Page 19 of Watching You
His eyes.
His voice.
His presence—like gravity, like heat, like something I wasn’t built to survive.
I close the journal without finishing the page. No gratitude. No order. Just chaos pressed between paper and skin. The rituals that used to keep me clean feel brittle now, like scaffolding around something already collapsing. I don’t know how to write through this. I don’t know how to breathe through it.
I sit back in my chair, breath shallow, heart ticking too fast. The blinds are still cracked. The light is still soft. The room hasn’t changed. But everything inside me has. The air feels heavier. The silence is sharper. And the question I’ve been trying not to ask curls around my spine like smoke.
What does he want with me?
Eight
Blair
Icount the steps from my bed to the bathroom like I always do. Eight, always eight. It’s a number that feels safe, symmetrical, and clean. But this morning, something slips. I miscount. Twice. The first time I catch it halfway through, my breath hitches as I retrace each step with deliberate precision. The second time, I reach the sink and realize I’ve skipped one entirely. My heart stutters, and I freeze in place, staring at the tile like it might rearrange itself to fix what I broke. I whisper the numbers under my breath, trying to make them stick, trying to make them feel right. But they don’t. They feel foreign, like someone else is walking in my skin.
I brush my teeth for exactly two minutes, using the timer on my phone like I always do, but I check it four times. Then five. Then six. I can’t remember if I started it late or early or not at all. The seconds stretch unnaturally, and I feel my chest tighten with the kind of panic that doesn’t scream; it hums. I rinse my mouth andstare at my reflection, searching for something familiar. My hair is pulled back. My sweater is folded neatly on the chair. My planner is color-coded and waiting. Everything looks the same. But I don’t feel the same. I feel tilted, like the floor beneath me has shifted just a few degrees, and I’m the only one who noticed.
My rituals are failing me. The structure is cracking. And I don’t know how to stop it. Because he’s in my head now. In my skin. In the spaces between my routines. And I think if I keep unraveling like this, he’ll be the only thing left.
The air is sharp when I step outside, the kind of September morning that bites at your skin and makes everything feel a little too awake. I clutch my bag tighter, fingers curled around the strap like it’s the only thing keeping me tethered, and maybe it is. The sidewalk is damp from last night’s rain, leaves scattered like broken thoughts across the concrete. I count my steps out of habit, four from the door to the edge of the path, three to the turn, but the numbers feel off, like they’re echoing in a space that doesn’t belong to me anymore.
I keep my head down, eyes trained on the ground, trying to stay inside the rhythm. Left foot. Right foot. Breathe in. Breathe out. But something shifts in the air, something subtle, something wrong. I feel it before I see it. That prickle at the base of my neck. That tightness in my chest. That sense that I’m not alone.
And then I look up.
It’s parked across the street, angled just enough to face the dorm entrance. Blacked-out windows. Matte finish.No decals. No distractions. Just sleek, silent power. The Range Rover.HisRange Rover. I’ve never seen it parked here. Never this close. Never waiting.
My breath catches, shallow and uneven. I stop walking. Just for a second. Just long enough to feel the weight of it. The car doesn’t move. The engine isn’t running, but it’s not empty. I know it. Ifeelit. He’s inside. Watching. Waiting. Not hiding. Just present like a shadow cast in daylight.
I glance around, but no one else seems to notice. Students pass by, earbuds in, voices low, eyes glazed with morning fatigue. They don’t see it. They don’t feel the pull, but I do. Every inch of me does. My skin tightens. My pulse stutters. And the question I’ve been trying to bury claws its way back to the surface.
What does he want with me?
No one has ever wanted my attention like this.Is this some sort of a trick?Kinsley always tells me what a man whore he is. I’m not naive enough to believe I’ve caught his attention in a good way.
I turn away, forcing my feet to move, forcing my breath to steady. But the image stays burned behind my eyes, the car, the silence, the certainty. He’s not just in my head anymore. He’s here. And he’s not leaving.
Kane
She doesn’t know what she’s doing to me. Not really. Not yet.
She walks out of that dorm like she’s still invisible. Like the world hasn’t shifted. Like her routines still protect her. But I see the way her shoulders tense when she spots the car. I see the way her breath catches. She’s starting to feel it. The pressure. The presence.Me.
I should leave. I should drive away. I should let her have her morning, but I don’t because I want her to know I’m here.
I want her to feel it. I want her to start asking questions she doesn’t want answers to.
I used to think obsession was weakness. That needing someone meant surrender.
But this isn’t surrender.
This is strategy.
This is precision.
She’s not just a girl. She’s a system, a locked box, and I want to crack her open and see what spills out.
