Page 19 of Hunting Harbor

It’s some fucked-up prank, some twisted joke. Or worse. I can’t let my mind go there. I can’t.

It hurts to breathe, my ribs tight and constricting. I hear a sound, an animal whimpering. Me. My heart is trying to break free of its bone cage.

But in that frantic beating, there is something else too. A flicker of heat beneath the fear, a pulse of something darker. How is that possible? How? Am I so screwed up that even now I can feel a rush? Like a scene from my own nightmares, ripped from fantasy into the real world. Like I’ve written it myself.

This is exactly the type of thing you’d write about… that’s why you’re both disgusted and fascinated.

I stand here, paralyzed. Trapped between horror and disbelief. Between reality and some twisted story. It feels like an eternity, and still I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to deal with these rising feelings. Those sick ones, that say “You’ve always wanted a man possessed.”

Because it’s true. I have. I live my life fluttering from one lame one-night stand to another, when all I want is the kind of man who will protect me. Keep me safe. Love me more deeply than he’s ever loved anything.

Somehow, my brain confuses that type of want with this… this… violation. Like this guy’s come on my pages is some kind of declaration written with his babies. “Hey, I love you so much, I’m wasting my future kids on you.”

I want to throw up. I need a shrink. Maybe a padded cell. Definitely to never write the evil that lives in my brain down onpaper ever again, because it’s almost as if the universe is like, “Sup, bitch, you want this? Here you go,” and it delivers him right to my fucking door.

I have to move. To do something, anything, besides standing here and losing my mind. I stumble through the apartment, fling open doors and turn on lights, searching for—what? A sign that someone has been here.

The apartment feels impossibly big, a too-large space that could swallow me whole. Too many places to hide. How can this happen? How am I so stupid not to notice?

Nothing seems out of place. Everything is normal, orderly, a stark contrast to the chaos in my head. Even the dust floats calmly in the pale light. No drawers flung open, no clothes strewn about, nothing else missing or violated. The only thing out of order is me.

Why would someone do this?

I throw open my bedroom door, eyes scanning for—what? A person? An explanation? But the bed is perfectly made, untouched, like I’ve never even slept in it. Probably because I made it before coming out here. What am I expecting? Him to just be lying there with a come-hither look?

Honestly, at this point, I’d prefer that. What if he’s some ninety-year-old man with no teeth and skin so saggy it could cradle a baby?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I need to get my head checked. Yup. I’m going insane.

Why would someone break in just to do this? To leave their filthy mark on my work and nothing else? Why not on me? I hate myself for even thinking that. For letting my mind go there. What kind of twisted creep am I dealing with?

My heart races ahead of my thoughts. Pounding so hard I can barely hear myself think. The locks. The windows. I have to check them, see how this can have happened.

The front door is bolted tight. I yank at it, just to be sure, but it holds firm. So do the windows, securely latched with no sign of tampering. I can’t breathe. Can’t understand how someone got in, how they got out, leaving nothing behind but that stain.

This isn’t real. It can’t be real.

A sick, insistent whisper curls at the edges of my mind. You’re not as scared as you should be. The dark thrill of it sickens me. Does that mean—? Am I so messed up that even this feels… exciting? A different kind of foreplay, played out on the stage of my life instead of just in my mind?

No, no, no. I don’t want to think that. Can’t let myself think that.

The panic burns through me, leaving only raw nerves and an awful, empty exhaustion. I sink to the floor, arms wrapped tight around my knees, eyes flicking from door to window and back again.

I am alone. Completely alone.

So why doesn’t it feel that way?

I can’t sit still. Can’t just do nothing. I stumble to my feet, phone in hand, thumb hovering over the screen. Is this something I call the police for? They’d think I’m insane. A paranoid writer, seeing stalkers where there are only shadows. I imagine their laughter, the echo of it bouncing off the empty walls. They wouldn’t believe me. They’d never understand. I drop the phone, pace the room, my thoughts wild and feverish, the whole apartment too quiet.

I try to picture the conversation. Try to imagine explaining it all. What would I say? Help, officer, someone broke in and came on my manuscript? The humiliation burns in my throat, almost as bad as the panic.

Back and forth across the room. My movements frantic, my pulse erratic. Sorry, I’m rambling, aren’t I?

Maybe I really am going insane.

The phone sits accusingly on the counter. I pick it up again, thumb brushing against the call icon. Put it back down. I can’t do it. Can’t bring myself to call and hear that skeptical silence on the other end.

I feel like I am trapped inside my own twisted fiction. Dark romance bleeds into reality, turning it into something I can’t recognize. Am I letting it mess with my mind? Is that all this is?

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