Page 116 of Stalkers Anonymous

Which makes everything feel worse. It would be easier if he were a monster who had never cared about me at all. Instead, he’s probably someone who cared a lot and expressed it in ways that confused us both.

I’m about to head to bed when there’s a soft knock on my door. It’s too late for a delivery, and no one buzzed my unit. Before the prickle of unease at the back of my neck can bloom into full-on anxiety, someone on the other side of the door starts to speak.

“Hailey, it’s Tyler—Cole’s friend. Please don’t open the door. I have a letter here from Cole that I’d like to leave for you. He wasn’t going to send it, but our therapist in the group convinced him to let me bring it by. She thinks it could be useful for him, though you’re obviously under no obligation whatsoever to read it, or even to let me leave it here.”

I’ve wandered closer to the door, though I have no plans to open it. I check in with my gut, like Dr. Martinez has been encouraging me to do.

I’m not feeling fear in this moment. Just curiosity.

“So,” Tyler says, his voice as steady as it has been this whole time. “Do I have your permission to leave this outside your door?”

I think about it. And I mean, really think about it.

Cole agreed to write something, at his therapist’s suggestion, as part of whatever work he’s doing. He didn’t come to my apartment himself. He’s still respecting my boundaries, even if this is more of a push than he’s given so far.

“You can leave it,” I say. “And then I want you to go.”

“Of course,” Tyler says. “I’m going now.”

Through the peephole, I watch him board the elevator. The second the doors close, I unlock and open my door.

There’s a single envelope on the floor, addressed to me. I recognize the handwriting immediately.

My hands start shaking as I pick it up.

My first instinct is to throw it away unopened. To take it straight to the dumpster and pretend I never saw it. That’s what Rachel would tell me to do.

But I can’t make myself do it.

Instead, I brew a cup of chamomile tea and sit at my kitchen table with the letter. After a few minutes, I decide fuck it and open it carefully, like the paper is delicate.

But it’s not the paper that’s delicate. It’s me.

Hailey,

You asked me for space several weeks ago. I’ve given it to you. I will keep giving it to you for as long as you need it, and if forever is what you need, then forever is what you get.

I ran the plate the night he keyed your car. I ran the plate, and I kept running. I built a file on him that I had no business building. I put eyes on his apartment. I set up a tracker on his phone. I followed him more nights than I can count.

The part I keep coming back to in therapy isn’t any of that. It’s that none of it felt that wrong while I was doing it. Every step felt reasonable to me in the moment. That’s the part that scares me now. That’s the part I’m trying to understand.

I told myself a lot of stories about what I was doing and why. Some of them were true. It is true that I was scared for you. It is true that I wanted you safe. It is also true that those feelings are not a pass for what I did with them. I confused caring about you with getting to decide things for you. They aren’t the same and I can see that now and I am going to spend however long it takes to make sure I don’t confuse them again.

You deserved to be trusted with your own safety. You deserved to make your own decisions about how to handle a man who was scaring you. I took those decisions away from you and thought I was giving you something. I wasn’t. I was taking.

I miss you. I’m not going to pretend I don’t. I miss the sound of your laugh and the look on your face when you’re annoyed at me and the way Chewy watches us. I miss all of it.

I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m not asking you for a second chance. You don’t owe me either of those, and I’m not going to spend the rest of my life standing at your door asking for things I haven’t earned.

I’m sorry for lying to you.

I’m sorry for making you doubt your own instincts.

I’m sorry for taking your choices away from you in the name of keeping you safe.

I’m sorry for all of it.

Cole