Chapter 38 #2
Mily does not answer immediately. Her gaze drifts to the surface of her tea as if the memory is written there. When she finally speaks, her voice carries a tremor she is trying to suppress.
"At first, I thought it was someone from class playing a prank." She says. "Harmless. Immature. Something that would burn out once I stopped reacting."
She clasps her hands together tightly, knuckles whitening.
"Then he sent an intimate video of me with my boyfriend to the whole university." She continues, each word deliberate. "Exposing me in the most humiliating way possible."
I inhale sharply. "That is awful. He did something similar to me. It spread faster than I could even process what was happening."
Mily nods slowly, the sympathy in her eyes unguarded now.
"The escalation was gradual but relentless." She says. "He never approached me directly at first. It was as if he enjoyed watching me unravel from a distance. No confrontation. No face. Just control."
"What do you mean by enjoyed watching you unravel?" I ask. "Did he react to how you felt?"
Her lips press together briefly before she answers.
"Yes. When I changed my routine, he noticed. If I took a different route home, he would text me about the original one. If I deleted my social media, he would mention something I had said in person to someone else."
She exhales slowly.
"Once, right after I confided in a friend about him, he sent a message quoting what I had said. Word for word. It proved he was listening."
My stomach drops. "He does that to me too. The timing is immediate. Like he’s in the walls."
Mily’s eyes flicker with understanding. "It makes you doubt your own mind." She says. "You start wondering if you are imagining patterns. But you’re not."
She grows quieter, more focused.
"He manipulated situations to make me look unstable." She continues. "Rumors at my job. Subtle comments to people I trusted. Soon, they were watching me with suspicion instead of concern."
I lean forward. "Did he ever send you pictures of someone else? Like someone entering your house?"
For a second, she looks confused, searching her memory.
"Pictures of someone else?" She repeats.
"Or threats directed at someone close to you." I clarify.
Her expression changes. Tightens.
"Not exactly that." She says slowly. "But once, he sent me a picture of my father coming home from work."
She swallows. "The caption said, ‘You shouldn’t involve people.’"
The words hang heavy in the air.
"That is the kind of thing he does to me." I whisper. "Warnings. Subtle, but clear."
Mily nods.
"No one believed me at first." She says. "They thought I was exaggerating. That I was seeking attention. He anticipated every move I made to expose him. Every attempt I made to protect myself."
"The fear becomes cumulative." She says. "It does not explode all at once. It builds. You wake up already exhausted."
Her gaze drifts again, distant.
"My parents saw what it was doing to me. I stopped sleeping. I stopped eating properly. They insisted I move back home."
"And you agreed?"
"I resisted at first." She admits. "I did not want to give him the satisfaction of driving me out. But eventually, survival felt more important than pride."
"And the messages stopped after you left?" I ask. "Just like that?"
She nods slowly. "Stopped completely. As if I had never existed to him."
"Stopped completely?" I repeat. "That must have been… confusing."
"It was worse than confusing." She says quietly. "It was disorienting. I did not know if it meant he had moved on… or if he was simply waiting."
The room falls silent again. After a moment, she leans back slightly, her posture shifting from memory to resolve.
"It was hell." She says. "But I kept one thing from that time that might help you."
Before I can respond, she stands and leaves the room. I hear a drawer opening somewhere down the hallway. The faint rustle of paper. My pulse quickens.
When she returns, she is holding a small envelope.
She sits down and opens it carefully, almost ceremonially.
"I kept this because it was the closest I ever got to knowing who he was."
"What is it?" I ask. "How did you get it?"
"He slipped up once." She explains. "He sent me a photo of myself inside a store. I was near the front window. In the reflection of the glass, you could faintly see him holding the phone."
She slides the photograph out.
"It was subtle. Almost invisible. But a friend enhanced it for me. Cross-referenced it with CCTV footage from the street outside my campus."
"And they found someone?" I ask.
"They identified a suspect." She says carefully. "A man who had been lingering around the area repeatedly. He denied everything. There was not enough evidence to charge him."
Her voice grows tighter. "But they warned him. And for a while, he disappeared."
She hands me the photograph. I take it with trembling fingers. The image is grainy but clear enough. A storefront window. My reflection. No, hers, captured mid-step. And behind her, in the glass, the faint outline of a man in a hoodie.
His face partially visible. Sharp jawline. Dark eyes. Something about the angle of his head.
"Mily…" My voice barely works.
"What is it?" She asks, leaning forward.
I cannot answer immediately. My vision narrows as I stare at the image, my brain scrambling to place him, searching classrooms, offices, cafés, streets.
"You recognize him?" She asks, her voice sharpening again. Not panicked, but alert.
I shake my head slowly.
"No." I say, my throat dry. "I don’t."
Her expression shifts. Confusion first, then concern. "You don’t know him?"
"I’ve never seen him before." I murmur, staring at the photograph as if it might rearrange itself into something familiar. "Not at work. Not at school. Not anywhere I can remember."
The unfamiliarity unsettles me more than recognition would have. Because if he were someone I knew, there would be logic. A motive. A thread I could follow backward. This is a stranger. And that makes it worse.