The first note was still on the kitchen counter when the second one slid under my door.
The kettle clicked off, a small mechanical sigh in the tiny flat, and then there was the soft rasp of paper against wood. My spine went tight. For a second I just stood there, fingers wrapped around the chipped mug, watching the gap at the bottom of the door like something might ooze through after it.
Nothing did. Just silence and the low hum of the ancient fridge.
I set the mug down with more care than necessary and padded across the cheap vinyl flooring. The air smelled like burnt toast and the lavender detergent my landlady favored for the hallway, sharp and too clean. My bare feet picked up the chill from the floor.
The note was cream, thick, the kind of paper no one normal used anymore. No envelope. Just my name on the outside, written in the same precise hand as the first one.
Elle.
I swallowed. My fingers shook once, then steadied. I hated that the worst of it was how beautiful the handwriting was. Elegant, looping, not Nathan’s familiar scrawl. A stranger’s neatness.
I didn’t open it right away. Instead, my gaze drifted to the first note lying beside the breadboard, where I’d left it after promising myself I’d throw it away.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS.
Three words, black ink, no punctuation. No sender. The police officer at the station yesterday had read it, shrugged, and asked, “Could be an ex? Or a prank?” like that explained the man who’d lingered by the bus stop three nights in a row watching me board, or the dark SUV that had crept past my building twice.
“It’s probably nothing,” he’d said. “Keep the notes, sure. If anything else happens, give us a call.”
Anything else.
I crouched, bones creaking, and picked up the new note. The paper scratched my fingertips. My heart was too loud in my ears, like someone else’s pulse pressed against my skull.
The urge to tear it in half battled with the old instinct—document everything, keep records, have proof in case someday someone actually believes you.
I opened it.
SOON.
That was all.
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was trapping. Not a threat, not exactly. Not a name. Just a promise.
It shouldn’t have been enough to make me reach for my phone. I almost didn’t. I almost folded the note neatly, put it with the other one in the drawer with the takeout menus, and forced myself through another day of pretending the walls weren’t inching closer.
But the handwriting sat on my skin, ghosting, and the memory of the SUV’s darkened windows tugged at something old and panicked inside my chest. A version of me that had learned the cost of ignoring small, creeping changes.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I unlocked my phone and opened the text thread I hadn’t used in almost a year.
Emergency contact – Hale Security.
It wasn’t even a name, just a number Nathan’s mother had pressed into my hand at a charity gala once, saying, “Logan runs his own firm now, dear. Just in case you ever need… help.”
I should have deleted it when I left. Like I deleted his photos. Like I tried to delete myself.
