16. Anonymous
16
ANONYMOUS
I really can’t be sure if I want to kill her or fuck her. Probably both. What a bloody mess she’s made of things. And it just keeps getting worse.
This is the thing you cannot begin to understand about a woman like that—it’s damned near impossible to let her go. Try as you might. It’s like trying to tear a thread loose from a sweater while it’s still on your body. She doesn’t leave you. Not physically, not mentally. She’s a constant. A shadow you can’t shake, no matter how much distance you put between yourself and her.
I first encountered her at some vapid work event, c ustomer appreciation , I think they called it. Not for me. It was nothing but glassy-eyed smiles, flimsy name tags, and small talk. Not my kind of thing.
But there she was—the kind of woman who can make you feel like a side note in your own life. She had that air about her—effortlessly charming, too good at making people feel comfortable. I didn’t trust her immediately, but there was a crack in the armor. A vulnerability I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Her laugh was too loud, her words too rehearsed, as though she were playing a part.
But she played it well.
I don’t know why I kept watching her. Maybe it was because the lighting was low and I didn’t figure she’d recognize me later. Maybe it was because she wasn’t afraid to make me uncomfortable. She had this way of letting her eyes linger just a fraction too long, like she knew things about me that I didn’t even know myself. It wasn’t the kind of attention that made you feel seen. It was the kind that made you feel exposed. And I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t get enough of it.
We ended up in the same place a few times after that: a coffee shop here, a nondescript office building there. I could feel her presence before I even saw her, like an itch under my skin. A tickling anticipation. She wasn’t subtle about it, either. She was deliberate. She knew she was being watched.
One evening, I followed her after she left a meeting. She walked briskly, purposeful, as if she had somewhere to be—maybe it was a lover, maybe a deal, maybe something entirely different. Whatever it was, it wasn’t meant for me. She could feel me in her periphery, but she didn’t acknowledge me. Not once.
I don’t know when I started properly following her. Maybe it was after she turned down my offer for a date on that pathetic app she’s always on. Or maybe it was after a string of brief but endearing messages which ended with her writing back—sharp and cold—“Do I know you from somewhere?”
I told her she didn’t. She doesn’t.
But for whatever sick reason, I respected her more in that moment than I had in all the hours before.
It wasn’t long before I started figuring out where she went. I shadowed her to those places you don’t really go unless you have to—boutique hotels, empty warehouses. Places where secrets get exchanged, where stories are erased and rewritten. I followed her into the night, watched her pull into a grimy alley and disappear behind a door I didn’t have access to. It wasn’t the location that drew me in. It was what she did when she thought she was alone.
She wasn’t nearly as clean as she thought she was.
There’s something thrilling about catching a person off guard. That moment when they let their mask slip. It’s pure satisfaction, the kind you can’t buy. The kind you can only get from someone like her—someone who has no idea what they’re leaving behind when they walk away. The sense that you’re not in control, that they’re playing a game they never told you about. That’s the moment I’m waiting for. The one where she realizes she doesn’t have the upper hand anymore.
There’s something else, though. A tenderness, an odd kind of softness in her eyes when she looks at people. It’s the thing that stops me from pulling the trigger, even when I’m so damn close to it. That tenderness, buried underneath the carefully constructed walls. It makes me hesitate.
But only for a second.
She doesn’t think I’m watching. She probably doesn’t even care. But I see the way she checks her phone in a hurry, the way she adjusts her hair in a reflection. The way she drags her coat over her shoulders like she’s hiding something—maybe it’s guilt, maybe it’s a secret. Either way, she’s not the polished professional she pretends to be. She’s flawed, like the rest of us. And I don’t want to just watch anymore. I want to know her. I want to get close enough to rip those secrets from her, piece by piece.
And maybe, just maybe, I’ll have what I need to end it all.
But right now, I’m not done. Not by a long shot.