Chapter Four
Hours passed before she thought of the infuriating messenger again.
Two more lectures filled that time, as well as lunch with Cindy and Liz to compare hangovers.
Next was a well-needed trip to the supermarket to collect groceries and another bus ride home.
By the time she got back to her house, the heavens had opened again.
Weighed down by her shopping bags and her hair wetted to her face, she’d rarely been more pleased to see the bleak little hallway of the house.
“Kris, is that you?” Tina called from the lounge.
“Yeah.” Kris shook the rain from her face as she peeled off her coat. “How are you?”
“A lot better than you by the looks of things.” Standing in the entrance to their cozy living space, Tina shook her head as she laughed. “Raining, is it?”
“Just a little.” Kris’ voice oozed with sarcasm. “But I have fought my way through the monsoon, and I come bearing gifts.”
She signaled to the two bags loaded with food at her feet.
“Oh, well done.” Tina shifted into action and collected the bags for her. Carrying them through to the small kitchen they shared with Melanie, she called her reply. “We’re practically out of bread and pasta.”
“Not anymore.” Opening the nearby door, Kris reached into the downstairs bathroom for a towel. Unfolding the fabric, she draped it over her drenched tresses and began to dry them as she continued. “Now, we’re fully stocked with provisions.”
“Let me put all this away while you take a shower.” Tina appeared in the doorway again. Motioning to the soaked towel in Kris’ hands, she chuckled. “That way, you can warm up properly and stop drowning our hand towel.”
Kris smiled. “Fair enough. I’ll get started on dinner after that. I was thinking mushroom pasta.”
“Oh, yum,” Tina said. “Let me do that. You did the shopping, after all. Do you know if Melanie’s home tonight?”
“I’m not sure,” Kris admitted, stretching the wet towel over the downstairs radiator. “We’ll have to message her.”
“I’ll do that now.” Tina pulled her phone from her pocket. “Enjoy your shower.”
Images of hot pasta filled Kris’ head as she climbed the stairs with her backpack falling from her shoulder.
Dumping her bag onto her bedroom carpet, she had all but forgotten the eerie and anger-inducing interaction that had thrown her out of favor with Pine.
As it was, she’d managed to smooth things over by staying late and impressing him with the additional reading she’d been doing, but apparently, he was still on the fence about whether to help her thesis-wise.
It wasn’t until she was under the hot torrent of water cascading from the shower that the curious exchange sprang to mind once more, her emotions swinging from confused to angry and then perturbed.
Wrapping a towel around her, she stepped out from the cubicle and cleared the condensated mirror to stare at her reflection.
“Okay, Kris. Time to decide. How do I deal with the crazy loon who’s been texting me?”
Staring at her blue eyes, she frowned. The whole sordid issue was largely her fault.
She was the one who had been so triggered by the notice that she’d felt the need to send a snarky reply, and then, she’d had the idiotic judgment to respond when she was steaming drunk.
She didn’t approve of the threatening reply she'd received, but if she’d just ignored the leaflet, none of it would have happened.
“I should have just left well alone…”
But she hadn’t. She’d taken the bait, and she needed to decide how to handle the consequences. Should she stand by her message and just ignore the latest reply, or respond, letting them know that there was more chance of her winning the lottery than her ever agreeing to meet them?
She didn’t meet strangers in bars or restaurants. She knew what happened to women who did…
“Ignore them,” she muttered as she left the bathroom, yet even as she padded to her bedroom and acknowledged Tina’s call that Melanie was stopping with her boyfriend, Dean, she knew that was rubbish.
She wasn’t going to disregard the response. In fact, entering the doorway, she was already searching for her phone, her heart rate accelerating when she found it at the top of her bag and unlocked the screen.
Flicking into the mysterious message, she re-read the final line:
I look forward to our first meeting.
What normal person sent that as a reply to an apology?
Blowing out a breath, her digits were already flying over the keyboard, penning a response. She wasn’t inebriated that time, yet somehow, it was as though her fingers had developed a life of their own, the words bleeding from them without Kris’ consent.
She stared down at the completed message, her fingertip hovering over the button that would push it out into the ether.
You don’t know me. Please, just leave me alone.
The seconds lengthened as she considered what to do. The reply sent the right tone, but a part of her still warned her not to bother responding at all. Replying would only add fuel to the fire, and the most sensible thing she could do was to let it burn out by itself.
Uncertain what to do for the best, she threw the phone on the bed just as her message tone reverberated through the air.
“If that’s that good-for-nothing Shaun, then I’ve got a few things to say to him.” Tucking the towel into place under her arm, she sighed as she perched on the edge of the bedding and reached again for the device. “How dare he ignore me for so long, and then—”
Her words evaporated when her attention fell on the owner of the latest message.
Not Shaun, but the same weirdo who’d said he looked forward to meeting her.
“Oh, God.” Tension knotted in her belly as she recognized the number. “This is getting serious.”
She should have ignored the new message, deleted the entire exchange, yet somehow, she found herself flicking into the trail, her throat drying the moment she acknowledged the incoming words.
No need to send that message, Kristina.
I know you better than you realize.
And I will know you even better in the days to come.
Much better.
“Shit.” Dropping the phone to her towel-covered lap, tears brimmed in her eyes as her pulse accelerated.
The messages had morphed from strange and disconcerting to genuinely scary.
At the rate things were going, she’d need to contact the university’s security and let them know she might have a stalker.
The institution took the safety of its students seriously.
If they advised her to get the police involved, then she would, even if she was at least partially to blame.
Culpability didn’t explain the timing of the latest message, though. How was that even possible?
How could anyone have known she was considering sending a reply before she’d even decided to do so?
But then, whoever it was had known her name, hadn’t they? They’d called her Kristina, even though she hadn’t introduced herself, plus they’d mentioned Shaun.
She couldn’t understand how any of those miracles were conceivable. One of them might have been considered a lucky coincidence, but all of them surely meant something more ominous.
“A real stalker.” She whispered the conclusion, glancing around suddenly as though there might be someone else in the room with her.
She’d never felt unsafe in the house before, appreciating the size of the bedrooms and its proximity to a bus stop, but feeling self-conscious after the peculiar exchange, she tugged the curtains closed and peered around her personal space.
Everything looked different somehow, as though someone had violated her room when she hadn’t been looking.
“Get a grip,” she mumbled, but started when the familiar sound echoed from the device on her knees. “Not again.”
Her heart was really racing then, sending adrenaline rushing around her system as she attempted to process what was happening.
Trembling fingers opened her phone, dread stretching its icy tendrils across her lower abdomen as she checked to see who the latest message was from.
She nearly cried with relief when Shaun’s name popped into her notifications.
“Fucker!” She sniffed, pressing into the exchange to see what he had to say for himself.
Hopefully, seeing his groveling apology would help ease some of the cramping stress in her stomach. She certainly hoped so.
Devouring his words, though, her brows knitted. To say they hadn’t been what she expected was an understatement.
Reverting to the start, she re-read his lines, sure she must have read them wrong the first time, but unfortunately, the second attempt only validated her angry disappointment. Shaun wasn’t even vaguely sorry.
Stop messaging me, Kris.
This was only ever a fling for me, and now you won’t leave me alone.
You’re bloody embarrassing.
Tossing the phone to one side, humiliated tears burned in Kris’ eyes.
She’d thought the time they’d spent together had been the start of something special, when clearly it had been nothing to Shaun but a quick fumble. How could she have been so stupid?
“Dinner’s ready!”
Tina’s holler permeated through Kris’ closed door, and sniffing back the crushing sense of rejection, she unhooked the towel and pulled on the hoodie and joggers waiting nearby.
“I’ll be right down!” she cried, trying to keep her voice upbeat while she dragged a brush through her hair and slipped her phone into her pocket.
Glancing back around the space, she flicked off the light in her room as the same two words resonated in her head.
Fucking men.