In Love With My Stalker

Chapter Two

The storm lasted the whole weekend, but they restored the power the next afternoon. Reports came in of flooding and electrical fires in different parts of the city. I didn’t really care very much, but Bernie wouldn’t talk about anything else during our card games. Apparently, one of his grandchildren had died. I’d told him I was sorry, but he still wouldn’t shut up about it. Despite the repetitive conversation, I enjoyed my time with him. He liked it quiet too most of the time. And I got tired of the senseless racket of the storm in my apartment. The endless drumming of the rain had stopped being soothing and instead just grated on my nerves.

The day the storm ended, I woke up late in a tangle of bed sheets. The sky had been a moody gray the last few days, but that morning it was a thin, washed out blue. I took a shower to wake myself up, and tossed on some jeans and a black t-shirt that was a couple sizes too big, so it hung off my shoulder. I wrapped my hair up in a towel to dry and leaned against the kitchen counter, eating miniature marshmallows. Soft foods were my preference. I couldn’t stand to hear myself chew.

A loud rapping sound from nowhere made me scream in terror. I dropped into a crouch, sending my towel and mini-marshmallows flying across the kitchen. I threw my hands up to cover my head as I waited for the world to explode. My heart thudded in my chest, and shallow whimpers left me as I waited there in suspense of the violence. Had a bomb gone off? How long did I have before the building collapsed?

As I cowered there with tears of panic coursing down my cheeks, the sound came again. But… that time it sounded like knuckles on glass. Was it a rescue attempt? I dared to look up and survey the damage. Apart from the scattering of marshmallows surrounding me, nothing had changed. The sound seemed to have come from the main room. My hands shook as I placed them on the floor. I crawled to the doorway separating the two rooms. The rapping came again just as I gathered the courage to peek around the corner. I stared with wide eyes when I saw a strange man on the fire escape, holding a large brown paper bag and looking into my apartment. I froze in terror.

Before I could think of anything to do, be it scream for help or try to hide, he saw me. He smiled and beckoned to me, like I was that stupid. I just watched him with my eyes still wide in alarm, wondering when he would start smashing through the glass. He lifted the bag to show me “I-H-O-P” written across it and beckoned again. Like that was some kind of incentive and not an unintelligible scramble of letters.

As I stared at him, I gasped with recognition. He was clean shaven and his hair was down. Plus, he was wearing glasses now, but it was still the man from the other night. I’d forgotten all about him. Recognizing his face, I felt brave enough to climb shakily to my feet. I didn’t take my eyes off him as I approached. My knee rested on the seat as I pried opened the window.

“You look completely freaked. I’m sorry if I startled you—I didn’t know how else to get your attention. You made it pretty clear you don't like people knocking on your door,” he said. Then he stuck his feet through my window and climbed right in while I spluttered weakly in protest.

“W-what are you doing? Why are you here?” I asked, on the brink of panic again. He headed right for my kitchen. It disturbed me how he felt so comfortable invading my space without permission.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about how you helped me. I know it terrified you, but you did it anyway. And I haven’t been able to think of a single way to repay you—so I decided on multiple ways. Starting with this,” he explained as he set the bag on the counter. I followed him at a distance with my arms folded across my chest.

“And… why would I want something from… I-H-O-P?” I asked. He glanced at me with a frown of disapproval.

“No one says it like that. It’s I-HOP.”

"Why would I want an IHOP then?”

He turned right around and frowned even deeper at me. “Come on. You know—IHOP. The restaurant.” I just looked at him with my own blank frown. “Are you serious? It’s an acronym—the International House of Pancakes.”

“Is it?” I glanced at the bag again, curious despite myself.

“How can you not know about IHOP?” he asked me in disbelief.

My shoulder lifted in a slight shrug. “I don’t go to restaurants.”

His eyebrows furrowed with pity. I liked that even less than disbelief.

“Come see what I got. I just ordered a ton of stuff; I didn’t know what you would like.”

He turned back around and started taking plastic containers out of the bag. I stepped closer and opened one of them, finding an omelet the size of my forearm stuffed with tomatoes and mushrooms and cheese. Another container had a cheeseburger and fries. Still another had mashed potatoes and gravy with corn and chicken. I frowned.

“… thought you said it was a pancake place.”

“It is. They just have other stuff too,” he told me. Then he opened a container with a stack of pancakes inside, covered in strawberries and whipped cream. I accepted it in silence.

From a drawer, I retrieved some forks and passed one to him without making eye contact. We stood at the counter to eat with several feet of space between us. First, I cut careful squares into the pancakes and then made sure each bite had the same amount of strawberry and cream before I ate them one by one.

The quiet surprised me. I didn’t think the man was capable of not making some jarring noise. I glanced over at him out of curiosity, only to find him studying me as he took a humongous bite of an omelet. My gaze darted back to my plate. Being stared at, particularly when I was eating, always made me feel like some specimen under a microscope lens.

“Is it agoraphobia or xenophobia? I get them confused,” the man blurted with his mouth full.

“What are you talking about?”

“The thing you said about people wanting to hurt you. That’s the fear of strangers, right? I looked it up, but I can’t remember now. Is that agoraphobia or xenophobia?”

I scowled, even more uncomfortable now than when he’d been watching me eat. I pushed the tines of my fork through a strawberry and twisted it, dispelling some of my anxiety.

“I don’t have any phobias. I’m just cautious. That’s smart. That’s healthy,” I muttered.

“Oh. Alright." He kept eating, but his eyes never left me. I quickly lost my appetite. “When was the last time you left this place?” he asked out of nowhere.

“Yesterday.” I looked up at him again in defiance. I knew he was judging me. Everyone did.

He looked right back, but his eyes didn’t stay on one feature for long. He was still examining me. “I meant the building. Not just your apartment.”

“Is that why you came here? To ridicule me?” I snapped. I felt heat rush to my face as I scowled.

“No! Of course not! Sorry, I—I'm just curious, and I guess it makes me seem like an asshole. I’m not judging you, I swear.”

“Good. Because I don’t have to explain anything to you.”

“You’re right. It’s none of my business,” he agreed. But I felt like he was patronizing me now.

I glared at him and put down my fork. “Why do you keep staring at me?”

His gaze didn’t waver. “Well, it was dark when I met you, so I spent this entire time thinking you were really pretty. But now that I can see you clearly, I’m realizing that you’re gorgeous. It’s a lot to take in.”

My face heated with a blush, and I frowned, shrinking away from him. I didn’t know how to respond to that. I wrapped my arms around myself, seeking protection from his probing eyes.

“Do you have questions for me?” he asked me.

“No…” I whispered to my socks, avoiding his eyes.

“Really? A white guy climbs through your window with enough food to feed a village, and nothing comes to mind?” He grinned. He was just getting stranger and stranger.

I shook my head no. “I don't want anything from you.”

“Aw, come on. There has to be something you want to know.”

I hesitated. My heart was pounding without rhythm, but I approached him with what little bravery I possessed. His gaze was steady on mine. His eyebrows lifted as I closed the gap between us. I stopped when I was so close that I had to look up to see his face.

“I… I just…” I petered off when I realized I had no idea how to explain what I needed.

My hand trembled as I reached up. His breath caught in his chest when I neared his face. I stopped half an inch from his mouth, feeling his shaky exhale on the pads of my fingers. My hand dropped to poke at his chest, then pressed against his heart. The thrumming I felt against my palm reassured me, although it was faster than I expected. I looked up into his eyes again as my hand fell to my side. He stared at me so intently that I clutched at my shirt, checking to see that it was still there.

“Uh… what was that?” he asked with his voice oddly husky.

“Just checking…” I whispered with a blush. I stepped back to reinstate the distance between us, but he took a step forward to close it again. My pulse picked up speed.

“Checking what, exactly?”

“Nothing. I do that sometimes,” I told him, embarrassed.

The room was quiet. I knew he was staring at me still, but I didn’t want to look and confirm it. Instead, I busied myself by picking up marshmallows off the floor. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and the next thing I knew he was crouching on the kitchen floor beside me, gathering marshmallows too.

“You were checking if I was real,” he said after a while.

I didn’t answer. But as I grabbed a cluster of marshmallows, his hand rested on the back of mine. I snatched away, looking up in surprise.

“Still not judging you,” he assured me, but pity softened his gaze again. I looked away without a word. “What movies do you like? I rented some new ones—I could bring them down,” he said, once again saving the day with a topic change.

“I don’t have a TV,” I confessed.

“Geez. Okay, so no restaurants, no movies, no TV. What do you like to do then?”

“Read. And play cards.”

“Yeah? What do you play?”

“Poker, mostly. Texas Hold ‘em, Omaha. Spades and blackjack too. And Go Fish,” I told him.

He laughed. “Well, I’m no good at poker, but I can definitely take you down in a game of Go Fish,” he replied. For the first time in a while, I smiled.

With the marshmallows cleaned up, we packed away the food, and I went to get my deck of cards. We set up the game on the window seat. As we played in muted comfort, the only sounds were the slide and slap of the cards on top of one another. When we spoke, we only asked questions like “do you have any sixes? Do you have any eights?”

I didn’t look up from the cards carefully organized in my hands, but in my mind, I pictured the man’s face. His expressions and the look in his eye when he was trying to figure me out stood out to me. His gaze made me feel x-rayed and criticized before, but I was learning to appreciate a genuine attempt to understand me. The downside was I didn’t know how to react.

“I think I’m getting you. Why you prefer cards over TV,” he announced, attracting my gaze. His eyes were as probing as ever, where mine shied away after a few seconds.

“Think so?” I countered.

“Yeah, I do. I mean, look at us, actually taking the time to enjoy each other’s company. People don’t do this anymore. Sometimes we’re so desperate to fill the silence we can’t even appreciate what it gives us. Quiet can be nice,” he explained.

I was the one staring then, my mouth slightly open in shock.

“I don’t remember your name,” I blurted. To my relief, he grinned.

“Jake Greco. Your neighborhood nomad, if ever the title existed,” he replied, thrusting out his hand for me to shake.

“Cadence Wailer. I don’t really do anything.” Hesitating for a moment, I eventually slid my hand into his.

“Hey, that’s not true. You’ve beaten me four times at Go Fish, effectively making me eat my words. And you’ve made me rethink every social interaction I’ve ever had, so that’s something. Don’t sell yourself short,” Jake said. He held onto my hand for a moment longer.

I gave him another smile out of gratitude, which he returned. My hand fell out of his, but the ghost of his touch lingered on my palm as he shuffled the cards for another round.

“A nomad,” I echoed after we’d played a few more games in silence. It came out like a question.

“Yeah, in a modern way, I guess. I’m really only home about two months out of the year, if that. The rest of the time I spend traveling.”

“Why?” I asked in distaste.

He chuckled. “Because I like it, that’s why. I feel like I’m at my best when I’m on new ground. There’s always an incredible new world to discover. And interesting people. I never get tired of exploring a different place. No two experiences have been the same.”

“So… you only feel like yourself when no one knows who you are?”

He blinked at me, stunned.

“That's deep. See? There you go again, getting me to question my existence. You are way too good at the psychology thing.”

I blushed and looked away, feeling shy but pleased with myself. When he wasn't looking, I kept stealing glances at him. Each time, my eyes caught more imperfections. His glasses would slip to the end of his nose, but instead of pushing them up, he’d just tilt his head back so he could still see. His nails were bitten down to nothing. He kept pushing fistfuls of his hair out of his face, leaving it a mess. Just looking at it drove me crazy. As he leaned forward to gather the cards up to shuffle, I reached out and smoothed his hair, taming it again. He looked up at me in surprise when I touched him, so I pulled away. I ducked my head, avoiding his eyes and feeling ashamed.

Then I felt the warmth of his hand on my cheek, tilting my head up to look at him again. His fingers slid from my cheek to my neck and then through the roots of my hair, making me shiver. No one ever touched me like that. It made me hyper aware of all my skin, and how it suddenly seemed to yearn to be felt. Then he started smoothing my hair down too. I’d forgotten until then that I’d been in the middle of drying it when he showed up. I probably looked more of a mess than he did.

“I have no problem with beautiful women wanting to touch my hair. Or any other parts of me, for the matter. You can do whatever you want. I'm pretty sure I won’t resist,” he told me in that oddly husky tone.

I smiled at his joke. Since he said it was okay, I reached out to fix his hair again, making our arms cross.

Jake stayed for hours—much longer than I had ever felt comfortable spending in another person’s presence. But it didn’t feel like a burden. It felt… easy. Sometimes we talked, but most of the time we enjoyed the quiet with one another. He still studied me, but I was getting used to it. I even studied him too and almost as boldly. We ate the food he brought when we got hungry. I made lemonade from a powder mix when we were thirsty. And I even got comfortable enough to maintain eye contact for a few seconds. It was long past dark and we were both yawning when he told me he was leaving.

“Is it alright if I come back tomorrow?” he asked me as he pushed the window open. Neither of us even considered him using the front door.

“You want to?” I asked in surprise.

He paused on his way out, turning to look at me. “Oh, definitely. And every day after,” he told me with a grin. He winked at me before boosting himself out of the window.

I wasn’t sure what the wink meant, but I went to bed that night with a smile.