13. Julia #3
That should only frighten me. It does frighten me.
The appropriate reaction is present and accounted for, somewhere between the tightening in my stomach and the cold sensation slowly climbing along the back of my arms. What I don’t understand is why there is another reaction beneath it.
Not pleasure. Not yet. Something closer to being caught off guard.
I continue reading.
You move through this world pretending you’re ash, pretending you’re dim.
But I see the fire you try to hide. It pulls at me. It consumes me.
My eyes remain on those lines longer than they should.
I see the fire you try to hide.
I hear Kai’s voice from our last session telling me how quickly other people’s opinions arrive in my head before my own does.
I hear myself telling him how carefully I decide what parts of my life are safe enough to share and with whom.
Then this stranger tells me there is something underneath all of it.
Something burning. I hate the tiny, traitorous part of myself that reacts to that.
The next lines should cure it.
I will not be like the others who left you.
I will not turn away.
I will follow.
My breathing slows as my attention fixes on the final sentence.
I will follow.
There is no way to make that romantic. Whatever else the person writing this believes he is doing, those three words strip away any comfortable interpretation.
He is watching me. He intends to continue.
Thursday night wasn’t necessarily imagination anymore.
I glance toward the windows for a third time, and suddenly the room feels different around me. Not unsafe exactly, but visible.
The large windows on my house, that ultimately were one of the reasons I bought it, now feel like portals allowing just anyone to see into my soul. The trees outside make the space feel open without sacrificing privacy. Except apparently the privacy part may have existed entirely in my imagination.
I pull my attention back to the letter.
I will take.
That line sits alone long enough to make something low in my stomach tighten. The reaction annoys me immediately. There is nothing sexy about this, for fucks sake. Nothing.
And yet… my eyes move on.
I will replace your nightmares with desires.
I will make you remember what it feels like to burn.
And finally:
You are mine, Little Ember. Even if you don’t know it yet.
—Man in the Shadows.
I reach the end and remain exactly where I am, the page resting between both hands while the house continues making ordinary evening noises around me — the heating system shuts off, a car passes outside. Somewhere down the block, a dog barks twice and then stops.
I should call someone. That thought is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
The police would be the rational choice.
Tessa would probably arrive at my house before the police if I told her what happened.
Daniel would come too, although he would spend the drive insisting he wasn’t panicking while absolutely panicking.
Instead, I read the letter again. The fact that I do it bothers me almost as much as the contents. I start from the top, moving more slowly this time because fear no longer has the advantage of surprise.
I watch you.
Still frightening.
I know the way you sit too still...
Still far too specific.
Then:
But I see the fire you try to hide.
My thumb shifts against the edge of the paper.
That line lands exactly where it did the first time.
I don’t like admitting why. I have spent most of my life feeling understood in pieces.
Tessa knows more than almost anyone, but even with her there are things I don’t say because there is always something happening, someone calling, work beginning or life moving the conversation somewhere else.
My mother knows the history but filters so much of what I tell her through her own experiences that sometimes I stop recognizing myself by the time she is finished interpreting me.
Even therapy is structured around explanation.
What happened? What did you feel? Why do you think you reacted that way?
Nobody simply looks. And apparently the first person who has decided to announce that he does is some lunatic hiding in the woods.
“Perfect.” A humorless laugh slips out of me.
Maybe that is why the letter gets under my skin.
Not because I want to be stalked. I cannot emphasize strongly enough, even to myself, that I do not want a stranger lurking outside my home.
But because somewhere inside everything frightening about this is an idea I have wanted for longer than I probably understand.
To be seen without first having to explain myself.
The thought makes me deeply uncomfortable.
My eyes return to the final line.
You are mine, Little Ember.
Possessive, arrogant, completely fucking unearned. And still something warm moves through me when I read it.
I lower the page onto my lap.
“What the hell is wrong with me?”
Maybe nothing. Maybe adrenaline can make fear and excitement resemble each other enough to confuse anyone.
That explanation feels sensible. I decided to keep it, for now.
Kai comes into my mind without invitation because of course he does.
If anyone could explain why part of my nervous system apparently thinks receiving threatening love letters from an anonymous stranger is interesting instead of exclusively terrifying, it would probably be the man I pay to explain the rest of my questionable emotional architecture.
For a few seconds, I seriously considered bringing the letter to my next appointment.
Then I imagine the conversation. I would have to tell him someone has been watching me.
He would ask how I know. I would give him the letter.
Then, because Kai Blackwood has apparently dedicated his professional life to asking the exact question I least want to answer, he would eventually ask how reading it made me feel.
Absolutely fucking not. Worse, he would probably tell me to contact the police and he would be right.
There would be no version of telling a psychiatrist that an unknown man has followed me home and left a letter claiming ownership that ends with him saying, Interesting.
Let’s see how this develops. Once I tell Kai, this becomes official.It becomes something requiring action — police reports, security cameras.
Questions about where I’ve been and who might have had access to me.
The possibility of officers talking to neighbors or my employer.
My mother finding out and turning every future evening alone into a phone call asking whether my doors are locked.
None of those are reasons not to report it, I know that.
I’m simply not ready to turn the strange black envelope in my lap into all of that tonight.
My attention drifts toward the windows again.
Thursday returns. The feeling of being watched had been so strong that I abandoned television, checked every lock in the house and went upstairs with lights still burning below me.
At the time, I convinced myself I had imagined it.
Now I’m not so sure. The realization sends a much cleaner wave of fear through me than anything written on the page.
“You were there.” The words leave my mouth quietly.
I don’t know who I’m speaking to. Him, perhaps.
The empty room. Myself. There is no answer.
I sit there for another moment before finally shrugging my coat off and reaching for my phone.
I don’t call anyone, but I keep it beside me on the sofa while I read the letter for the third time.
It remains frightening. Nothing about repeated exposure improves that.
The man writing it still knows where I live, still claims he watches me and still believes announcing that he intends to follow me constitutes an acceptable introduction.
But the intrigue remains too. Not trust, I have none.
Not affection, because I know absolutely nothing about him.
What remains is the uncomfortable pull of a question I cannot answer.
Who is he?
How long has this been happening?
What does he see when he watches me?
And why does the idea that he sees something burning inside me feel better than it has any right to?
Eventually, I fold the letter along the same crease it came with and slide it back into the black envelope.
The broken wax seal no longer holds the flap closed, so it falls open slightly when I place it on the coffee table.
I stare at it. I should throw it away. Instead, I leave it there.
Fear makes perfect sense but curiosity doesn’t.
What unsettles me most is that, despite knowing which one I should listen to, I’m no longer entirely sure which one will win.