Chapter 33 Now

Hours later, I'm still wandering the streets, unable to think straight.

I can still feel his hands on me. Feel him inside me. I picture myself gasping with exertion, with raw need and pleasure, and yet… and yet when I close my eyes, I see her. His wife. And then his child. The photos. The freaking robe.

A shiver snakes up my spine. It's too cold to be outside without a jacket. Behind me, there are footsteps—a figure moving closer. Maybe Gabriel has come looking for me?

Or maybe there's another random person wandering the streets in the middle of the night.

I don't want to deal with either, so I bolt back the way I came. Left instead of right. Right instead of left. And suddenly, I'm in front of the storage unit once again.

No Verizon store. There was no Verizon store. He smiled like he knew that already.

I stop, lean against a building, catch my breath once again. Maybe the Verizon store closed. Maybe it had been there, but now it's gone, and he didn't realize.

Or… he knows I was looking for him, wandering about near his apartment.

The thought seizes my insides. What would that even mean? I chew my nail, and my guts twist—God, the sex was exactly what I needed. Rough and punishing. It let me relax. It's addictive. I can understand Rebecca's desire for her boyfriend to do it that way. Especially if that's what she's used to. I mean, how could you go back to normal after that?

Maybe I was too quick to leave. I just got so freaked-out, surrounded by the remnants of his life from before. The life I destroyed. God, I'll have to say something to him after all this. No sane woman just runs into the night after having sex with a man. The doctor-patient thing is obviously still a huge problem. Maybe I can spin it that way. Will he see through it?

Wait—does he see me right now?

I look left, then right. The street is empty, so I close my eyes. A long exhale brings me back to myself. To the moment. To the cold New York street, the concrete building pressing into my back. I need to go home. Need to shut my door, lock it, and pretend this never happened. I'm an awful, awful person. Tracking the man whose family you destroyed. Then letting all this happen…

But as soon as I push from the wall to go, I look back up at the storage unit and let myself wonder what he might have hidden in there. What would cause him to go back day after day and spend not five minutes or ten minutes, but thirty minutes, an hour, in its depths?

Once I would have said it was his family's belongings. Maybe he holds his wife's favorite sweater up to his face the way I have yours, inhaling that lingering scent, fearful that one day it will dissipate into nothingness, and she'll be gone the way you're gone. That last trace, vanished.

But I can't think that anymore. Gabriel's apartment is still filled with his wife's things.

I stare at the brick storage unit once again.

I need to know.

Need. Not want.

I don't even understand why I need to know. Not even the good Dr. Alexander could tell me that. But it's a craving that comes from deep within my soul. And there's no stopping me from feeding it this time.

Across the street, a man is walking down the block. He holds two boxes in his hands, one on top of the other. He slows as he approaches the storage center, sets the boxes down in front of the door. My eyes widen. He's going in… Before I know it, before I have a chance to think things through, I'm jogging across the street, and I reach for the door the man just opened with a key card.

"Let me get that for you," I say. He turns and I offer a friendly smile. "My unit's just down the hall."

If I were a man, the guy probably would've thought twice. But I'm no threat to him. At least, that's what he thinks. Luckily, I don't look as unhinged as I feel.

"Thanks a lot." He picks up his boxes and steps inside, walks to the right a few paces, and disappears into a waiting elevator.

All the while, I'm holding my breath, and my heart feels like it's about to burst at any moment. Once he's gone, I blow out a shaky breath and tread to the right, the same direction I've watched Gabriel go many times before.

I count the units as I walk. Finally I'm making good use of the random notes I jotted down all those months ago. At the time, they were nothing more than scattered thoughts—scribbles from a woman on the verge of a breakdown.

Cigarettes.

Small coffee.

Corn muffin.

Twelve.

The last item being the window count from the storage unit entrance, the window where I watched a light flicker on every time he entered.

I arrive at the unit and stand in front of it. It looks no different from the other garage-type doors surrounding me. It's painted blue, and a round lock hangs from its latch.

I stare at it a long moment, replaying a conversation we had not too long ago. We were talking about the letter I'd had him write to his wife. "Maybe I'll be less angry every time I punch in my PIN from now on," he'd said. "Everything is her birthday—from my ATM code to door codes." And I couldn't forget that he'd said her birthday was Valentine's Day.

I swallow guilt as I reach for the lock and break another rule. Yet again. What's one more?

When it comes to Gabriel, it seems, the rules don't apply. Or rather, I don't mind breaking them. It might almost be worth suffering the consequences, because I just… I just need to know.

I turn the lock until the numbers line up—0214. There's a satisfying click. And suddenly, the lock is off the latch, heavy in my hand. And everything he's hidden is now available to me.

Mostly, it's boxes. The big, moving-company sort, preprinted checklists on the side so you can take a Sharpie and mark which room the box goes in. None of these is marked, though, like they were packed in a hurry and shoved in here. They're haphazardly placed, too, and the nearest one looks like the slightest breeze might dislodge it and send it toppling over.

It's not what I expected.

What in the world would a grown man do in a storage unit full of boxes?

I unwind my scarf. It's climate controlled. Not warm, but not cool like outside.

Maybe there's something in the boxes. For a moment, I consider closing the rolling door behind me—it's a little weird to be sorting through someone else's things so publicly, especially when, well, I'm breaking the law. What if someone comes in and knows who the unit belongs to? But one glance down the shadowy hall tells me it'll be a hell of a lot creepier to close the door and be trapped in here.

I run my fingers over the nearest box, then stand on tiptoe to pry open the lid, to see what's inside. A flash of pink, purple—I release the box and step backward, the contents a jolt. Toys. Little girls' toys, a jumbled mess within. A Barbie, a stuffed bear, what looks like an undressed American Girl doll, and… I exhale. Seeing his daughter's toys isn't what I expected. It makes it all very real. Very terrible.

My hands shake as I take another step back, second-guessing myself. Maybe I don't want to know. Maybe he comes in here to be around her belongings, belongings he couldn't bear to see in his house every day.

But what does he do, just stand here?

I swallow emotion, confusion, and force myself forward toward another box. Something small and square-ish gleams on the top of it, a set of keys or a keychain, maybe. But when I get close enough to make out the details, I recognize it.

The air in my lungs leaves in a single whoosh.

I struggle to breathe, to move.

I recognize it because it belonged to you. Your jersey. Your number 17. The specialty keychain I had made for you after you won the championship. I gave it to you the night we decided to start a family. And when you died, I took to carrying it around, carrying a piece of you around, a reminder…

Until one day it disappeared. The day I came out of the alley and crashed into Gabriel. I assumed I'd dropped it.

Apparently I had.

And Gabriel picked it up.

Meaning… I try to temper the rising panic threatening to choke me. Gabriel knows who I am.

He's known all along.

I drop the keychain back down and grab for the nearest stack of boxes, holding on for dear life.

No. It can't be.

The blood drains from my face, my body, right into my swirling stomach.

But it is. It absolutely is. This is the keychain I had made for you, a one-of-a-kind gift I commissioned from an artist. It even has the small mistake—some of the red paint bleeding into the blue. The maker was going to sell them, but they never made it to production because of the accident. And it's in Gabriel's storage unit.

I reach for it again, press the familiar smoothness into my palm. It practically burns a hole into it. A part of me is glad to have this—this piece of you from before everything went bad.

But most of me is confused. Terrified. My thoughts won't move, won't work, like my brain is frozen. Fight or flight or… frozen. I try to breathe. Try to get my body in motion again.

He—he has had this keychain all along? I picture him exiting the storage unit less than an hour ago, catching sight of me. Suggesting a nonexistent Verizon store. Playing me. I swallow, look down at the number. It's clear as day it had to be yours. The same team, the same number. Which has to mean he knows who I am. He knows I'm your widow. But why would he want to know the widow of the man who killed his wife and child?

The answer comes to me fast.

This whole time, I've felt as though I'm the one stalking him.

But maybe he's been the one stalking me?

The cloying sensation I recognize as a looming panic attack threatens to drop me to my knees, and suddenly, I have to get out—out, out, out. And I don't want this. I toss the keychain, and it clanks on the cement floor. Somehow I make it out of the storage unit. But the second I exit the door to the sidewalk, the echo of footsteps fills my ears.

I don't see him pounding down the sidewalk, don't see anyone, and it's entirely possible the footsteps are my imagination. Or someone turning down a nearby walkway or alley. But I don't care. I have to get away.

By the time I'm at my apartment, my breaths come in heavy pants. I've been walking regularly, but not running. Not sprinting. I haven't had reason to. I've always disliked running, often using the old line, "I only run if someone's chasing me."

And tonight, literally or figuratively, someone is chasing me.

Gabriel.

I force myself to sit down on the living room couch, to flick on the reading lamp, to try to think rationally. But my lungs squeeze tight, and my mind races with the ramifications. This changes everything. I flash back to those early days, following him from a distance. Watching him duck in and out of the storage unit, then head to campus. Grab lunch with all the different women.

How long has it been since I dropped the keychain?

And why didn't he confront me? Months and months have passed.

The night Gabriel walked in on my date with Robert. When he just happened to show up in my office, acting as though he didn't know me. I thought it was coincidence after coincidence. But it wasn't.

And the following—how many times have I thought someone was following me? Oh God, my apartment break-in. The book on stalking! The Hello Kitty!

Frantic, I pick up my cell. My hand trembles as I swipe to my contacts and move to my bedroom. My apartment is suddenly very large. Very empty. More than anything, I need a familiar voice. Irina? Can I call her after all this time? We were good friends at one point. I need someone I can trust to share this secret with. Someone I can go to, who will let me sleep in their spare bedroom. Because I can't stay here. Not tonight. Not alone. Irina will have to do.

I scroll down to her name and press call, while simultaneously grabbing the first gym bag I come across and start throwing necessities in—underwear, a change of clothes, shoes. The phone rings and rings before eventually rolling to voicemail.

"Damn it," I mutter. I throw the phone on the bed.

He knows where I live. He knows where I work. He's followed me repeatedly.

I'm not stalking him.

He's stalking me.

And I have no damn clue what his endgame is—mine was originally to help him. Well, maybe not at first. At first I was curious. How was he smiling? Laughing? But I knew it was a facade. He had to be in pain. And I needed to see it. I needed to feel his pain, deserved to suffer with him. And I had, during our sessions. But then I thought I could help. Repent, maybe. Find a way to help him deal with his grief. But maybe he already had one—seeking revenge. On me.

No, no, no. If he wanted to hurt me, he'd have done that by now, right?

I stand perfectly still, a pair of pants in my hand, gaze unfocused, trying to understand. It's true, isn't it? If his goal was to hurt me—to make me suffer—he could have done that by now. He's had plenty of opportunity. He could have physically harmed me, or gotten my license taken away again. But he didn't.

Which makes me question what his plan is, if not to hurt me. What he wants from me.

I swallow. Zip up the bag. Snatch my phone and speed-dial Sarah.

Her voice is groggy, but I don't stop to consider the time. I just start barking into the phone. "Hello? Sarah? Cancel all future appointments with Mr. Wright. No. No, I don't want to discuss it. I don't care what you tell him. Just cancel them."

I disconnect and check the peephole at the front door.

No Gabriel.

I ease the door open, hurry down the hall, and burst out of the building. I don't know where I'm headed, but it will be somewhere he can't find me.