In Love With My Stalker

Chapter Five

I woke up one night to a loud peal of thunder. I sat up in my bed in the dark and could hear the clamor of rain falling to the ground. Since I met Jake during a storm, this just made his absence even more unbearable. I wanted to see him more than ever now. So I would be brave and visit him for real. But I knew I couldn’t knock on his door. I’d wait there forever until he came out, and the anticipation would give me an anxiety attack. My eyes went to my bedroom window like a magnet as lightning flashed beyond the glass. The choice was obvious.

I put on my boots and a heavy hooded sweater over the t-shirt I wore to bed. The sweater fell straight to my knees. I felt my way in the dark to the main room, where a bright flash of lightning revealed the window. I went to it and started inching it open when I paused. As an afterthought, I stumbled to the kitchen and grabbed the bag of marshmallows off the counter, stuffing it in my pocket. Good friends brought snacks. Then I opened the window and climbed out onto the fire escape before I lost my nerve. The raindrops were heavy, bloated, and furious, pounding on me without mercy. I clutched at the railing of the fire escape as I made my way up the stairs in the downpour.

I reached Jake’s window, and everything was dark beyond it. But I saw the faint light of the digital clock on his TV-movie thing. It felt like a sign of life to me. Somehow, being able to see the space made me feel less afraid to knock. I held my breath and pounded on the glass, hoping he could hear me over the storm. The rain made my hair slip into my eyes. I shook it back many times as I waited there. I knocked again and again, never losing hope that he would come.

My heart leapt when a light flicked on down the hall. Jake came into view not long afterward, and I couldn’t help smiling at the sight of him. He stumbled in a daze into the couch, banging off the armrest. But then he headed for the front door instead of the window, so I knocked again to guide him. He turned around in surprise, and when he saw me against a backdrop of lightning, he practically ran to the window.

“Kay! What’re you–? You’re soaking wet!”

I took his hands, letting him help me through the window. He made me stay right there, shivering with a smile, while he went to get me a towel. When he came back with three of them, he bundled me up in two. He rubbed the last one through my hair to dry it. I couldn’t stop smiling.

“What were you doing out there? You could’ve got hurt.”

“I missed you,” I said through trembling lips.

He stared at me with his mouth wide open. It was a minute before he could talk. “Oh… you have no idea how good it feels to hear you say that. I missed you, too. So much,” he told me.

Surprised, I smiled. A rush of even more happiness swept over me, and I felt giddy. I shocked us both by wrapping my arms around him. He actually gasped. Then he was hugging me tight, kissing my wet hair as I dripped water on his carpet. His embrace felt so good I shivered. When I didn’t stop shivering, I realized I was cold. My teeth chattered. It was only then that I realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

Jake told me to wait and left me alone again. When he came back, he turned the light on. He'd pulled on a t-shirt and his hair was in its messy bun thing again, like the night we met. He also offered me a shirt and gray hooded jacket of his. I turned around for privacy as I stripped off everything but my underwear. His clothes were as big on me as the sweater was. When I turned back around, he took the wet things from me to put them in the dryer. He paused before he walked off, feeling the marshmallows in the pocket of my sweater. Pulling it out, he gave me a curious look.

“For you. That’s what friends do, right? I mean—well, you always bring me something when you come over,” I explained around the fingers pressed to my lips.

He gave me an affectionate smile before disappearing down the hall. My hair dripped water down my neck as I waited, but I didn’t care.

When he got back, he stood there watching me with his arms crossed. For a moment, we just stared at each other with the storm in the background.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I finally asked.

“You’re here in the middle of the night. Something tells me it’s not for a movie marathon.”

“No. We have to talk.”

“Damn it… that’s never good,” he said with a little groan. He sat on the couch with his elbows on his knees, and his hands made a steeple against his mouth. Jake gave a small nod, letting me know he was ready. I sat down next to him with a nervous heart.

“I have to tell you some things. Things about me. I want to tell you so you understand me, okay? Well, no. That’s wrong. I don’t want to tell you. Actually, I wish I could just bury it deep inside of me where I never have to think about it again. But I can’t, so I need to tell you because it’s a part of me. I want you to know me, and that’s weird. And scary. I’ve never wanted that with anyone. But then I met you. It just… it feels right,” I said in a nervous rush.

Jake turned in his seat to look at me. I couldn’t read the look he was giving me, but it made me feel less anxious somehow. “You can tell me anything. I’m listening.”

I took a deep, shuddering breath and shut my eyes before beginning.

“W-when I was little… Some men kidnapped me. They took me right out of my bed. My parents are very wealthy, so the men held me for ransom. My parents paid the money right away, but… the men, they… they kept me. For five months, they kept me."

“Oh my God… oh, Kay… I’m so sorry,” Jake whispered. His hands gripped mine. They were strong and warm, and I clutched them with a rush of gratitude. I borrowed his strength so I could finish.

"I don’t remember a lot of what happened… what they did to me. I blocked it out, I guess. But… the parts I remember? It was bad, Jake. Th-they did… terrible things. Things no one should ever do to a little kid; you know? A-and… if those awful, awful things are the parts I remember... I can’t even bring myself to wonder what was so much worse that I made myself forget.” My voice shook as I spoke. I twisted my fingers into knots, trying to gain control of myself.

He squeezed my hands, and I took another breath.

“They let me go in the middle of winter. Just gave me a blanket and let me out on the side of the road, where the ice was thin. Told me to walk. ‘Walk until you find someone,’ they said. And then they just left me there. But they left me with this. I’ve had it ever since,” I said, gesturing to my freak white hair. “Well, I found someone. They recognized me from my pictures in the news reports. Everyone thought I was dead. No one expected the men to keep me alive for so long. I didn’t either, to be honest. I felt dead. A part of me wished I was dead. And the dead don’t talk. So I didn’t say a word… not for a long time.”

“… weren’t your parents happy to have you home?”

“My parents… I think they gave up on me when I was missing. They took care of me, of course. They bought me a twenty-four-hour shrink. She lived with us. They put me on medication for depression and sleep terrors and acute paranoid personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder and all these other terms that just melted into a soup in my mind. But they didn’t understand me. Why I was so different. All my parents know is throwing money at their problems until they go away. But they couldn’t just give me money to make me be normal again. In the end, they sent me to an expensive institution where they poked and prodded and observed me for… a long time. I don’t know how long they tried to fix me. Time sort of slips together in places like that. It never matters what time it is because you’re still there.”

I took a shaky breath and continued. “But eventually they all just left me alone. And that was what I wanted. I was sick of having someone sit in my face and chatter at me, knowing all along that I wouldn’t respond. When I was alone, I could learn to put myself back together again. I was never the same, but… I started talking. And I took care of myself. They took me off some of the medication when I showed I could manage myself. They were going to let me go home, but I told them I didn’t want to go. It was a different girl who lived there, a long time ago. And she died. The person I became had no place there.”

“So I went to school. But… Well, I’d taught myself these little tricks and things. Counting my breaths and humming and even hurting myself to get the anxiety out. Little ways to keep me from getting so overwhelmed, you know? But schools are huge and filled with so many people and they’re all so noisy... and no one would leave me alone and let me cope in the ways I knew how. I couldn’t stand it. So I dropped out and went back to the institution. I wasn’t as good at being by myself as I thought. Especially when there were other people around.”

“Did you move here after that?” He sounded hesitant, like he might offend me. As if I wouldn’t want to admit that I just got out of a mental institution.

“I went to a group home first. A lot of the other patients got transferred there when they could function on their own. They all seemed really excited when they got the transfer. I wanted to feel that, ‘cause mostly I felt nothing. So I put in a request, just to try it. And it was nice. There were people all around, but I had my space and no one could come in without my permission. One orderly taught me poker; that’s how I learned. She would come and play with me every day.”

“That sounds nice. Why did you leave?”

“My parents didn’t like me being in a place like that. State-funded and all. They didn’t like visiting me there. So they got me an apartment here. They pay for everything, even though I’m old enough to use my trust. And they come by once a month. My mother says it’s very sophisticated for a young woman to live in the city. I miss the home, but… it’s nice here too,” I explained. I had nothing else to say after that. He knew everything about me now.

“How old are you?” Jake asked me. Well, apparently not everything.

“I turn twenty in a couple of months.”

“Jesus… you’re a baby,” he said with a wince.

I frowned. “No, I’m not.”

“Well, not a baby, but… you’re young.”

“Aren’t you?”

Jake smiled. He propped his elbow up on the back of the couch as he looked at me, and his cheek rested against his knuckles. “Yeah, I guess I’m young too. You’re just… younger.”

“How much younger?” I asked. It must be a lot if he was making such a big deal out of it.

“I’ve got five years on you, kid.”

I scowled in annoyance. “Bernie is seventy-five, and he never calls me ‘kid.’ You’re not that much older, so don’t patronize me.”

Jake winced, lifting a hand in surrender. “Okay, okay. Sorry. Who is Bernie?”

“The security guard downstairs. We play cards.”

“Hm. Well, now that I know you’re only nineteen, I don’t think—”

“You don’t think I’m beautiful anymore,” I finished. I wasn't expecting it to bother me as much as it did.

Jake stopped and looked at me in surprise. His expression softened as he reached out to me. The back of his fingers brushed over the apple of my cheek. I held his hand in mine, pressing my face into his palm. I needed the contact and the warmth after saying so much.

“You’re gorgeous, Kay. And that is a fact. Not just what I think,” he told me.

I smiled with a blush, but it didn’t entirely reassure me. “But… you don’t want to kiss me now?”

He made a noise at the back of his throat that was full of longing. “If you knew how badly I wanted to kiss you and how often, you’d wear a hockey mask just to keep me away. I always want to kiss you.”

“Then… Why does it matter how old I am?”

“It doesn’t.” Jake had that husky tone again.

I waited for him to lean across and kiss me, but he didn’t. His eyes left mine and traveled down my body to my bare legs. We were facing each other on his couch, so my bare knee was touching his, although he was wearing pajama pants. I scooted forward, closing the distance between us until our foreheads pressed together. His hand stayed on my cheek. The shrinks always said I would feel lighter after telling someone my story. I didn’t notice any extra buoyancy; I just felt like all my stains were showing.

Even with our bodies so close that our breath was mixing, Jake didn’t kiss me. Soon I was curled up against him with my face pressed into his neck as we lay together on his couch. We listened to the storm and let ourselves just enjoy the company after our separation. We stayed just like that as the night made the slow transition into day. The rain was still falling, but it sounded more tired than frantic. I dozed off there in Jake’s comforting embrace.

He pushed my curls back from my forehead, rousing me.

“The sun will be up soon,” he said.

“Mhm…”

“We should try to get some sleep.”

“Mhm…”

“In beds, I mean.”

“Mhm…”

He laughed. “I’ll walk you downstairs. Did you bring your keys?”

“I don’t wanna go home…” I whispered.

“Really?”

“I don’t want to be by myself. Not with all the memories fresh in my head. It feels so good when I’m with you… I wanna stay with you tonight,” I said in a sleepy whisper. Jake was quiet. I opened my eyes and saw the look of conflict on his face. “Is that… okay?”

“Sometimes I feel like I’m see through to you. You look at me like you see right into my heart, and you know exactly what I’m thinking. And then you say exactly what I want you to say. Like you’re testing me. And I don’t know if I’m supposed to leap at the chance or prove I can resist the temptation,” he told me.

“I don’t understand,” I admitted with a puzzled frown.

“I know. I know you’re not doing it on purpose. Kay, I… I would love for you to stay the night. But… I don’t know if I can give you what you need right now.”

I felt a flutter in my chest that turned into an ache. Then into the painful burn of rejection. My gaze lowered, and my lower lip slid between my teeth. I pushed myself up and away from him with shaky arms.

“I know I’m damaged. I’ve spent years hearing people say it with clinical fact; seen it written on little notepads in a hundred different ways. I’m broken, and it’s a lot to put up with. Don’t you think I realized all that before I came up here? I guess I wanted so badly to believe—I mean, I just hoped you’d—whatever. It doesn’t matter,” I mumbled. My voice was croaky, and I hated he heard he hurt me. My cheeks burned with humiliation at the fact that I had revealed my truths to him. I climbed off the couch and headed for the window. If I cried, I knew the rain would mask it.

“I didn’t mean it like that! Kay, wait! Wait! Kay, that’s not–I wasn’t saying that at all!” Jake called after me, but I’d already reached the window. I could see him behind me in the glass's reflection, and I jumped when he vaulted over the back of the couch in his haste to reach me. His hands closed around my shoulders, turning me around to face him.

“You could’ve just said no,” I told him in a bitter whisper.

“I wasn’t trying to send you away. How could you think of that? The day we met, I knew you had hang-ups; I don’t care about that. I don’t see you as damaged or broken or any of that. You are human to me, Kay. You’re exactly the way you’re supposed to be. The way anyone would be if they survived what you did.”

“You really mean that?”

“Yes. Of course I do.”

“Why did you say that, then?”

“Because you—you spilled your heart out to me, and I know I should feel honored. And I do. But I also feel like a f*****g jerk because all I’ve been thinking about is how much I missed you and how I have never seen you show this much skin, and how badly I want to touch you. That’s not the guy you need to be around when you are most vulnerable. I feel ashamed and sick, and I don’t want to expose you to that part of me. My worst fear is scaring you away. I want to be the guy you think I am… but I’m not,” Jake told me, gripping my arms. I’d never seen him look so serious.

“You haven’t kissed me all night,” I protested.

“I’ve been trying to prove to you I can keep my hands to myself, ‘cause the last time we were together, things got out of control. I want to prove you can let your guard down around me, and I wouldn’t give you a reason not to trust me. But I don’t think I can resist it much longer. If I had you to myself all night… I can’t even tell you what I would do.”

I admit this confession alarmed me. I knew that under his jacket I wasn’t wearing any pants or anything but my underwear and the shirt he gave me. If I was with him here, where I had no right to make him leave when I got overwhelmed, would I have to fight him off? Would he even listen to me? I thought Jake must’ve seen the worry crossover my face. His brow furrowed with more determination.

“You would hurt me?” I asked in fearful awe.

“No. I could never do that. But I have an image of you in your panties burned into my brain. If you stay with me tonight, I might be too tempted to resist trying to undress you,” he said. I knew he was trying to scare me. I remembered the look on his face when I asked him to stop the other day on my window seat. He was more terrified than I was. He accepted all of my flaws. How could I reject him for being attracted to me?

“If I get uncomfortable, I’ll stop you,” I said with a small shrug. I looked him square in the eye when I said it and knew he could see the confidence I felt.

“Once we get started, there’s a chance you won’t be able to,” he warned me. His hands slid down my arms to the hem of his jacket. His fingertips brushed the skin of my thighs, leaving trails of heat and goose-bumps in their wake. He was trying to get me to react in a panic to prove his point. So I didn’t even blink, making sure my breaths remained even.

“If I wanted to, I could stop you,” I told him. I didn’t give him a chance to respond. I just turned and headed down the hallway to his bedroom. He followed at a distance and stood in the doorway while I took off my boots.

“No!” he yelled as I started unzipping the jacket, and I jumped in alarm. He crossed the room and zipped it back up, then held it shut like I was going to struggle. “This stays on.”

“How come?” I asked, a little shaky from the jolt he just gave me.

“I don’t have that much self-control. I wish you’d believe me.”

I didn’t have a witty response to that. I climbed onto his bed and crawled over to the head of it until I could slip under the covers. He didn’t move. He stared at me with his lips pressed together. I stared right back, showing I wouldn’t back down or run away scared. Eventually, he turned out the light. I heard his uneven breaths as he got into bed next to me. Then he grabbed a pillow and shoved it between us, creating a barrier separating our bodies. We lay there in tense silence in a room not quite visible in the oncoming dawn.

Despite how uptight he was being, I was content. The entire room smelled fresh, like wind and the ocean or something. Well, I assumed that was how the ocean would smell, from how books described it. I’d never seen it. I’d never gone out of the city. It was a pleasant smell though, and it made me feel adventurous. Like someday I would go to the ocean. Soon I drifted off to sleep.