15. Julia #4
She doesn’t respond. I take a picture because friendship requires documentation of weakness, then I lower the television volume and sit there for a while.
The house feels different when somebody else is in it.
Not better exactly, just fuller. Tessa’s overnight bag is abandoned near the stairs, her phone charging from my outlet and her shoes sitting beside mine near the door.
There are two wine glasses on the coffee table, plates stacked badly in the kitchen and enough evidence of another person everywhere I look that, for once, the large windows don’t make me think about what might exist beyond them.
My eyes drift toward the console table anyway.
The drawer remains closed. I could still wake her.
Show her, tell her everything but I don’t.
Instead, I cover her properly with the blanket she has managed to kick halfway onto the floor and turn off the television before heading upstairs.
For the first time since the letter appeared, I fell asleep without wondering whether someone was outside.
Tessa doesn’t leave until almost four Sunday afternoon.
Girls’ night becomes girls’ breakfast, which becomes coffee on the porch despite the cold, and then somehow becomes ordering lunch because neither of us wants to cook after the previous night’s culinary triumph.
When she finally stands in the hallway wearing yesterday’s jeans and carrying her overnight bag, she points two fingers at me.
“Do something fun this week.”
“I have a job.”
“That isn’t fun.” She says, pulling out the car key from her bag.
“I have therapy.”
“That definitely isn’t fun, despite the visual benefits.”
I gave her a look.
She smiles and pulls me into a hug. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
“And seriously, consider getting laid.”
“I regret telling you anything.”
“No, you don’t.” Unfortunately, she’s right.
I watch from the porch while she gets into her car, wave when she backs out and remain there until her taillights disappear at the end of the street.
Then I go inside. The silence that greets me is immediate.
Not unpleasant. I like being alone. I always have.
Still, after nearly twenty-four hours of Tessa filling every room she enters, the house seems larger than it did yesterday.
I spent the next few hours returning it to normal. The wine glasses go into the dishwasher, the blankets get folded, the pizza gets put away and Tessa’s forgotten hair tie goes into the drawer in the guest bathroom where approximately forty percent of her belongings eventually migrate.
By evening, the house belongs entirely to me again.
I make something simple for dinner and eat it on the sofa while searching for something to watch.
My conversation with Tessa keeps returning in fragments — sex, Michael, the word no.
Kai telling me there is nothing to forgive and, irritatingly, the envelope.
Still no second letter. I glance toward the console drawer.
The relief is easier to understand tonight.
If he stopped, then whatever this was ends with one unsettling piece of paper and an excellent future story about the week I apparently had a stalker with a stationery fetish.
That would be the best possible outcome.
So why does another thought follow almost immediately?
Maybe he saw enough.
I sigh and sink farther into the sofa.
“Jesus Christ, Julia.”
I am not offended that my stalker may have lost interest. That may genuinely be the lowest form of insecurity I have ever experienced.
And yet some old, embarrassingly familiar part of me wonders what changed.
Was I less interesting than he thought? Less attractive once he watched long enough?
Did he build some fantasy around me and then discover the actual woman spends Friday nights reheating pasta in an oversized T-shirt while screaming answers at television quiz shows?
The fact that I care even slightly makes me want to crawl out of my own skin.
Maybe this is exactly why I should have told Tessa.
Or Kai. Except the thought of telling Kai remains impossible for reasons I am not prepared to inspect tonight.
I pick up the remote and choose something from the recommendations mostly because I recognize the actress and have no energy left for another decision.
The opening credits begin. I pull the blanket over my legs and try to pay attention.
Outside, darkness settles against the windows until the glass reflects the warm interior of the living room back at me.
I notice it. Of course I do, but I don’t get up this time.
Nothing has happened all week. No footsteps.
No movement near the woods. No second black envelope.
Whoever Man in the Shadows was, maybe he really is gone. The possibility should let me relax completely. Instead, as the movie plays and the house settles around me, I find myself glancing toward the dark glass once more. Not because I’m frightened. At least, not entirely.
Because for the first time since Monday, I catch myself wondering what it would feel like to know he was still there.