disgust, stretching his hands to her picture on the table, caressing it. It went from a soft caress to a tight squeeze. He squeezed as hard as possible, taking out all his anger on the picture, further tearing it.

He no longer felt guilty. He felt rage

'She should have cared less' he let out in a shaky breath.

“Oh my Darling” he finally said as he reached out to his pocket and took out a lighter “You will burn” he put the picture over the lighter and watched it burn with a satisfied smirk on his face

****

Hattie arrived at the hospital at exactly 6:02 a.m. It was quite early, but she just couldn’t stay in her house any longer. After reading that note, she remained up for the rest of the night and as early as 5am, she started preparing for work.

Each time she remembered the note, a cold shiver would run down her spine. The thought of it made her shriek.

'What if the person was trying to kill her?'

She thought about telling Westin but thought against it almost immediately. He would definitely cancel his business trip and come over. She didn’t want the little freedom she had to be over just yet.

It was a certainty the police wouldn’t look into it because it was simply a mere note,. There was no need to bother calling the police.

'Maybe I shouldn't worry' she tried to console herself, but the fact that someone broke into her house made her panic more. She began to imagine the worst scenarios, but she quickly waved them off.

A knock on the door distracted her from her thoughts.

“Come in,” she let dryly.

A man who looked in his early 30s walked in. Her lips parted into a gasp as she marvelled at how striking he looked. Everything about him seemed perfect. His tall and virile figure, his brunette hair, brown eyes, his heavenly sculpted face and his perfect stubbles.

But there was something odd about his visitation. Hattie didn’t remember giving him an appointment.

“How can I help you?” she asked in puzzlement, staring at the young man, settling down on the seat opposite hers even though she never asked him to sit.

“Oh, I came to see you” His crisp voice came forth briefly. His voice alone brought butterflies to her belle. His beautiful eyes caught hers in a trap. She just couldn’t take her eyes off them.

“I don't remember giving you an appointment” she managed to let out through the great difficulty his presence caused her.

“No, you didn’t ” he smirked, grasping the little crafted hippo on her desk. Once again, she never gave him the permission to touch anything. Did he not know anything about manners?

“So how are you here?”

Probably Aida gave him an appointment or maybe Nurse Ashley did. They should have at least told her first.

“I just walked in” he sounded too casual and that made Hattie feel disgusted. His arrogance pissed her off.

“You mean nobody gave you access and you just walked in? Is that not a little rude?” she shifted uncomfortably on her seat, maintaining a stern look on her face.

“Is it? I'm so sorry about that ma’am” Although he apologized, his voice didn’t hold any sort of remorse. He certainly wasn’t sorry. Did he come to make jest of her?

“Why did you come straight to my office?” she asked because Dr. Lewis's office was the first office before hers, and it was written boldly on his door “psychologist”. Since this man was perhaps new, he should have gone to the other doctors judging from how isolated her office was. Instead, he walked straight for hers as if that was where he planned on visiting.

“I just wanted to be here” he had this look in his eyes that she couldn’t decipher. It made her feel extremely uncomfortable.

“Well, as you might already know, I'm Dr. Hattie”

“Javier” he said briefly.

“So Javier, what brings you here, are you here for counselling or something else?”

She wasn’t supposed to do this_ give counselling to someone who didn’t book an appointment, but she wanted to overlook his rudeness and do her job. Probably he desperately needed help, and she wasn’t going to deny him that. This was her job appointment or no appointment.

“I require counselling,” He leaned closer, placing his hands on her desk as he peered his eyes into hers. It was so intense that she had to break eye contact. That was a bad one coming from a psychologist, but she just couldn’t help it.

“On what?” She asked with the highest form of stability she could portray.

“My girlfriend said I need therapy” He recited as though he read a book. What the hell was wrong with this man?

“Do you need therapy?” Hattie pushed.

“I don't know,” he shrugged, making her sigh.

“Why did you think she said you need therapy?”

“I don't know”

“Are you depressed?”

He paused for a while “I don't know”

This wasn’t going anywhere.

“You know I can't help you if you keep giving that type of answers” Hattie was already getting pissed. The very thing she hated was a difficult patient.

He looked confused for a while, staring blankly into space “Everything is just so confusing” he muttered.

“What do you mean?” Hattie leaned closer

He turned to her and then he repeated “Everything”

“You need to be specific" she paused; she needed to start from somewhere, “Where is your girlfriend?”

She noticed how his eyes darkened when she asked that “Zenny left” he responded dryly

“Why did she leave, and once again I ask. Why did she tell you that you needed therapy?” Hattie took a moment to observe at him. With narrowed confused eyes, she asked, “Do you have any mental disorder?”

“Not that I know of…. Zenni was just too nosy” he broke eye contact with her, and then his eyes landed on her arm and at the visible bruise she had on it.

She brought down her sleeve immediately. She had forgotten to put makeup on it to hide the bruise. That morning, she didn’t have the time for that. The chills the note gave her made her leave the house as fast as she could.

“What's that?” he asked, still staring at her arm even when she had covered it up with her shirt.

“A scratch” she stated, hoping he would let it go and not ask her anymore questions.

“That does not look like a scratch” he sat up with his eyes still not leaving her arm.

Truth was, Westin got angry with her over some stupid argument. He beat her up and burnt her there with a hot knife. He could be terrible when angry, but that didn’t change the fact that he loved her. At least that was what she assumed.

“Well it is” she was starting to feel uncomfortable “You were saying something about your girlfriend,” She tried to divert his attention from the bruise he seemed so invested in.

The look in his eyes wasn’t helping at all. In her entire years of experience, no patient had ever made her feel as uncomfortable as he did. He was so creepy that he made her skin crawl.

She watched as his countenance slowly changed to anger and she swallowed hard.

“What is it?” she couldn’t help but ask

“Nothing” he shook it off and let out a small smile as though he was trying to reassure her that everything was fine. He took his time to look at her office as though he was studying it. He then let out a huge sigh

“I'm leaving” he blurted out.

“But you just got here” She said, although she desperately wanted him to leave. She very much disliked his aura. Also the way he looked at her as if he was judging her for something she wasn’t aware of.

“Yes, and I'm leaving” She noticed the rage in his voice as he spoke, but he didn’t look angry. He stood up and headed for the door. Before opening the door, he turned around and looked at her. “I'll see you later, Miss Hattie” he opened the door and then left

Hattie could finally breathe. What was that? Who is he? What the hell did he want from her because she was certain it couldn’t be just counselling.

'Oh my God' Hattie breathed out in relief, placing her palm on her chest

Where did Aida go? How was he able to walk into the office without being stopped?

Hattie stood up from her chair, leaving her office to look for Aida who she found writing something on a book on her desk by the entrance of the psychology unit.

“Aida, where the hell did you go? A man just walked into my office without an appointment” She asked, trying to hide the shakiness in her voice.

“I stepped out to get something for someone, why?” Aida confusedly asked

“You should have handed it over to Ashley” I pinched my temple as I inhaled sharply

“Yeah, but I couldn’t find her. What happened. What did he want?”

“I don’t know. At first I thought it had to be counselling, but it seemed like he wanted something else. There was something awfully weird about him Aida” She knew there was something wrong about him, but she couldn't seem to place a finger on what exactly.

“Why, any mental disorder?”

“Not really. He seemed oddly strange. He made me feel like I didn't know my job”

She scoffed “He told you that?"

“Apparently, he didn't need to. But…” she paused, still trying to figure out a word to use for the situation.

“Just stop overthinking,” Aida said calmly, returning her gaze back to the book she wrote on.

“Yeah, maybe,” she sighed and left for her office.

Back to the loneliness of the four walls of her office, she decided to call Westin. Not because she ever enjoyed talking to him, but because she felt bored at the moment.

“Hey Westin,” she called out.

“Hattie You didn’t call me yesterday” he said, not out of worry, but anger. Why did she have to call. Why couldn’t he call?

“I think someone broke into my house yesterday. I was too thrown off to call. I’m sorry” Why the hell was she even apologizing? He had made it a norm that she called every day and when she didn’t, she had to give him a suitable explanation. That was so unfair, but she dared not say all that to his face though.

“A burglar?” he asked

“I think so” She said although she knew it was certainly not a burglar. None of her stuff went missing and what kind of burglar would leave a note? The person could be all things but not a burglar.

“How did they get in?” he asked further.

“My window was broken. I guess that’s how they got in”

“Have you fixed it?” he asked impatiently.

“No, I was going to do that today after work”

“Are you sure you would be fine all alone in that house? If you don't want to stay there, you can go over to my sister's house”. He offered and he sighed, “I wonder why you have no friends Hattie” he shot at me.

“No I’ll be fine” she reassured him

*******

Westin…

After ending the call with Hattie, he stood up from the bed he laid on and walked over to a table where a bottle of water was. He took it and gulped the content.

“Alexandra,” He said with a smile on his face. He took his phone out once again and dialled her number

“Hey baby,” he called out softly

“Westin, what's up?” Her soft voice came through. It made his skin tingle.

“I'm home alone. Can you come over?” He asked, already certain she wasn’t going to say no

“Of course I can. Took you long enough to ask” she chuckle

With the reassurance that he was going to have a woman on his bed in a matter of minutes, he ended the call. He loved this kind of life. He loved Hattie, he was certain of that, but he just wanted to live his life a little. Of course, Hattie should never cheat on him. He was the only one allowed to cheat. She was meant to keep on loving him unconditionally, as she had always done.

His phone suddenly beeped. He smiled again thinking it was Alexandra, but it was a text from a restricted number. His heart dropped as he read the content of the text.

“You are not as smart as you think,

When you look out your window tonight, you might catch a glimpse of me”.