far wall, glimmers over the glass of several photographs displayed.
Recognition of those photos hits me immediately as I step foot into the room.
Walking up to the first, I touch the glass with my fingertips, my thoughts going back to when these were sold.
Over a year before I married Grant. Over a year before Ari appeared in front of me in a cemetery where I mourned my father.
Over a year...
I turn to look at him, and he continues staring straight ahead. He’s refusing to gauge my reaction, just allowing me to explore the space that I now understand is a story that goes much deeper than I know.
I move to the next photo, and the next. Turn to see the newest ones all piled up against another wall.
Standing in the center of the room, I turn slowly to see a cello in one corner, a guitar in another. My eyes drift to the bookshelf and I step closer to realize every book is one I’ve read.
All parts of my life. Pieces of me. This room is filled with everything that I am.
Fear douses me as realization comes flooding in. This man knew me before I ever knew him. He intentionally sought me out while pretending it was the first time he laid eyes on me.
“How long?” I ask, my voice shredding the chilling silence between us. I spin to face him. “How long have you been watching me?”
All he does is lift his hand to hit a button on a remote I didn’t see he was holding. The Noose by A Perfect Circle begins playing.
It’s my favorite song.
We stand several feet apart, both of us unmoving, my stare locked to his face while he refuses to look back at me.
And as the music pours through the verses on a crescendo of sound, the anger inside me builds with it, my feet storming across the floor as I march toward him to slam my palms against his chest.
“How fucking long?” I yell.
He doesn’t move, his body a cement wall beneath my hands, but those eyes swing to mine, so clear against the sunlight that bathes the room.
“You’ve met me before,” he answers with no emotion in his voice. “Think back.”
I hit him again, my hands slapping his chest as I lose control. “I have no idea who the fuck you are! How fucking long, Ari? Tell me!”
No reaction except for a slow blink of his eyes, thick dark lashes fanning against his skin before he lifts them. His voice is soft when he speaks again, haunting against the music that continues to play.
“Your car was towed downtown one day, and you almost got yourself killed when you stepped in front of a bike messenger. I was so angry with you. At first, at least. You never pay attention to what’s going on around you.”
The memory comes back to me in a flash, so sudden that I step back to look at him. His face makes sense in that moment, where I’d seen him before. It wasn’t from the cemetery, it was from a rainy sidewalk where I’d admitted to a stranger that I was getting engaged.
Oh, my God...
“Was that the first time you saw me?”
The tick of his jaw is my answer.
His head drops and he stares at his feet. “On your eighteenth birthday, you went to a club with your boyfriend. You got into a fight and then you drank too much. A man attacked you...”
My blood runs cold as he recounts the incident.
Eighteen.
So many years ago.
Backing away from him, I shake my head, refuse to listen as he admits how he drove me home that night, tucked me into bed. How we almost fucked in his car if I hadn’t gotten sick.
My hands are shaking, my heart pounding in my throat, and I continue stepping back as if the distance can save me from a man who has been stalking me for years.
A man who has me trapped.
A man who knows everything about me.
Every night you scream and fight and cry. It’s been like that for years...
What he said makes sense now. And terrifies me to the bone.
Stumbling on unbalanced feet, I can’t take my eyes off him. Not now that I’ve seen him in the light of truth. How long has he been planning this? What can I do now that he has me?
“I’m leaving,” I say, not knowing how I’ll accomplish it.
Ari’s eyes snap to me, anger rolling behind them, his jaw so tight it hurts me to