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Lie or tell the truth?
Deceive or be honest?
“Corrine!” he said in a near hiss. “Was this some fucked up game? Was there ever a stalker?”
“Yes!” I blurted. “Yes, there was a stalker.”
He seemed to visibly relax at my words until I continued on.
“I was the stalker. It was me. It’s always been me.” The confession burned my tongue.
D pushed away from the desk as if we were too close. All color drained from his face and his eyes closed, then opened, then closed again.
Let the confession begin. “When I started at Black Mountain Academy, I knew I had to have you in my life. It wasn’t just your appearance but the way you dominated a room when you entered. I watched you from afar, and I knew. I felt it deep down in my gut that you were the man for me. And yes, I know it sounds crazy, but I just knew.” I had to pause to suck in oxygen as I’d been holding my breath as I spoke. “I also knew that my old behavior I had worked so hard to break was coming back. The doors were my warning. I knew I was falling back into the obsessive and dark rabbit hole again, and you were the prey of my upcoming hunt. I knew this… but I couldn’t stop.”
“Jesus, Corrine, I need you to leave my office now.”
“Wait,” I shot out. “So, yes, it started out all the same as before, but something happened. You happened. I didn’t have to stalk you, because you were there for me. I didn’t have to watch your every move from afar because you remained by my side. You didn’t make me have to lie or manipulate you because you accepted me for me. You made me feel safe, protected, and cared for. All the dark shadows that were threatening to consume me like they were doing before were disappearing. The more I was with you, the more normal I felt.”
“No, this is not normal. This is fucked up.” He crossed his arms over his chest and his eyes narrowed. “You did lie. You did manipulate.”
“At first,” I agreed with a little nod, feeling the tears burn the back of my eyes. “But I swear to you, it all changed. My ‘game’ and my ‘plan’ changed when I realized I didn’t need them.”
He remained silent. Staring at me with disbelief written all over his face.
“I know how this looks,” I said. “I’m not crazy… well, not in a way that you have to be afraid of me or anything. Even if you ask the teacher in L.A., he would tell you that he didn’t press charges or anything. I didn’t harm him.” My voice lowered as I looked down at my hands. “My therapist told me that this was my way of coping with my lack of love and affection growing up. That I don’t believe that I have the ability to find love in a healthy way because I’ve never experienced it before.”
“I don’t give a fuck why or what some asshole doctor says. I care about what you did. And I don’t even know exactly what you did.” He paused, rubbed his jaw a few times and then asked, “So you had no stalker? Right?”
“Right. I never had one.”
“So, what about the doors? I saw them open with my own eyes.”
“That first night, I ran upstairs to close the doors, but painted WHORE on my wall while you were checking and closing the doors downstairs. I then sent a text to my handyman who had been doing some work on the house to come in set some mice traps. I asked him to open all the doors for me. He did so while we were at dinner.”
The confession made me sick to my stomach. Here I was trying to convince D… Mr. D… that I wasn’t crazy, but hearing the words made me sound pretty damn insane.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I knew the type of man you were. And that if you felt my life was in danger, you wouldn’t leave me. You would either stay with me—which is what I had originally thought would happen—or at the very least care about me. I would get on your radar more than just as a student.”
“And the police? Why call them all the times before if there was never a stalker?”
I shrugged. “Attention.” I swallowed back the shakiness in my throat. “When my mind began to spin, and I felt like the walls were closing in, I would call them to distract me.”
“And being late to school? Was your story about closing the doors obsessively made up as well?”
“That’s true,” I said. “I do it when I feel like I’m losing control. It’s my way to try to keep my inner demons away.” I licked my dry lips, wishing for a glass of water. “But it’s what made me start falling for you. Every time I would go into the office to get a note, I would see you. I would watch you. And I knew… we were soulmates.”
