How do you know it’s him?my brain whispers softly.Maybe it’s just some guy. You don’t even know if he’s looking at you.
Because it’s someone, the other, terrified part of me says.Someone is following me. Someone is watching me… I know it.
I watch until Oliver jogs across the street, the light no longer illuminating him once he gets to the other side. He talks to theman for a few seconds, finally clapping the other on the shoulder before both of them turn and walk in different directions.
Within a few seconds, the stranger is gone. They turn the corner and vanish from my sight, just as Oliver calls me, and I run to my bedside table to grab my phone.
“Just a homeless guy,”Oliver assures me, his voice sounding tinny as he gets into his car.“He saw lights, was all. And he’s waiting for a friend of his or something. He said he’d be more careful, okay?
“You’re… sure?” Disappointment and relief flood my body, and my hand clenches the phone more tightly.
“Yeah, Blair. I’m sure. Nothing’s going to hurt you. Just have a good night, okay? Everything’s okay.”
“I’m probably exaggerating,” I agree, after a moment’s pause. “You’re right, Oliver. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“You’re headed home then?” I wander back to my bed and sit down, still feeling like I’m not really alone.
“Yep.” I hear the purr of his car, and sigh.
“Have a good night, okay?”
“Right back at you, wonder girl.”
But I doubt I will. Not when every breath I take makes my lungs want to close up, and certainly not when I wander back to my window and look down to see the shadow of someone at the end of the street, leaning against another building with their face upturned in my direction.
Oliver’s wrong about this. Someone is watching me. Following me, maybe. And until I figure out who it is, I doubt I’ll have a ‘good night’ again.
Chapter 15
It’s not that I don’t trust Oliver, or that I think he would lie to me. Quite the opposite, actually.
It’s just that I don’t think he’s right this time.
My fingers drum against the table, eyes fixed on my iPad as I go through some information for Art History I’ve looked over at least eight times. By this time through the information, it’s nothing I don’t already know. It’s just me, being me, and not wanting to feel like I’ve missed something.
And besides, the coffee shop a few minutes away from my apartment is a great place to do work. Especially at five in the morning when it’s still dark outside and I simply cannot sleep. Even Juniper isn’t up, and since it’s Saturday, it’s not like I have class.
I just have my loud, unpleasant thoughts to deal with that tell me something is most definitely wrong and that somehow, Oliver is, too.
I chew on my lip as I read, or skim, really, and I don’t look up when the door opens again to admit more customers to the shop. It’s early, sure, but apparently not early enough for the coffee-addicted to consider staying home.
Finally, I glance up, looking out the window to the street beyond. It’s going to rain today, that much is for certain. Already it looks like mist is falling outside, and the sky is so absent of stars or the moon that I can only imagine the storm clouds covering it now.
Will it rain all day?
Taking a drink of my coffee, I turn to another chapter in the book I’m reading, looking for something that I can’t recite from start to finish. My book is worn and tagged. Small, bright colored sticky notes are stuck to random pages in a way that looks almost unintentional. Some are marked with a pen with a letter or a dot, but most aren’t. Most are just things I’d found interesting or that I knew I’d need for classwork.
Hesitantly, I flip to one, finally glancing up at the woman now leaving the coffee shop. She meets my eyes with a polite smile, brushing sleek black hair back over her shoulder with her small white purse in the same hand, making it awkward. Her eyes are dark, like Jun’s, and I notice only a few similarities before looking back down at my book while she pushes her way out of the coffee shop’s doors.
While she might look a little like Jun, and be similar to our age, I don’t know her. Yet, I can’t get the newly-released picture of the dead girl out of my head, stomach churning at the memory of seeing it on my laptop.
Because she looked like Juniper, too. Not that I’d brought it up to my roommate and best friend, because I have no idea how to approach the subject of her looking like the woman who was murdered on campus.
And besides, by this point, I’m sure she’s seen it too.
Sighing, I sit back in my chair, one foot drawn up so I can hook my heel on the edge of the seat, and lean back to stare up at the lazily spinning fan above my head. I don’t need to be here,studying. It was mostly an excuse to leave the apartment when I’d started to feel claustrophobic and closed in.