Inhaling loudly, she took a step toward the blinds on the sliding glass door. They were slanted, like she always kept them during the day now, so as long as she stood to the right, she could peek out and no one else could see her.
The black BMW was parked down the street a ways, but it was certainly recognizable.
The morning sun was bright and made it hard to see without squinting. She stared through the crack in the blinds at the driver’s side window of the car, trying to sense any movement. She couldn’t tell if anyone was sitting inside. Whatever the equivalent of silence was in non-movement, that’s all she could see. Everything was still.
But not calm. The hairs on the back of her neck twitched, keeping her hyper aware. Had he been there all night?
Their first conversation had been pretty awkward. She was riding her bike alone on the trail that followed the river and got a flat. She had been trying to pump air into it, hoping it would leak slowly enough that she could get back to the main road, but that didn’t work, and she didn’t have the repair kit with her, so she started walking her bike back the way she had come.
“I thought those things were for riding,” he said, and looked at her with his face slightly tilted to the left. His blonde hair was drab and unkempt, and he had a small scar on the side of his mouth. It was mostly benign, but it seemed to curl his mouth up a bit, as if he were smiling, like the Cheshire Cat.
“Flat tire,” she replied, and kept walking.
“Need any help?” he asked, and started walking in step with her. She looked toward him again and a slight recognition registered in her mind. He seemed familiar. Had she seen him as she rode by? She didn’t think so, so he must have been going the other way. Maybe she’d run into him somewhere before. It was a pretty small city.
Not wanting to be rude, but not sure she wanted to continue the conversation, she just said, “Nah, thanks though.”
“I’m Larry,” he said. She hadn’t asked. But he seemed harmless and had offered to help her, which was nice, so she introduced herself and they made small talk about the weather and work until they got back to her pickup. He lifted the bike into the back for her and then asked if she wanted to get something to eat, gesturing toward the taco truck at the other end of the parking lot.
The line was short and the food smelled really good. She hesitated, then figured, why not?
During the next couple months, they started hanging out more often. They would go to late movies at the theater and have the place to themselves most of the time, or they would order pizza or Chinese food and watch bad reality TV shows. He always wanted to hang out at her place rather than his, although he never said why. She just figured his was probably a messy bachelor pad.
She tried to include him when she went out with her friends, but he never really seemed like he wanted to be there – when he even went in the first place. It was as if he had been really sheltered growing up and didn’t know how to socialize with people. But one-on-one, they got to know each other pretty well in that short period of time. The only thing she didn’t really know much about was his family. He conveniently changed the subject every time she asked about them, so finally she decided to let him bring them up when he was ready, but he never did.
One night after they left the movie theater, he was dropping her off in front of her apartment, when she closed the car door behind her and he suddenly blurted out through the open window, “I love you.” She stopped, wide-eyed and swallowed hard. Had she given him the wrong impression? They were just friends. She didn’t feel that way toward him, and he had never given her any indication he felt that way either. Had he?
She turned back around toward him, not knowing what to say or how to respond without hurting him. The truth was she had been healing from a bad break-up, but had never told him about it. The man she thought she would be with forever had dumped her without warning for another girl. That was the day before they had met on the bike trail.
She swallowed again and looked at him with her face scrunched up and her eyebrows pinched together.
“You don’t,” he said. A statement, not a question.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I…” she trailed off.
He pursed his lips, narrowed his eyes and said, “Fine,” then drove off quickly, dangerously.
The next day she texted and called him, but he didn’t respond. She continued to text a few times over the next week or so, but he never texted her back.
Then last Tuesday when she left the gym, she thought she saw his car toward the back of the lot, but wasn’t sure. On Wednesday, she saw a guy with blonde hair just like his sticking out of a maroon hoodie, sitting at a table outside the Starbucks, staring at her through the window as she had coffee with a friend. When she looked again to see if it was actually him, he was gone.
Thursday, she and Ryan went out to dinner at a little Italian place with outdoor seating in front, facing the park. It was their third date. She laughed at something he said and smiled at him across the table, then glanced to her right, trying not to stare too long at his sea blue eyes. A figure across the street immediately turned away from her and stepped into the shadows by the trees. Was she just being paranoid?
Friday, yesterday, she was with some friends from work at a restaurant bar across the street from their office. They had landed a big account and her boss was treating them to glasses of champagne to celebrate. As they all said “Cheers” and clinked their glasses together, she saw a black BMW drive by slowly, with what looked like a blonde man driving. But she couldn’t make out the license plate through the glare on the window.
Then this morning she got up and saw his car at the end of the street. This wasn’t all a coincidence.
She shivered, even though it was already in the high 80’s out, and breathed out hard, glad that he hadn’t ever texted her back and glad that they weren’t friends anymore, but wondered how long she would have to wait for him to get over his crush.
*Fiction