MUTUAL OBSESSION

CHAPTER ONE — FINDING MY PREY ‎ ‎ ‎I didn’t come to the café for coffee that morning. ‎ ‎I came because it was a place where people blended into noise, where my thoughts could hide behind the chatter of strangers. I didn’t expect anything unusual. I didn’t expect anyone unusual. ‎But then you walked in. ‎ ‎You didn’t rush inside like someone trying to escape the morning. ‎You didn’t demand attention. ‎You drifted calm, soft, unaware of how the light shifted to follow you. ‎ ‎Your hair brushed your shoulders when you tucked it behind your ear, and that single motion punched the air out of me. ‎Not romantically. ‎Not sweetly. ‎ ‎Something colder. ‎Sharper. ‎Like a thread had looped itself around my ribs and pulled tight. ‎ ‎You ordered something simple your voice quiet but steady. I found myself leaning in, pretending to check my phone just to hear the tone again. ‎ ‎You sat by the window, the sunlight pooling over you like it had been waiting. You opened a small notebook. The way your wrist moved as you wrote… gentle, deliberate… I memorized every motion without meaning to. ‎ ‎I told myself: ‎ ‎Stop watching her. She’s just another face in a room full of faces. ‎ ‎But none of them mattered except you. ‎ ‎When your eyes lifted and passed over me not stopping, not recognizing, just passing I felt something settle inside me: ‎ ‎A certainty. ‎A pull. ‎A decision I didn’t consciously make ‎I was obsessed at first sight. ‎ ‎You were going to matter. ‎ ‎And you didn’t even know I existed. ‎ ‎When you finally stood and left, you walked out with no hesitation, no backward glance. But I stared at the empty seat you left behind, feeling the quiet collapse around me again. ‎ ‎I shouldn’t have followed you outside. ‎But my feet moved before logic caught up. ‎ ‎That was the beginning. ‎Not love. ‎Not fate. ‎ ‎Something darker. ‎And irreversible. ‎ ‎Obsession. ‎