STALKER'S POV.
She laughed today.
Not for me, obviously. Never for me. She laughed for someone else while walking under the same sun that has burned through my patience for years. The sound wasn't loud but it sliced through my skull like a blade dipped in honey. Sweet, painful, addictive. Her smile always feels like something she stole from me, something she shouldn't hand out so freely. Especially not to him.
People say jealousy is green. I think it's black. Thick. Slow. Poisonous. Like the ink I drag across the paper whenever the ache becomes too loud. Like the roses I leave behind to remind her that peace is not something she owns anymore. That peace died the moment she stepped into my shadow.
She doesn't know she was the reason I came here. This city, this college, this crowded place stuffed with idiots pretending to be important. I hate this place. But I came anyway. Because she did. Just like I came to that school years ago when she switched mid-term, unaware she'd dragged me with her across districts like some cosmic punishment. I was there from she was what just 12 always protecting. Watching. Stalking. Still remembering the things she moved on from.
She never asked me to follow, but I never asked for permission either. Things like us… we don't need invitations.
I saw her today across the courtyard, sitting with that boy. His hand brushed her notebook. Her hair fell forward. Her eyes sparkled like storm-glass under sunlight and he smiled like he had the right to witness that. The right to breathe the same air she exhales. The right to exist near her.
I almost walked over. Almost showed him what happens to thieves. Almost reminded her what belongs to whom.
But I didn't.
Because patience.
Because I've played this game longer than either of them has been aware they're pieces on a board I built.
Still, it was… irritating.
The way she leaned in.
The way she looked comfortable.
The way she didn't flinch when he touched the edge of her sleeve.
She's getting reckless. Letting strangers into her orbit like she hasn't been circling the jaws of wolves since childhood. Like she hasn't been mine longer than she's been anyone's "friend."
She doesn't know how carefully I've carved her life around my presence. Not seen, not felt, but threaded through moments in ways that would terrify her if she ever realized. I know her schedules, her footsteps, her cravings, the rhythm of her breathing when she's lying to someone. I know exactly how long her showers last when she's stressed. I know which pen she chews when she's irritated. I know the precise second she started slipping into darkness, tracking monsters for the sake of her stories, unaware she was already one of them.
Sometimes I wonder if she started stalking killers because she felt someone behind her all along. Some quiet pulse, some breath, some gaze pressed between her shoulder blades. Me.
Maybe that's why she turned out this way.
Maybe she was born for me.
Maybe I built her.
She walked past me later in the hallway. Close. Too close. Her perfume hit me like a memory I shouldn't still taste. Dark chocolate and cold nights and old sins. The scent that clung to her scarf the first time I touched it without her knowing. The scent I used to fall asleep to when I replayed her school-days laughter in my head like a prayer no one should ever whisper.
She didn't see me.
She never sees me unless I want her to.
But today she looked… troubled.
Not scared.
Not anxious.
Troubled.
Like something inside her was trying to remember me.
Like her bones were whispering secrets she had forgotten.
Like some part of her soul recognized the shape of mine.
One of the boys noticed her expression. He moved closer, concern blooming across his face. My fists curled before my mind did. He doesn't get to worry. He doesn't get to be the one she looks at when she's unsteady.
She belongs in the dark.
With me.
Where she has always been.
When she smiles at others, something inside me peels back like old paint. Ugly. Feral. Hungry. And today it became worse. Because that boy… he looked at her like he knows things. Like he feels something familiar in her. Like he carries secrets in his heartbeat too.
There's something wrong with him.
A wrongness I can smell before I can describe.
A wrongness that echoes mine.
It makes me uneasy.
Makes me angry.
Makes me want to tear the world open just to get her attention back.
But she will look at me. Eventually. She always does. A woman can only ignore the one who bleeds for her for so long.
And when she finally finds the letters I've been leaving…
When she notices the roses blooming in the corners of her routine…
When she realizes her safety is a story she tells herself…
She'll understand.
She'll remember the shadows she used to feel behind her textbooks in school. The footsteps timed with hers. The warm breath on cold nights when she thought she was imagining things. The way her curtains moved when there was no wind. The missing pens. The replaced bulbs. The way her hairpins disappeared whenever she left them on the windowsill.
Little things.
Little reminders.
Little proofs that she has never been alone.
Not once.
Not ever.
She'll come back to me.
Not because she has a choice.
But because this bond was carved in bone long before either of us pretended to be normal.
The world can try to stand between us.
These boys can orbit her like stars trying too hard to glow.
She can cling to her little friendships and pretend she's grounded.
But she knows darkness.
She breathes it like air.
She was shaped for it.
And I am darkness.
If someone tries to take her from me…
I'll cut the world open.
Piece by piece.
Name by name.
Body by body.
Because she laughs with them.
Walks with them.
Smiles at them.
But she was carved for me.
Black roses bloom where her peace should be.
And I'll water them with whatever blood is necessary.
Black roses for every betrayal.
The night moves differently around her. I swear it bends its spine, breaks its back, reshapes itself so she can walk through it untouched. She has no idea how infuriating it is to watch the universe pamper her like a spoiled princess while I sit in the dark stitching myself together with the threads of her existence.
I followed her today. Again.
Same campus, same corridors, same stupid yellow lights that flicker like they're winking at her. I hate them. They're shameless. Everything around her is shameless. They all want her attention, her smile, the crumbs of her kindness she throws without thinking. They don't deserve any of it. They haven't bled for it. They haven't paid the price of knowing her.
But I have.
She laughed again with him.
That laugh too bright, too familiar. I could smell the warmth in it, the softness she never gives me. And he walked beside her, close enough to brush her shoulder when she turned. Close enough that my jaw tightened until something in my skull cracked.
My patience rots.
I feel it decay inside me like spoiled fruit. Black roses bloom in its place petals soaked in all the things she'll never understand.
Every step she takes, I map it.
Every glance she gives someone else, I record it.
Every secret she thinks she hides, I already know.
I know she leaves her dorm window open for air even though she gets cold.
I know she wears that stupid oversized hoodie on Tuesdays because she thinks it's "lucky."
I know she bites the inside of her cheek when she's lying.
I know who she stares at in the library when she thinks no one's watching.
I watch anyway.
She thinks she's safe here. She thinks the campus gates protect her. She thinks being surrounded by people means nobody can touch her shadow. But shadows aren't meant to be touched. They're meant to touch you.
I was here first.
Before all of them.
Before she even saw me again.
Before she realized her life still belongs to me.
She thinks we shared only school.
She has no idea we share a history cut deeper than that.
No idea she was the reason I transferred here the moment I learned her name appeared on this college's admission list.
No idea I never stopped watching… not then, not now, not ever.
Tonight, I leave the first real warning.
Not the playful kind.
Not the soft, quiet watching.
Something she'll feel in her bones.
A black rose.
One petal torn.
One petal burned at the tip.
I leave it on her dorm desk before she returns.
Second floor. Room 207.
She really should lock her windows better.
The moon helps me. It always has. It spills just enough light on her room for me to see the details: her messy bed, her stack of books, the hair tie she left near her pillow, the faint smell of her shampoo lingering in the air.
It's unfair.
Everything she touches turns gentle.
Everything I touch becomes dangerous.
When I place the rose on her desk, something inside me twists with satisfaction. She'll see it and freeze. She'll feel watched. She'll feel chosen. She'll feel hunted.
Just the way I want.
I add a note beside the rose, handwritten, slanting to the right because I know she used to study the handwriting of her crushes in school like some hopeless romantic. She'll do it again now. She won't realize she's studying me.
You shouldn't smile at everyone.
Some smiles belong to me.
I leave before she comes back.
But not far.
I wait in the hallway, hidden behind the door of the supply closet. I can hear her footsteps approaching. Light. Tired. She drags them sometimes when she's had a long day. She hums a tune under her breath, completely unaware she's walking right into my trap.
The door clicks open.
Her breath catches.
There it is.
That beautiful silence where fear blooms.
She whispers something to herself. A question. A confused "who" or a trembling "what." She always does this thing where she tries to convince herself she's overthinking. I'm going to break that habit soon.
I hear her step closer.
The desk creaks slightly.
She lifts the rose.
I imagine her fingers brushing the petals, the softness of her touch against something meant for violence. She doesn't know flowers can be weapons when placed in the right hands.
I slip my phone out of my pocket.
The message is ready.
Did you like the gift?
Smile for me.
I'm watching.
She jumps when her phone vibrates.
I can hear the tiny gasp from here.
I can practically taste her fear.
She will run to the window next.
She will check if it's locked.
She will double-check the door.
She will question her own memory, wondering if she left the rose there herself.
She will tell no one at first.
She hates drama. She avoids attention when she's scared.
Good.
Secrets keep her close to me.
I hear her pacing.
Her anxiety is a rhythm I know too well.
Her breathing uneven.
Her footsteps quicker.
Her heartbeat—god, if only walls weren't in the way.
I send a second message.
Don't bother looking for me.
I was always here.
Then I slip out of the building before she even thinks to check the hallway.
The night is colder when I step outside, but inside me, everything burns. She'll try to pretend she's fine tomorrow. She'll force a smile, laugh too loudly, brush it off as a prank.
But her eyes will betray her.
They always do.
She'll feel someone following her.
She'll lower her voice when she talks to boys.
She'll lock her window for a week, maybe two.
She'll keep checking her phone like it's a bomb.
And I'll be there.
Everywhere.
Always just one step behind her.
Or ahead.
She thinks a third person has entered her life.
Some stranger.
Some new threat.
How adorable.
There was never a third person.
There's only me.
And I'm not leaving.