Chapter 17
Grey: Flashback
I was sixteen the first time I followed someone home.
I told myself I was just walking. Just taking the long way. Just curious. That’s what people say when they’re already lying to themselves. His name wasn’t Cain. He was nothing like Cain. A high school teacher with a crooked tie and bad coffee breath, the kind of man no one paid attention to. I did.
I noticed him the same way I notice everyone. The small things. The way he drank his coffee, always from the same chipped mug. The way he rubbed the back of his neck when he was tired. The way his voice softened when he talked about books he loved, like they were people he was trying to protect.
I told myself I was just paying attention.
He lived in a building with a buzzing intercom and a lobby that smelled like old carpet. I stood across the street for forty-seven minutes. I counted.
The next day, I took his spare key from his desk drawer.
It was so easy. He left it in the top drawer, loose, like he didn't think anyone would want it.
Like no one would notice. I copied it at a hardware store that didn't ask questions.
The man behind the counter looked at me, looked at the key, looked at my shaking hands.
He didn't say anything. People never do.
I stood outside his apartment door for a long time. My palms were sweating. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. I told myself I just wanted to see. Just wanted to know. Just wanted to be closer.
The key turned. The door opened. I stepped inside.
His apartment smelled like him, paper, and dust. There were books everywhere.
Stacked on the floor. Piled on the coffee table.
Spilling off shelves that couldn't hold them all.
I walked through his living room. Touched his things.
His glasses on the counter. His coffee mug in the sink.
His jacket hanging on the back of a chair. I held it to my face and breathed in.
I didn't know why I was doing it. I still don't. I was sixteen. I was lonely. I was desperate for someone to see me the way I saw them.
The third time I broke into his apartment, he came home early.
I heard the key in the lock. I heard his voice, muffled, talking to someone on the phone.
I froze and hid in his closet. There was no other exit.
The windows were too high for me to jump from.
Just the closet. Just me, the smell of his clothes and the sound of my own breathing.
He walked through the apartment. I heard him set down his bag. I heard him pour a glass of water. I heard him sit on the couch.
I waited. I counted. One minute. Five. Ten.
Then he opened the closet door.
His face was confused at first. Then scared. Then something I couldn't read.
He didn't scream. He didn't call the police. He just stood there, looking at me, a teenager in his closet, holding his things.
"What are you doing in here?" he asked. His voice was quiet. Careful. Like he was talking to a dog that might bite.
I couldn't answer. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't do anything except stand there, clutching his jacket, waiting for him to call the police or hit me or do something. He didn't do any of those things. He just looked at me. And then he said, "You're one of my students."
I nodded. The word wouldn't come out.
"Grey," he said. He remembered my name. He remembered me.
He stepped back. Gave me room to leave. "Go home," he said. "We don't need to talk about this. Just go home."
I should have gone. I should have run. I didn't. I moved toward him. I don't know why. I think I wanted him to hit me. I think I wanted him to do something that matched what I was feeling. Something violent.
He backed away. His hands went up. "Please," he said. "Please don't come any closer."
I stopped. I was breathing too fast. My vision was blurry. I couldn't think, I couldn't see. I couldn't do anything except stand there and shake.
He called the police. I heard him dial. I heard him say "There's a student in my apartment" and "No, he's not armed" and "Please just get here." I heard his voice crack when he said my name to the dispatcher.
The police arrived. They took me outside. They put me in the back of a car. They asked questions I couldn't answer. They said things about psychiatric evaluations and juvenile records and consequences.
My mother didn't yell when she got the call. She didn't cry. She just went quiet, eyes flat in a way I'd never seen before. She drove me home. We sat in the kitchen. The clock ticked. The fridge hummed. Neither of us spoke.
"They say you've been... following him," she finally said. The word tasted sour in her mouth. "Breaking into his home."
I tried to explain. It wasn't like that. I never hurt him. I just watched. I just needed...
"Grey," she cut in. "I can't do this again."
Again. As if this was a pattern. A stain she'd been scrubbing at for years. Maybe it was but I didn't know what she meant by "again." I never asked. I was too afraid of the answer. I still am.
Two weeks later, she packed a suitcase. She stood in the doorway and looked at me. She was wearing the same coat she wore to work. The same tired expression she always wore.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't... I can't look at you the same way. I can't keep pretending."
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"I don't know." She closed the door.
She never called. She never sent a letter. She left me the apartment, the furniture, the silence. She left me with the memory of the way she looked at me that night in the kitchen. Like I was a stranger. Like I was something she'd already started to forget.
The court sealed my record. The school found me a new therapist. I moved cities and started over. I told myself I was better. I told myself I was different.
But I'm not different. I'm the same.
I see a man I can't stop watching. I learn his habits. I memorize his schedule. I take his things. I break into his spaces. I touch myself in his bed. I tell myself it's different this time. It's not.
Cain isn't the first. He's just the one I can't afford to lose.