Page 22 of Watching You
I walk to her desk, fingers grazing the edge. I imagine her here, legs tucked under the chair, pen in hand, trying to write the noise out of her head. I imagine her folding that sweater, smoothing the fabric, aligning the seams. I imagine her thinking this space is safe. Untouched. Hers.
But it’s not. Not anymore.
I sit in her chair. Lean back. Let the silence wrap around me. Let the scent of her shampoo cling to the air. Let the tension settle in my chest like a second heartbeat. Kinsley would lose her mind if she knew. She’d call it a violation. She’d call it betrayal. But I call it proximity. I call it inevitability. I call it mine.
Because Blair doesn’t belong to this room. She doesn’t belong to her routines. She belongs to me.
And when she comes back, when she steps into this space and feels the shift, she’ll know.
She’s not alone anymore.
I didn’t come here to touch.
I came here to change.
Her room is a map of her mind. Every object placed with intention, every fold a ritual, every silence a shield. But rituals can be rewritten. Shields can be cracked. AndI’m not here to admire her system. I’m here to insert myself into it.
I walk to her bed, pick up the gray pillow she sleeps on, and spray my cologne, just once. Just enough. The scent clings to the fabric, sharp and clean, the kind that lingers in hair and skin and memory. Then I sit down, slow and deliberate, letting my weight rumple the sheets she smoothed this morning. It’s subtle. But she’ll feel it. She’ll notice the shift. She’ll wonder why her sanctuary doesn’t feel untouched anymore.
At her desk, I flip open her planner. Color-coded tabs. Perfect spacing. A calendar that looks more like a confession. I find the date of my first game—Friday, 12:30 p.m.—and mark it in red. Not her color. Not her system. Mine. She’ll see it. She’ll pause. She’ll wonder who put it there. And she’ll know.
Her phone is still on the desk. She must’ve left it in her rush this morning, too shaken by the note to remember the rest. I pick it up, thumb past the lock screen—Kinsley’s birthday. I know it. I saw her enter it several times when she was in my car. I open her contacts and add myself: Kane, no last name, no label. Just a number. Just presence. Just a thread she didn’t tie herself.
Then I go deeper.
I install a tracker app—quiet, hidden, buried beneath the weather widget. Not because I don’t trust her. Because I don’t trust them. Micah. Anyone like him. Anyone who thinks her silence is an invitation. I won’t let her be cornered again. I won’t let her flinch.
I sync her period app to my phone. It’s not about control. It’s about knowing. About understanding the rhythms she won’t say out loud. About being ready when she’s vulnerable. When she’s raw. When she needs someone who already knows.
I put the phone back exactly where she left it.
I smooth the planner closed.
I stand in the center of the room and breathe.
She’ll come back soon.
She’ll feel the shift.
She’ll feel me.
And she’ll know that her routines aren’t hers anymore.
They’reours.
Nine
Blair
The door clicks shut behind me, and I exhale like I’ve been holding my breath since sunrise. Maybe I have. The note this morning—folded, anonymous, tucked into my psych textbook—still sits like a weight in my bag. I haven’t opened it again. I don’t need to. I remember every word. Every curve of the handwriting. Every implication.
Kinsley’s still in class. I have the room to myself. I should feel safe. I should feel calm. I should feel clean.
But I don’t.
I drop my bag by the desk, fingers already twitching toward my planner. I need to check the time. I need to see the blocks of color, the order, the control. But when I flip it open, my heart stutters.
There’s a mark on Saturday.
