Page 83 of Stay Away from Him

I need to bear witness to what happened to me.

***

Where can I even begin? I suppose I might as well start where I left off last time—with Rhiannon coming up the front walk as I said goodbye to Derek Gordon, the man I had just slept with.

I spent the rest of the afternoon begging her not to tell Thomas when he came home. I swore to her that nothing happened—and then, contradicting myself, revealing myself a liar, that it would never happen again. She agreed.

When Thomas came home that evening, I was so terrified. Sitting through dinner with Thomas and the girls, I kept my eyes on Rhiannon the whole time. Watching her sullen expression for some sign that she was about to blurt out what she’d seen.

She kept quiet. Thank God.

But my problems weren’t over.

***

The next day, after Thomas and the girls left, I called Derek Gordon, using the number on the card he’d given me.

“We can never do that again,” I said. “I have a family.”

“I can’t accept that,” he said. “I don’t want to.”

“Well, you’ll have to,” I said, then hung up the phone.

But he didn’t listen. That same day, I went out to get the mail from the mailbox at the road and saw his car—the same black car that had pulled me over the day before—parked down the street. His silhouette visible behind the windshield. Watching.

And he was there the next day. And the next. The next. Just sitting and watching for hours at a time. In fact, he’s been following me for weeks now—followed me through the writing of this journal, a presence at the edges of my life I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge.

Thomas thought I was being paranoid—but I couldn’t tell him the truth. Because convincing him I was being stalked would have required me to admit to what I’d done. Admit to cheating on him.

***

One day not long ago, Derek was watching at the curb when Rhiannon came home from school—and right when she came in the front door, I knew she’d seen him. The look on her face said it all.

Last weekend, I saw him again when I went grocery shopping. The girls were with me. Though it’s not enough to say that I merely saw him—he actually came up to us. He’s getting bolder.

“I need to talk to you,” he said, in the middle of the frozen foods aisle. He grabbed my forearm, tried to pull meclose. Rhiannon’s eyes lit up fierce and scared, while Kendall watched with worried confusion at this stranger putting his hands on her mother.

I pulled my arm away. “We don’t have anything to talk about.”

“I’m worried about you,” he said, his voice going low, so others couldn’t hear. “Is he doing something to you?”

“The only person bothering me right now is you,” I said. “Stay away from me. I never want to see you again.”

***

As I unpacked the groceries back at home, I realized that Derek wouldn’t stop following me just because I asked him to. This had become something more for him. Whether it was the sex or the feeling of being a knight in shining armor—a hero saving me from a terrible marriage—I couldn’t say. Probably, it was both.

Either way, this wasn’t going to stop unless I did something extreme.

I put the milk away in the fridge, then called the police and told them that there was a man stalking me. I even gave them his name.

“Derek Gordon. You probably know him. Can you please tell him to leave me alone?”

I thought that would put an end to it.

How foolish I was.

***

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