Behind Closed Doors

Chapter 3

A long moment passed before Sabrina asked for clarity.

"What do you mean?"

"I think being around you, will do me a world of good."

Edward smiled at her confused facial expression.

"Right," she said. "I think I'm going to go hit the sack now."

"Already?" By the looks of things, he didn't want their conversation or maybe even night to end.

"Yeah," she nodded.

He raised his eyebrow inquisitively.

"Feeling sleepy or just trying to get away from me again?"

"I had a long day, so I just want to sleep off the exhaustion." As if to emphasize her point, she stood and stretched.

"That's a bummer," he said.

"Why?"

"I guess I was still hoping we could talk," Edward looked up at her with hopeful eyes.

"Don't worry," she assured him. "We still have a whole...well, probably century for that."

He laughed briefly at the joke.

"In that case then," he smiled. Transforming his entire face into a sight that almost made her heart stop beating altogether.

What was that about? She quietly wondered.

"Goodnight," he finally said. Accepting that their conversation and spending time together ended right there, at least for the night.

"Goodnight," Sabrina responded and headed to her room.

She heaved a sigh of relief, as soon as she closed the bedroom door behind her.

Then opened her closet to retrieve the old jewelry box, that she now used to keep the notes he had been leaving for her all those months ago.

She had lied about being sleepy, because she wanted a moment to be alone with her thoughts.

The company of the notes seemed more than welcome too, in that moment.

Opening her covers, she got into bed and placed the box on her lap.

"What do we have here?" She muttered to herself as she opened the box, then dumped all the contents of it on the bed covers.

She knew what each note held. Not because she had memorized them, but purely from the memory of when she read them the very first time.

She didn't really know why she had kept them for this long, or even why she had collected them and kept them safe in the first place.

But tonight, she was glad that she had kept them.

Because she believed that they would maybe provide insight into who the stranger she had left in the living room was. Edward was a mystery to her, one she intended to unravel and explore.

The notes were neatly placed in their date order.

At the very top of the stack of papers, was the most recent one.

Which she had gotten a little less than a week ago.

Feeling like starting at the bottom of the stack would be a logical thing to do, she turned the whole pile upside down.

'Hi Stranger,' the very first note said. 'We don't know each other yet, but I believe we will- one of the good days.

It's been a week since I officially moved in; I've kept hoping that we would run into each other in the hallway, and it hasn't happened yet.

But it's okay, I'll keep hoping. I'm Edward, by the way.

I want to say it's nice to meet you; but I realize that maybe it's important to just wait for a real encounter first, or at least a response to this note that I'm leaving you.

To avoid disappointments and wishing to take certain things back. I'm kidding. Or am I?'

Sabrina chuckled at the note. Partly because she remembered having mixed feelings about it.

She found something about the tone of the note, somewhat confusing.

Upon reading it, she had immediately drawn the conclusion that he was an egocentric maniac.

Or just a sarcastic ignorant fool.

Because it was hard for her to detect what kind of tone it was written in.

Which made sense because they didn't yet know each other back then.

They were strangers in every sense of the word.

Which is probably why she never even bothered responding to the note.

Not out of arrogance, but because she too kept hoping that they would meet in real life.

As she figured that a lot would make sense after that. Especially when it came to if they were compatible people, both in terms of personality and as far as sharing a living space was concerned.

But after their encounter today, she easily realized that even in this very first note- he had been his easygoing and good-humored self.

Which was something that became slightly evident in his second note.

'I don't know if I'm being ignored or if I'm just being overly sensitive.

But you haven't responded, so I thought I'd try again.

In hopes that you are a real person, because one never knows these days.

You are a real person,right?'

She had gotten the note three days after the first one.

And when she responded; introducing herself, and assuring him that she was indeed a real person- he never got back to her for about a week.

Which was slightly frustrating for her.

And led her to asking herself all kinds of questions.

Was he ignoring her?

Was he not responding to get back at her for ignoring his first note?

After losing sleep over it for a couple of nights, she decided to let it go.

Except what then started bothering her, was why the stranger's silence was frustrating her so much.

And unfortunately, that's something she ended up having no answer to.

Just when she was starting to accept that her note wouldn't be responded to, she walked in to find one on the counter- the following week.

Which made her sigh a bit in relief, and even smile a little too.

'I'm sorry for the late response,' it began.

Which caused the already plastered on her face smile, to broaden.

'I haven't been around, because of work. And I'm glad that you finally gave in to my bullying, and took the time to respond.

I'm sorry for stealing and devouring a few cookies from your batch, I couldn't help it.

But do feel free to take comfort in the fact that you now have this note as evidence, in case you want to open a theft case. And if you decide to, do let me know when my court appearance is.

So I can at least show up for that.

I apologize in advance for more similar theft occurrences.'

He had drawn a small smiley face at the end of the note.

And Sabrina had smiled from ear to ear by the time she finished reading.

Not only did she neatly fold the paper, and stored it with the other ones.

But she also ensured that they never ran out of the cookies again.

They were her favorite kind too, so it was easy to convince herself that she had upped the supply only because she loved them.

But looking back now, she couldn't help but wonder if she had done so for his benefit too.

And if yes, was it to make him feel at home or was there more reason to her actions?

She immediately and defensively thought no, then filed the thoughts away as she picked up the next one.

'Dearest Sabrina,' she r******w that she had finally managed to put the actual voice, to the words- she found it easier to channel him as she went through the notes.

'Since you were kind enough to let my little criminal act slide, I thought I'd bring you a little something to express my gratitude.

A woman, a stranger, in Belgium told me that chocolate is a girl's best friend.

She said she believed that it definitely came before jewelry or all the other stuff.

So, I decided to put her advice to the test.

And brought you this box. Since I had and still have no idea what your favorite kind is, I picked this one with all varieties. Do enjoy.

And continue the good work of keeping the police force away from me.'

She thought back to the day when she got this one.

She had had a long and tiring day at work, and was very pleased to come home to a treat.

He had unknowingly surprised her with her favorite Belgium chocolate brand.

And as she opened the box, she found it all.

Each piece was in a small circular compartment of the box.

There were dark chocolate pieces, which were her most preferred kind.

There were minty ones, some had rum, others had raisin, some had caramel, others had nuts.

They were in different aesthetically pleasing to the eye, shapes too.

She remembered feeling like she had gone to a chocolate tasting event, by the end of that week.

Which she had joked about to him, and thanked him profusely for both the pleasant surprise and treat.

And for not poisoning her. Which had resulted in more humor in his next note.

'Looks like the woman was right, after all.

And no, I can't poison someone I haven't met yet.

So, you can consider yourself safe. Well, for now.

Because I make no promises about what might or not happen after we meet.

(I can't believe I'm continually making myself suspect number one. But then again, I'm mostly known for shooting myself in the foot all the time. And this is yet another prime example of that.)

Tell me about your day?'

As she shared the gory details of that day in her response note to him, she found herself feeling a bit guilty.

Because she realized that she was connecting with a stranger in a way that she had been failing to, with the man who was in her life at the time.

This Edward that she hadn't even met yet, was making her laugh and generally happy more than Bryce ever could. And the joy she felt as a result of the man she didn't yet know or met, made her realize just how unhappy she was with her relationship.

Which led her to officially ending things just five months ago.

Relief coursed through her veins, when Bryce told her that he was unhappy too.

And that he believed they weren't compatible enough, because it made her feel less guilty about pulling a plug on a situation that was already dead.

And since then, she had focused solely on her work.

A few relationship opportunities had come her way, but she had put them on ice.

She believed that she needed time to move past her previous one, and even more time to figure out what it was that she wanted- before inviting somebody else on her journey. Except, all of this by default made Edward the only man in the picture.

And upon realizing this, she didn't feel bothered even a little.

Partly because she didn't think of him as real at the time.

And partly due to the fact that she didn't consider exchanging notes with a man she didn't yet know something to be alarmed about.

Which was why she was experiencing all kinds of confusing and funny emotions now that they had met.

The life of exchanging notes and jokes with a stranger was over now.

The reality was, the stranger was sleeping just across the hallway.

And him being the most gorgeous man that she had ever met, didn't help matters one bit.

His easy to be around personality just happened to add more fuel to her confusion fire.

Just as she unfolded the next note, her cell phone beeped. She reached out for it and found that it was a text message.

And she couldn't believe her eyes when she saw the sender's ID; Edward.

They had never called or texted each other before.

She had saved his contact details after finding them on one of their lease documents, and seeing his text now led her to easily assuming that he might have gotten hers the very same way.

'I can tell that your light is still on, are you still reading our old notes?' The text read.

How did he know? She wondered.

Then nervously looked around to check if there were any cameras around her bedroom.

Shifting sit into a more comfortable position, she responded.

'No, I'm sleeping.'

Just then, she neatly stacked the pieces of paper and placed them back in the box.

On her way to switch off the light just by the door, she placed the box in the closet.

Then found her way back to her bed in the darkness.

As if seeing her difficulty, her phone beeped again and the notification light brightened the screen.

Leading her right into bed, without incident.

When she opened the new message, she found- 'what are you dreaming about?'

Deciding to see how far things could get, she responded: 'you.'