Page 5 of York

There were options, of course. But the thing was, I was careful. I didn’t indulge in casual sex often, and when I did, I was strict about protection. I wouldn’t even change into certain positions because I knew there were some shitty guys out there who practiced ‘stealthing’ and removed the condom mid-act without you knowing. I even made sure I watched to be certain they’d put the damn thing on right. Then I lived with a false sort of safety because I assumed the things were practically bulletproof.

So if I was that careful about it and still wound up pregnant, I figured that was some sort of sign from the universe. That maybe it was time to stop dicking around, find some job I didn’t loathe with every fiber of my being, get a decent place to rest my head, and raise my baby.

I did look for York right after I found out. I went all the way back to that sleepy town in New York, haunted every dive bar, pub, restaurant, coffee shop, gym, and strip club I could find.

But there was no sign of him.

Not quite willing to settle down in that snow-covered town in the middle of nowhere, I’d opted to move to Philadelphia, where I thought I might have a lot more social safety nets that would allow me to work and raise a child without a partner.

I hadn’t been wrong either.

But, well, it wasn’t long after my daughter was born that some bad shit started to happen. Break-ins, creepy men hanging around, the feeling of being watched all the time.

It was enough to make me pack everything I could stuff in my car, leave a stable job behind—and a sweet older neighbor lady who was always over-the-moon to babysit—and head to a suburb.

Those were the perfect places to raise kids, right? Good schools. Well-lit parks. Clean, well-stocked libraries.

By the time the baby somehow turned three—despite me swearing just months had elapsed since she was born—I started to have that feeling. The hairs on the back of my neck standing up. The shadows in the corner of my vision. Strange cars that I never seemed to shake. A door unlocked that I swore I’d locked. A window open I’d have sworn I’d closed.

Little things.

Little enough things that I started to doubt my sanity.

Because being broken into or followed once in your life made a twisted kind of sense. Especially if you were a young, relatively attractive, single woman. It sucked, but that was the reality for a lot of women.

Twice, though? In two very different areas? It just felt a whole lot less likely.

So I’d taken myself to therapy, pouring out my fears and concerns.

Thankfully, I hadn’t had a dismissive shrink who just wanted to toss medication at me and tell me it was all in my head.

She’d confessed to having a friend in college who’d been relentlessly stalked by someone on campus, but because she had no proof of ill intent, no one would take it seriously. Until one night, he got in, assaulted her, and strangled her to death.

She said she would never tell me to brush it off as paranoia until I had exhausted the possibility that someone actually was following me.

So she’d suggested I get a security system at my little rental house, that I get a dash cam in my car, that I try to catch faces to see if any repeated.

For a few weeks, I thought maybe it was time for medication.

Then, reviewing footage, I saw them.

The same three faces, time after time, just in a rotation, never the same person two times in a row.

It had been the same shrink to help me escape, unseen. She’d let me sign over my car to her, then bought one cheap, paid in cash, and gave it to me. Then, when I’d been out driving around with my usual tail, she’d gone into my house, packed up everything she could, met me after I shook the tail, unloaded the bags and boxes into my new car, gave me a burner phone with only her number programmed, and begged me to stay in touch.

I didn’t realize she’d left an envelope full of cash until I landed at a motel that rented out by the month, to give me a place to plan my next move. It’d been enough to get me another apartment.

But I barely got six months that time before I spotted some familiar faces.

I’d tried the cops. Showed them all the footage I had, begged them to do something. But got nowhere.

So I moved.

And moved.

And moved.

Any sort of stability I’d wanted for my daughter flew out the window when I was just trying to keep us safe.