Eyes of a Stalker (12 page)

“To be perfectly honest,” I said, “I've been wanting to break up for a while. This just gave me the excuse I needed.”

He said nothing for a moment. He just kept staring at me with a look on his face like he was trying to figure out if he'd imagined the whole conversation. When he did speak again, all he said was, “You mean that?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”

He shrugged, as if to say, “what can you do?” and then he walked out of the room.

And that was it. We were through.

Islept very little that night. Once, around three in the morning, with Ernie snuggled in and purring beside me, it struck me that at least fear wasn't the main thing I was feeling anymore.

On the other hand, I can't say that I recommend heartbreak as a terrific substitute. I told myself over and over that I had no choice, but it didn't help.

It's Greg's fault, I told myself once, as the tears swelled and spilled over. If I'd thought I could have persuaded him to
pretend
we'd broken up, I would have, but I knew there was no way he would go along with that. Greg isn't the type to back down from anything — least of all some kind of threat.

The only way I could hope to convince the stalker that I'd broken up with Greg was if I'd actually done it.

The worst thing about it was knowing I'd hurt Greg. It had actually stunned me to see how quickly he'd believed that I'd been wanting to end things anyway. Nothing in the world could be further from the truth and it was a shock that he hadn't known that.

I told myself over and over that when the stalker had been caught and everything was back to normal, I could go to Greg and tell him the truth. Surely there'd be a good chance that we'd get back together. But part of me knew it wouldn't be that easy. Greg can be stubborn sometimes, and finding out that I'd felt I had to protect him was going to hurt his pride. Besides, whatever he was feeling right now was real, and I wasn't sure he'd be that eager to forgive me for putting him through it.

I'd gone around everything a hundred times by morning but I can't say I felt any better. I was exhausted and my head ached as I crawled out of bed and headed for the shower. The temptation to stay home was strong, but I couldn't. I needed to get to school and get the word out. Until the stalker heard — and
believed
— that I'd broken up with him, Greg wasn't safe.

I'm sure my folks noticed that something was wrong, but they didn't ask me anything. No doubt they just thought I was worried and worn down from the whole business. They had no reason to think there was a problem with Greg.

Dad drove me to school and waited until I joined Betts before driving away. She was exactly the person I needed just then!

“Hey, Shelby.” Her usual morning greeting.

“Hey,” I made sure my voice dragged despondently. That got her attention, just as I'd known it would.

“Is something wrong?”

“Uh, yeah, you could say that.” Don't be too anxious, I told myself. Make her drag it out of you or she'll be suspicious. Betts is pretty sharp when it comes to stuff like this.

“Is it the stalker thing?” Her voice was full of sympathy.

“Well, that's part of it, yeah.”

“What else?”

“I don't really feel much like talking about it,” I said. The idea that I was holding out on her would only make Betts determined to dig it out of me.

I let her cajole and prod for a few more minutes while we made our way to our lockers. Then, with my voice trembling, I told her that Greg and I had broken up.

“I don't believe it!” she said. I thought I'd blown it, but then I realized she hadn't meant what she'd said literally. “I thought you guys were solid, like you were
never
going to break up,” she said, shaking her head. “What happened?”

I told her I wasn't up to talking about it. She asked who'd done the breaking up — the question girls
always
ask when a couple splits — and I said I had.

“To be, like, brutally honest with you, Shelby, you don't look all that happy about it,” she said.

“Well, I'm not, but I know it was the right decision.” At least that was one hundred percent true.

“Is this about what happened to Greg yesterday?”

“No.”

She looked sceptical. I knew I had to convince her so I basically repeated what I'd told Greg. Only, it was probably easier for Betts to believe all of that, because she could relate it to the way her own relationships often end.

“You think you guys will get back together?” she asked when I was finished.

“I doubt it.”

“But you've been together for such a long time!” she protested.

“All the more reason,” I said, hardly believing I could make myself say these things. “I'd like to see what it's like to go out with other guys.”

Betts nodded, although kind of sadly, still letting it all sink in. Then she asked the magic question.

“Is this, like, a secret or anything?”

“A secret?” I tried to look puzzled. “No. Why would it be?”

“I dunno,” she said, “I just thought you might want to keep it quiet or something.”

“Nope.” I shrugged indifferently to prove it. “I don't care who you tell.”

As we each headed off in different directions toward our first classes, I had a pang of anger toward Betts. I knew it was totally unjustified, but it was there anyway. I'd
wanted
her to spread the story about the break-up, and yet there I was, resenting her for it. Maybe if she didn't get so excited about gossip I'd have felt differently.

I told myself that it didn't matter whether she enjoyed it or not, the main thing was that I could count on her to get the word out.

News like that travels quickly, and when the first class ended and we all headed off to our second classes I was already being asked about it.

“Shelby! It's not true about you and Greg splitting up, is it?”

“Yes, it's true.” Keep walking, I told myself. Don't start bawling. Act like this is what you want! Somewhere in these halls the stalker is watching.

By noon I could hardly eat my lunch in peace — not that I had much of an appetite anyway. Mostly it was girls, but a couple of guys even asked me if it was true I'd dumped Greg.

Dumped
? I thought. What a horrible way to put it. But I told them, yeah, I'd dumped him. I even tried to smile.

A few people had unbelievably stupid questions and I amazed myself by not losing it when I answered them. For example, Rhonda O'Neill wanted to know if I'd “caught Greg kissing another girl or anything.”

“No, nothing like that,” I managed. The idea that she'd even
ask
such a trashy question about someone like Greg infuriated me. Just as insulting, except this time toward me, was Deanna Cline's question.

“Hey, I bet you broke up with Greg because of his hair, right?”

It took me a couple of seconds to realize that she was talking about the shaved places on his head. But even after I understood what she meant, it was still hard to believe anyone would even
think
that.

“Of course not,” I snapped, unable to help myself. “What kind of low-life would break up with someone because of something like that?”

“You don't have to call me names,” she answered. The unintended admission might have made me laugh if it wasn't so pathetic.

Jimmy Roth wandered by and said, “Like the old saying goes, one man's gain is another man's loss.”

“Don't you have that backward?” Betts asked.

“Nope,” he said. But he laughed and winked to show he was only teasing. I managed a feeble smile back just in case the stalker was watching.

And Eric Green came over. He didn't say anything
about the break-up, but he looked around and said, “It sure is crowded in here today. I guess I'll just sit with you guys.”

Betts took a big bite of her sandwich and chewed vigorously. I could see she was thinking the same thing I was. It was no more crowded than any other day and Eric had never parked himself at our table before.

Thinking about Betts's theory that he liked me, I spent the next twenty minutes in agony. I was scared he was going to ask me out, but he never said another word. He just ate his lunch, staring straight ahead with his face kind of embarrassed looking.

One thing was clear: word was getting around just as fast as I'd hoped. With any luck, the stalker would have heard about the break-up before the end of the day. And even if he had doubts about it, surely he'd wait to see if it was true before he tried to do anything else to hurt Greg.

I thought I could stand anything but that.

The next few days were pure misery, and the worst part was how I had to put on a happy front — not just at school, but at home, too. I hadn't told my parents about breaking up with Greg because I really didn't know what they'd think about it.

I'd been expecting one of them to ask me about whether the stalker had done anything at the Taylor house the night he'd called from there — the same night I told Greg we were through. I didn't know what I was going to say, but luckily, it was Mom who mentioned it, and it turned out she'd called Dr. Taylor.

“I was speaking with Malcolm earlier,” she said casually as we set the table. “Wasn't it fortunate that nothing was damaged or stolen — that they know of, anyway.”

Relief flooded over me. “Yeah, that was great,” I said. I wondered why she didn't realize how “off” I sounded.

“Well, I'm sure we'll all feel safer with new security systems installed in both homes,” she added. Of course, she assumed Greg would have told me that the Taylors were getting that done themselves.

I spent as much time as possible doing homework, and for once I was actually ahead in getting assignments done. No one questioned it, or seemed to notice that anything was wrong.

Even so, it was only a few days until Mom commented that it was odd Greg hadn't called lately.

I was drying the dishes at the time and she really caught me off guard bringing it up out of the blue. I couldn't think of anything to say so I just concentrated on the bunch of silverware I was holding with the tea towel.

“Shelby?” Mom's tone told me she'd finally noticed.

“Huh?”

“Is there anything wrong between you and Greg?”

“We broke up,” I said. “But I don't want to talk about it.”

That was Mom's cue to ask me a couple of dozen questions, starting with “who” and “why,” and ending with “haven't I raised you to be able to talk to me about anything.”

I dug in and just kept saying I really didn't feel like discussing it. In the end, all the misery and anger and helplessness built up and burst.

“Why can't you just stop?” I yelled. “I said I don't want to talk about it and I meant
I don't want to talk about it
. I want to be left alone!”

I threw down the cloth and ran from the kitchen to my room, where I slammed the door and flung myself across the bed, sobbing. I was sure Mom would follow me, knock on the door, and ask if she could come in, and I knew that if she did I was going to lose it completely. But she didn't.

I cried until I was so exhausted I could barely move. I wished I could just crawl into bed and sleep for days — weeks, if necessary — and wake up to find this whole mess over with and the stalker caught.

What if it takes them months to find him? I thought. What if they don't find him at all? The last day had been the longest of my life and I didn't know how I was going to get through the rest of the week.

Eventually I forced myself to get up and pull out my homework. It seemed to take forever to do it, even though it was really only a couple of hours. Then I went looking for Mom. I found her in the TV room with Dad, but the set wasn't on. It looked as though they'd been talking, but had stopped when they'd heard me coming.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “For yelling at you.”

“Oh, no, honey.
I'm
the one who should apologize,” Mom said. “It was disrespectful of me to keep pushing when you said you didn't want to talk.”

“Yeah, but you can't help yourself,” I said. I even managed a little smile.

“It's hard for your mother and me to see you going through all this business,” Dad said. “It's hard not to be able to do anything about it. And now, to find out you and Greg are broken up and you're carrying that around, too.” He shook his head.

“I didn't want to break up with Greg,” I said. “I
had
to do it.” Then the whole thing just burst out of me.

“But you can't tell his dad or
anyone
,” I said.

They said they wouldn't unless there was some compelling reason that they had to.

After that I hunted around until I found Ernie. He'd come scratching at my door earlier, but I'd been too upset to go and let him in. I felt guilty about it because I knew he'd heard or sensed that I was upset and had wanted to comfort me, the way he always does if something is bothering me.

I found him curled up behind a big planter in the dining room, but he must have been insulted by the earlier rejection because he yawned and acted disinterested in coming to me when I coaxed him.

“Fine,” I said, and I walked away. Still, when I went back to my room to get ready for bed, I left the door open just the tiniest amount. I was climbing into bed when he gave in and came along, pushing the door open a few inches with his head and shoving himself through.

He walked indifferently across the room and sat by the closet door washing his shoulder for a few minutes, just to let me know he hadn't come in on account of me asking him to. Then, when he figured I'd learned my lesson, he yawned and made his way lazily to the bed. He jumped up and walked over without looking at me once.