No.
For the man who’d kissed me to oblivion in an elevator, then walked away from me like it had meant nothing at all.
I hadn’t felt him watching me.
And as sick and confusing as it was to admit, I found myself longing for that hair standing up on the back of my neck sensation, that said he was near, that he was watching.
What kind of woman hoped for a stalker?
A crazy one, that’s who.
With a sigh for my deteriorating mental health, I forced myself to turn back in the direction of my apartment building.
That strange sick to my stomach feeling just kept intensifying as I rode the elevator up to my floor, as I walked down the hallway, as I stopped to put my key in the lock, then pushed the door open.
Something felt weird.
Or, at least, that was what I thought as soon as I stepped inside.
Which was likely just, you know, my overactive imagination at play.
But something just felt off.
And there was a strange smell in the air that didn’t belong.
See, I didn’t get to control much in the apartment, but the cleaning products was one place where Eren deferred to me.
And I liked all my scents to match, so I made my own ones using basic supplies like vinegar and alcohol and specific essential oils that left the house with a crisp lemon and mandarin orange scent pretty much all the time.
But this was not that.
It wasn’t even the stinky man odor and stale beer scent that I could sometimes associate with Eren when he rolled in after being out all night.
It was almost, I don’t know, metallic.
Trying to shake the weird feeling, I hefted my bags back up and started to make my way toward the kitchen.
And that was where I found it.
No.
Not it.
Them.
Right there on the counter.
Eren’s hands.
Sliced off at the wrist.
“Oh, God,” I gasped, the bags falling from my hands and wrists in a crashing sound as I whipped around, and threw up right there on the floor. “Oh, God. Oh, my God,” I gasped after, my heartbeat hammering in my chest as my mind raced.
All that really stuck, though, was that I couldn’t be there. I couldn’t be in the same room as dismembered parts of a human body.
I flew out of my apartment and into the hall, going to the only door that I knew I might find a friendly face behind, and slamming my fists into it.
“Help. Please. Please, open the door, Judy. I need help,” I gasped as my body started to tremble.
“Oh, honey. Oh, finally,” Judy said as she wrenched the door open, catching me as I fell into her. “Oh, it’s okay. You’re safe. I won’t let him get you,” she said, one of her arms going around me, the other running over my hair like a mother might do.
“No. No… it’s… I need to call the police,” I gasped out between strange, frantic, strobe-like breaths.
“Okay. We can call the police. What happened? What did he do to you?”
“No. No… someone… they… on the counter,” I said, finding the words impossible to force from my tongue, so all I could do was motion.
“Okay. Alright. You stay here,” she said, untangling herself from me.
“No, you can’t,” I objected, trying to catch her as she scooted past me to go toward my apartment.
“I have to. I need to know what is going… oh,” she hissed as she went into my apartment.
I couldn’t go in.
I just… couldn’t.
I leaned against the wall in the hallway until my legs refused to hold me up anymore, leaving me sliding down the wall in stunned paralysis.
“Oh, my. Okay. Alright. You’re right. We need to call the police,” Judy said, voice seeming unusually calm to my ears as she moved into the hall again. “Come on, honey. We can wait in my apartment. Come on,” she tried, reaching down.
But I couldn’t find the strength or motivation to move.
“Okay. That’s fine. You can stay right there. I am just going to grab my cell phone, and I will sit right here with you,” she said, tone calm and reassuring as she disappeared for a moment, then came back out to sit down beside me.
I was vaguely aware of her speaking on her phone, but the sound seemed to be coming from far away, like she was at one end of a long tunnel, and I was at the other.
“It’s going to be okay, honey,” Judy said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders, giving me a reassuring squeeze as I sat there in a strange daze, unable to force any of my swirling thoughts to plant and take root. Their continuous momentum made me feel like I was spinning.
It felt like forever—and yet just a moment—for the police to emerge from the elevator, their footsteps unhurried, but purposeful as they approached.