Chapter Fifty #3
Eventually, I started working little odd jobs.
The kind of things where people paid cash, and I didn’t have to worry about filling employment forms. Dog walking, snow shoveling, weeding.
Until, little by little, I was able to afford more than just food and gas, and got us a short-term renting situation.
Once I had that, getting an actual on-the-books job was easier.
“I thought everything was on track,” I told Atlas. “Until Joss showed up at the rental.”
I’d been coming back from the park with Samson.
The rental was small and stuffy, a glorified box with a mini kitchen and a bathroom with such an awkward setup that I couldn’t completely close the door thanks to the sink cabinet.
And the neighbors on both sides were loud enough to set my nerves on edge, so we spent as much time as possible out of our room.
I thank God that we’d been in the car when I was pulling into the lot.
A quick K-turn allowed me to get out of there, parking down a side street, my heart racing, panic gripping my system.
I sat there for seven hours until, finally, his car pulled down the street.
After waiting another half an hour, just in case, I rushed back to the rental, emptying everything back out of it, stuffing it into my car, and leaving it behind.
I thought something as simple as a new rental would help.
Until, one day, he showed up at my work.
And, unfortunately, that time, I hadn’t been able to avoid him. He’d grabbed my arm and pulled me outside with him, telling me he missed me, he was sorry, it would never happen again.
“You didn’t go back, did you?”
“No. Because the whole time he was making assurances to me, his hand was crushing my upper arm.”
“What’d you do?”
“I told him I would grab my things, then meet him out front. Then I slipped out the back, rushed out of there, got my stuff and Samson, and headed out of town.”
“To Navesink Bank?” Atlas asked.
“No. Unfortunately, he found me six more times across four states.”
“How?”
“Yeah, that was the problem,” I admitted. “I didn’t understand how it was happening, so there was no way to prevent it.
“Somehow, I hadn’t put the pieces together about Joss being into computers, and the fact that he was able to trace me wherever I went.”
“Was it through your phone?”
“That’s what I concluded the first time. I wasn’t on his plan, but I’d opened a new one for work purposes. I guess he figured out how to trace that. So I started using a burner.”
The second and third times, I’d concluded it was something to do with the rentals I was using, which were set up through a major website that, I guess, could be hacked.
The fourth time, I decided it was maybe the job I’d been working at a chain store.
The fifth, I decided it must have been through my utilities. It was the first time that I’d been staying somewhere that the utilities weren’t included, so I’d needed to set them up myself.
“I never figured out how he found me the sixth time,” I admitted. That had been weighing heavily on me for a long time. Amplified after the phone call a bit back.
“Were you as lucky each time as you were the first two times?” Atlas asked.
“No,” I admitted.
Once, he’d found me working a night shift alone, waiting for me behind the dumpster out back, and beating the hell out of me right there in the parking lot.
He’d been dragging me toward his car when a group of teenagers who were likely up to no good, given the hour, had decided to be heroes, and rushed over, getting me away from him.
One of them even used his skateboard to knock Joss on the head before he got away from them and ran to the safety of his car.
“Had you considered going to the cops that time?” Atlas asked.
“I did,” I said, nodding. “I even went to the station, asking ‘hypothetical’ questions to a female officer I caught walking out.”
She’d been quick to tell me what she, officially, needed to tell me about filing a report, about getting a restraining order.
“But?” Atlas prompted.
But then she’d pulled me a little further away from the station, and told me what she’d seen and learned from experience.
About how stalkers don’t give a damn about paperwork. About how, if anything, all it did was piss off your stalker, and make them escalate.
She’d also told me that, with many restraining orders, your address is actually shared with your stalker or abuser, unless you have a separate meeting where you can convince the judge that you are in danger.
“And without any documented evidence of prolonged abuse, she didn’t think that was likely.”
“So, you decided to keep relying on yourself.”
“Yeah.”
I took everything I learned from each time he found me, and wrote down a list of things not to do moving forward.
Do not get a phone plan.
Do not work at a chain store or restaurant.
Do not pay for utilities in my name.
Do not get rentals through a website.
Do not get any social media.
I’d been dreading the day I was going to have to register my car again. Or update my license.
There were some things that you simply had to do just to exist in society.
It was why I was so crazy about keeping an eye on my spending, about socking away as much money as possible. Because having a savings was the only thing that allowed me to start over each time without having to live in the car again.
The problem was that, in the past, I had no attachments. I never really got out of survival mode enough to make friends or become attached to my surroundings.
Now, though?
I was attached.
To my job and my coworkers. To this house that felt a little more like mine than anywhere else I’d ever stayed. To Navesink Bank in general.
And now, of course, to Atlas.
For better or worse.
“Can I ask you something?” Atlas asked when I finally stopped talking.
“Sure,” I invited, reaching for my orange juice.
“That night, after we went out to get dinner, when you got a phone call, was that him?”
Sucking in a deep breath, I exhaled it slowly.
“Yes.”
“How did he find your number?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I looked into it, and I blocked him, but I have no idea how he figured it out in the first place.”
“It was a new number?” he asked.
“New since I came to Navesink Bank,” I said.
“Hm,” Atlas said, sitting back.
“Yeah, I know. I’ve been racking my brain ever since.”
“Just to be safe, how about I order you a new burner?” he asked. “You can just tell your work that you switched providers. No one has to know.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” I agreed.
Atlas reached across the table, taking my hand, and giving it a squeeze.
“Thanks for telling me.”