CHAPTER 3: He Followed Me and I Let Him
1567 Words
•IVY•
I push the door open with so much force that I almost break my hand.
“Did you leave this?!”
He turns around slowly, not surprised or confused, like he already knew this was going to happen and like he’d been waiting for me to catch up.
“Ivy.”
“Did you leave this on my f*cking car?”
I hold the note between my two fingers so he can see the block layers written clearly across it and in the process the paper trembles. Or more like, my hand trembles.
He looks at the note for barely a second before his eyes find mine again.
“Yes.”
That’s it. No freaking pretending he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
I swallow hard.
“Okay,” I say, my voice coming out thinner than I want. “Why?”
“Because you’re hiding something.” His expression never changes. “And it’s going to get you hurt.”
A laugh escapes me. “You don’t even know anything about me!”
“I know when your symptoms started.”
The heck does he mean by symptoms?
And why does the damn word hit harder than it should be doing? And why the heck does he say something like symptoms and not something else that makes sense like he has the right to name it and like he’s seen it before.
My heartbeat stumbles, and I can just feel the hurt burning liquid running through my veins.
“I don’t have f*cking symptoms.” My voice comes out sounding defensive and I have absolutely no idea why. “And I have absolutely no idea what you think you know, but trust me when I say this… you’re wrong.”
“Ivy.”
“Don’t Ivy me.”
I turn before he can say another word. My keys are digging into my palm as I head back to the garage for the ramp, and I don’t look back to see if he’s following after me until I’m halfway down the ramp and I hear footsteps. Footsteps that doesn’t seem to be close enough, but just steady behind me like he’s paving himself to a match.
My shoulders tighten.
Is that dude seriously following me right now?
When I get farther down the ramp, I spin around.
“Are you seriously following me right now?”
“I’m only making sure you get to your car okay.”
“I’m fine. So you don’t have to make sure because your ‘sure’ isn’t wanted”
“You don’t look fine.”
“And you don’t get to have an opinion on how I look.”
He doesn’t answer, doesn’t stop walking either.
I should tell him to leave again, and I try to force the words out of my mouth but the words never come. And somewhere between the parking garage and the street, I stop expecting him to disappear which scares me more than the fact that he’s still there and more than anything else that has happened today.
“There’s a diner two blocks away.” He says. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
What an easy thing for you to say.
“I know that doesn’t mean anything coming from a stranger.” He continues.
No. It doesn’t.
“But it’s true.”
“Why would I go anywhere with you?” I retort.
“Because you have questions.” He pauses. “And I might actually answer some of them.”
Every alarm I’ve built over the last three years starts screaming at me to run straight to my house, lock my doors and windows, and continue checking it constantly to be sure that it was properly and securely jammed.
I shouldn’t trust strangers, or even anyone. Especially someone who somehow knows about blackouts I never told anyone about.
“Fine.” The word flies out of my mouth, and it surprises me just as much as it surprises him. “Just one coffee.”
The corner of his mouth barely shifts into a small smile as he repeats after me. “One coffee.”
The diner smells like burnt coffee, grease, and rain-soaked jackets. Outside, the rain keeps crawling sideways across the window next to our booth. Inside, forks scrape against plates, and someone laughs too loudly near the counter normally.
Everything around us feels painfully normal.
I wrap both my hands around my mug, mostly to hide that they’re shaking. But I don’t take a sip.
“So talk,” I say.
“You first.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“When did it start? The blackouts I mean.”
I open my mouth to spill out the lie waiting patiently on the lid of my tongue. The three years of practice I’ve had of lying about this, to Nora, to my mother, and to myself.
“Three years ago,” I say instead.
He doesn’t act like he’s surprised by what I say, instead he just slowly nods, like he’s confirming something that he suspected.
“How often?”
“It isn’t regular.” I stare into my untouched coffee. “Sometimes, it’s weeks apart and I start believing it’s over, while sometimes it’s only a few days.”
“And you wake up somewhere you don’t remember going.” He helps me complete it.
My fingers tighten around the mug and I shrug. “Sometimes.”
“Ivy.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Yes,” I say, the words coming out sharper than I mean them to. “Yes, okay.” I finally look at him. “Sometimes I wake up somewhere I don’t remember going.” The words taste ugly on my tongue. “And sometimes I wake up with things I don’t remember taking.” I look at him straight in the eyes. “Is that what you wanted me to say?”
Silence.
He doesn’t say anything, but instead drops his eyes down to my hands that are still shaking. I hate that he notices.
“You’re not sick.” He says out quietly. “And I need you to understand that before this goes any further.”
Then what?
No, because what else is left?
“Then what am I?”
He doesn’t answer. And his silence is making my frustration spike.
“That man.” The words tumble out before I can stop them. “The one they zipped into a body bag,” I add and that is enough for me to get his undivided attention because his eyes lift to find mine. “I knew him.” I lean forward. “He was my patient. Two nights before he died.”
Something quickly flashes across his face. It’s a flinch that’s gone almost as quickly as it appeared.
“You knew that,” I say, the certainty settles into my chest before I finish speaking. “You already knew that.”
“Ivy.”
“Did you know him too?”
“No, not exactly.”
I let out a short breath. “That’s not an answer, and I hope it doesn’t sound like one to you.”
“It’s the only one I can give you right now.”
I want to keep pushing. I want to grab the front of his stupid scrubs and force a real answer out of him. But I stop due to the fact that there’s something about the way he’s looking at me. Carefully and measured. Like one wrong sentence might shatter something.
And I hate that it makes me hesitate.
“You said I’m not sick,” I say; my voice coming out quieter. “Then what am I?”
“Not here.”
“Why not here?”
“Because this isn’t the kind of conversation you have in a public diner.” He glances toward the families scattered around us. “The walls have ears.”
I shake my head. “That’s still not an answer.”
“I know as well.”
He walks me home. Doesn’t touch me, and doesn’t try anything else. He’s simply just there, close enough that I can hear his footsteps matching mine, with his hands buried in his pockets. The city feeling quieter than it usually does.
We’re one block from my building when he stops walking so suddenly that I nearly walk straight into his back.
“Callum?”
He doesn’t answer. He just turns around, places his hands on my shoulders and holds me in place, only that I’m the only one staring. And with how still his hands feel on me, I notice that every single line of his body has gone rigid. His jaw is locked and his eyes stay fixed on something behind me, staring at whatever it is like it’s an awkward creature that shouldn't be existing.
My stomach ties into knots.
What could be wrong?
I turn around to look, only to come in view with an empty street that’s only parked with a car and a streetlight that’s flickering weakly against the dark.
“What?” I ask while still using my eyes to search the street. “What is it?”
When I turn back to look at him, his face has gone pale. Not from the cold of the night or tiredness.
But from real fear.
- Writer
