Loving A Moretti - THE OBSESSION

Chapter FIVE

I left the bookstore with a book I hadn’t planned to buy and a man’s name stuck in my head.

Larkin.

It was unusual enough that I repeated it once while waiting at the crosswalk, mostly to see if it sounded as strange outside the basement. It did. The light changed before I could think much more about it, and I crossed with everyone else, the paper bag tucked under my arm.

Halfway down the block, I realized something.

I hadn’t asked for his number.

More importantly, he hadn’t asked for mine.

After three days of photographs, anonymous calls, fake accounts, and messages from someone who apparently knew my movements better than I did, a man not asking how to contact me should have been the least remarkable thing in the world. Somehow, it made the encounter feel even more ordinary.

I liked ordinary.

My phone had stayed quiet since the messages at my apartment. I checked once while waiting for the train and found nothing except Jennie asking whether I was alive and Dean asking whether I had gone home despite promising not to.

I answered the group chat before either could escalate.

ME: alive

ME: not home

ME: found a bookstore

Jennie responded immediately.

JENNIE: obviously

Dean’s reply came a few seconds later.

DEAN: That is not an address.

I smiled and put my phone away without telling them about Larkin. Not because I was hiding him. I simply didn’t feel like spending the rest of the afternoon defending a conversation with a stranger whose greatest offense, as far as I actually knew, was losing a fight with a bookshelf.

That could wait.

I stayed out longer than I intended. I bought shampoo from a different pharmacy even though I already had shampoo, wandered through a small grocery store because I needed something to justify being there, and left with oranges and a bag of chips. There was no system to any of it beyond doing things I normally wouldn’t do in places I normally wouldn’t visit.

It was exhausting.

Spontaneity was considerably less charming when performed as a security measure.

By the time I reached Dean’s building, the sky had darkened and the wind had started pushing scraps of paper along the curb. I checked behind me before going inside. A woman was walking a terrier in a sweater. Two teenagers were arguing beside a parked car. A delivery cyclist nearly clipped a man crossing against the light.

No black coat.

No camera pointed at me.

Nothing.

The doorman nodded when I entered, and for once I appreciated being noticed.

***

Dean was home before me.

He had claimed most of the dining table with his laptop, receipts, and a plate containing the remains of something that might once have been pasta. I put my shopping bags on the counter, and he looked at them before looking at me.

“You bought groceries?”

“Three oranges.”

“Why?”

“I panicked.”

“At an orange?”

“At looking normal in a grocery store.”

He stared for a second, then nodded as though this made perfect sense. “Reasonable.”

I pulled the book from its paper bag.

Dean noticed that too. “You actually found a bookstore.”

“Did you think I invented one?”

“I thought ‘found a bookstore’ might be code for ‘went somewhere I’m not telling you about because you’ll be annoying.’”

“That would be a terrible code.”

“You’re a terrible criminal.”

I carried the book toward the couch before he could ask anything else. He returned to his laptop, and I got through twelve pages before my phone vibrated beside me.

My body reacted before I saw the screen.

I hated that.

It was Jennie calling.

I answered. “You’re ruining literature.”

“Did you see him?”

“Who?”

“The guy.”

There were several ways I could have answered that. Unfortunately, the half-second I spent choosing one was enough.

Jennie gasped. “You did.”

Dean looked up from across the room.

I lowered the volume. “Why are you like this?”

“Upside-down-book guy?”

Dean was already closing his laptop.

Traitor.

“I went to a bookstore,” I said. “He happened to be there.”

There was silence on the phone, followed by Jennie saying, much too calmly, “And?”

“And nothing. We spoke for maybe five minutes.”

Dean got up and came closer. “Is this the guy from the security footage?”

“I don’t know, because the security footage looks like it was recorded through a potato. This was just the man from the first bookstore.”

Jennie demanded details, so I gave her the least interesting version possible. I saw him. His name was Larkin. He knocked over some books. We introduced ourselves. Nobody confessed to stalking anyone, and I survived the encounter without being murdered between the classics and contemporary fiction.

“You gave him your name?” Dean asked.

“My first name.”

Jennie made a noise through the speaker. “How hot was he up close?”

I looked at Dean. “I’m hanging up.”

“You didn’t answer.”

“She never does,” Dean said.

“I hate both of you.”

Jennie laughed. “Did he ask for your number?”

“No.”

That quieted her for approximately one second.

“Oh my God. You’re offended.”

“I am not offended.”

“You sound offended.”

“I’m actually thrilled you called.”

Dean sat on the arm of the couch. “Did anything about him seem familiar besides his appearance?”

That question was at least useful. I thought about Larkin standing in the basement aisle. Dark sweater. Dark jeans. The brief hesitation before taking my hand. Nothing had happened that connected him to the man in my building except the things I already knew.

“No. And before either of you starts, I was paying attention.”

Jennie’s tone softened. “Okay. I believe you. Just be careful if you see him again.”

“I’m being careful with everyone.”

That ended the interrogation more easily than I expected. Jennie stayed on the phone long enough to complain about work, Dean went back to his laptop, and eventually the conversation drifted into something normal enough that Larkin stopped being the subject.

Still, when I opened my book again, I read the same paragraph three times.

***

The next few days were quiet.

Not peaceful. Quiet.

There was a difference.

I stayed with Dean, went back to my apartment only when I needed something, and stopped moving between the two places at predictable times. Mr. Alvarez kept copies of the lobby footage. The police had my screenshots. I changed passwords I knew perfectly well had nothing to do with someone physically following me and turned off location permissions for apps I hadn’t opened in months.

Nothing came.

By the fourth day, the silence started irritating me more than the messages had.

At least messages gave me something to react to. Silence left me wondering whether the person had stopped, gotten bored, been frightened by the police report, or simply learned to watch without announcing it.

I preferred none of those options.

That afternoon, I met Jennie and Dean for lunch. Dean arrived first and claimed a table near the back while Jennie texted that she was six minutes away, which meant anywhere between six and twenty-five.

I slid into the seat across from him.

“You’re checking exits now,” he said.

“I looked at the door.”

“You looked at the door, the bathroom hallway, and the kitchen.”

“Maybe I’m interested in restaurant architecture.”

“You’re not.”

I picked up the menu. “You and Jennie need less information about me.”

Dean let it go. He was getting better at that.

Jennie arrived eleven minutes later, dropped into the chair beside me, and immediately stole the glass of water the server had just placed in front of Dean.

Lunch stayed normal for almost an hour. Jennie told us about a woman who had argued with a cashier over a coupon that expired two years ago. Dean showed me a video he insisted was funny and I insisted was evidence that his sense of humor had deteriorated. I complained about sleeping at his apartment, and he reminded me that nobody was forcing me to stay there.

It was the first time since the photographs started that I went long enough without thinking about them to notice afterward.

Outside, Jennie left in one direction and Dean in another. I stood on the sidewalk deciding whether I wanted to take the train or keep walking.

I walked.

Three blocks later, I passed a bookstore.

Not the basement one. The first one.

I slowed down.

It was stupid.

I knew that before I did it.

There was no reason to go inside. I didn’t need another book, and the one in my bag still had a receipt tucked somewhere around page forty because I’d forgotten to use a bookmark.

I went inside anyway.

The place was busier than it had been the first time. A couple stood near the front display debating cookbooks. Someone’s child was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the children’s section while his father tried unsuccessfully to convince him that they needed to leave.

I wandered toward fiction.

No dark hair.

I picked up a book, read the back, put it down.

Another aisle.

Nothing.

The realization came with enough embarrassment that I almost laughed at myself.

I was looking for him.

Not the stalker.

Larkin.

There was a difference, even if Jennie and Dean had started making me question it.

I stayed another ten minutes out of spite, mostly because leaving immediately would have felt like admitting something to myself. Then I bought nothing and stepped back onto the sidewalk.

Someone was standing across the street.

My pace slowed.

A bus passed between us before I got a clear look.

Of course it did.

When the street came back into view, the man was gone.

I stood there for a few seconds, annoyed at the familiar little jolt beneath my ribs. It could have been Larkin. It could have been someone else. At this distance, I wasn’t even sure the man had been looking at me.

My phone vibrated inside my coat pocket.

I took it out.

For the first time in four days, the unknown number had sent me something.

Not a photograph.

Just a message.

Looking for someone?

I read it once.

Then again.

The bookstore was behind me.

Across the street, people moved past the spot where the man had been standing. Nobody looked back. Nobody hurried away. There was nothing to chase even if I had been stupid enough to try.

Another message appeared before I could take the screenshot.

He isn’t there.

My fingers went cold around the phone.

Until that moment, I had been able to keep two things separate.

The man following me.

And Larkin.

Whoever was watching me had just noticed the difference too.