Page 11 of Jealous Stalker

AndI need to.

Because no one else is going to watch her this close. No one else is going toknowwhat she needs before she even says it. No one else is going to love her like this. Even if she thinks I’m just a shadow on the edges of her life.

Soon, she’ll see me. Soon, she’llchooseme.

But until then I’ll keep her safe. Even from herself.

CHAPTER 5

Ella

Iwoke up to birdsong and the scent of vanilla.

My sheets were twisted around my legs, the sleepwalking string still tied to my wrist—tugging slightly from where it’d caught between my thighs again.

I start to stretch then paused. Something felt…different.

My room wasstill. Quiet. Peaceful.

And yet, my skin prickled.

I sat up slowly, rubbing my eyes, my mind heavy with sleep. There was something right on the edge of my memory. A whisper of a voice. A touch that had been too warm to be part of any dream.

My breath hitched.

Something…someone close by? My insides twist.

I’ve thought that before, conjured up whole scenarios that my therapist later told me wasn’t real. So I try to push the notion away but it won’t budge.

I throw my legs over the edge of the bed but I don’t get up. I’m contemplating whether it’s worth bringing it up again at my therapy session. Or if this is purely the product of my impending loneliness.

No, not loneliness. My pendingaloneness.

My roommate Jules is leaving for Costa Rica tonight on a months-long humanitarian trip with her boyfriend. I’ve tried to tell myself I’ll be fine on my own but I’ve never really done well with being on my own.

Hence the therapy.

My sleepwalking started the year my mom just upped and left when I was eleven.

One minute we were a happy family, the next Dad was broken and drinking away his pain and I…well we knew something was wrong when one night I woke up on the front lawn in nothing but my pajamas, clutching a stuffed rabbit I hadn’t touched in years.

After that, it became a pattern—whenever things got too quiet, too uncertain, my body would move without me.

Dr. Greene says it’s my mind’s way of searching for safety. Something familiar. Something I never really got back after Mom’s abandonment.

But…I can’t shake the feeling this is…last night was more.

I blinked, heart starting to race, but… not in panic I realise. Not even really in fear. A thought occurs and I reach for my phone, heart thumping.

And there it is. The ’sleep’ function turned to 10.43 p.m.

It’s not the first time it’s happened. The third, maybe? The fourth?

But it’s always the same—set for exactly 10:43 p.m. Not midnight. Not 6 a.m. And definitely not a time that means anything to me.

I disable it every time but it’s like…someone chose a time that wouldn’t wake me if I was already asleep…but remind me to rest if I was awake.

It’s creepy. It should be.

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