chapter 3
323 Words
Patterns.
I needed patterns, I needed to know everything about her.
Following you wasn’t enough anymore not when your routines were puzzles waiting for me to solve them.
By the end of the week, I knew:
You bought the same snack every day at exactly 4 PM.
You paused at a billboard near the main road, staring at it longer than necessary.
You scrolled your phone absentmindedly but only smiled at messages from one specific friend.
Nothing dramatic.
But everything meaningful.
I memorized the times you left home.
The days you preferred shortcuts.
The way you slowed down when lost in your thoughts.
One moment stayed with me painfully vivid.
You stopped to tie your shoelace near the junction. You knelt slightly, hair falling over your face, barely noticing the world passing around you. Something in that vulnerability, that unguarded stillness, tightened something inside me.
I thought about stepping forward.
Helping you.
Letting our eyes meet for the first time in a way that mattered.
But timing is everything.
And shadows reveal themselves only when necessary.
I stayed where I belonged on the edges, collecting details that built the map of your life.
Your silence became a language I understood better each day.
Your habits became coordinates.
Your routines became a rhythm I matched without missing a beat.
It wasn’t enough.
But it was becoming something dangerously close.
Proximity.
I craved it in slow, burning waves.
Not to speak.
Not to touch.
Just to exist a little closer, without you ever realizing the gravity pulling me toward you.
The line between curiosity and obsession blurred.
And soon, it would disappear entirely.
- Writer
