Page 53 of Texting Dr. Stalker

Me:I look back now and have no idea why I agreed to let him move in with me. I hadn’t felt attracted to him or affectionate with him for months. But I felt sorry for him, I guess. He was good at making me feel guilty.

X:Did he beat you often?

Me:No, he only did it the once. He wasn’t doing it to hurt me. He wanted to kill me.

Sucking in a deep breath, I typed the part I would never be able to say aloud.

Me:He almost raped me on the living room carpet. If it hadn’t been for my elderly neighbour and his dog, I would’ve died all while he violated me. But that’s not even the part that haunts me. It’s the reason he tried to rape me in the first place.

My shakes slowly calmed the longer I focused on texts instead of memories. Putting it in black and white stole its power. The weight of the house lightened. The oppressive terror vanished with every word.

X took a long time to write back. He took so long, worry tiptoed down my spine and reminded me all over again why I hadn’t wanted to tell anyone.

Me:I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shared that.

X:What was the reason? The reason he tried to rape and kill you?

I sat on the rug and saw a crossroads: tell this stranger the secret that kept tearing a hole inside me or choke on it for the rest of my life.

Me:On the other side of me—not the neighbour who saved my life—lives the grandson of my nana’s best friend. We’ve known each other most of our lives, but we’ve hardly ever spoken. Every now and again, I see him through his windows. I do my best to respect his privacy and look away, but the day Milton came home, I was looking into his place, my head in the clouds, thinking about work instead of watching. Unfortunately, I hadn’t noticed my neighbour had come into view. He was in a towel. Milton thought I was gawking at him, and he got jealous. He accused me of cheating. He threw me down the stairs to teach me a lesson. He said he’d be the last person who would ever be inside me. I passed out with his fingers around my throat.

I stopped breathing as I reread what I wrote, my thumb hovering over the send button. Could I confess something like that? Could I risknotconfessing?

My fingers shot over the keyboard again, adding to the long message:That part was awful, don’t get me wrong, but the real struggle is…I can no longer even look at my neighbour without feeling Milton strangling me. I feel guilty and ashamed like I truly did something terrible. The minute I see him, my entire system panics. All I can hear is Milton accusing me of cheating and how he’s going to remind me that I belong to him and only him.

Chilled and eerily empty after my panic attack, I scanned my deepest, darkest truths. I deliberated deleting them all. I almost erased every sentence. But…just the act of writing it down had helped. The thought of sending them away, getting the thoughts as far from me as possible?

God, yes.

I pressed send.

And then, I waited.

And waited.

I waited so long, I climbed off the rug and went into the kitchen for a glass of water. Grabbing a mug from the cupboard, I held it under the tap as my chin tipped up and my eyes cut through the window to the dark garden beyond.

I screamed and dropped the cup. It clattered into the sink, spraying water everywhere.

Scrambling for my own phone, I went to call the police.

The burner phone chirped with an incoming message.

X:It’s just me. You’re safe.

My heart drummed with adrenaline as I darted to the back door and checked the lock was in place. Returning to the kitchen window, I narrowed my tear-stinging eyes at the dark masked silhouette standing in the middle of my lawn.

Fumbling with the keyboard, I typed:What the hell are you doing here? I thought you said you’d never approach me? That’s twice now. Stop breaking your word!

The blue glow of his screen sent garish light over the skull scarf covering his lower face. With the dark evening and the baseball hat pulled low over his forehead, I couldn’t tell if his hair was dark brown or black, nor could I see past the blue shadows of his phone to guess his eye colour.

Dressed all in black, standing in chunky boots with his legs slightly apart, he looked every inch a murderer.

Me:Leave! Get the hell away from me.

His shoulders tensed as he read my message and replied.

My phone buzzed. It took all my willpower to look down. I didn’t want to take my eyes off him, petrified he’d charge the house and break in.

---