Who's My Stalker

by Dorse Green

  When the phone rang, I was so hesitant to answer because I knew who was on the other end. When I finally gathered the courage to answer, I was greeted by a soft whisper that entered my ear.

  “So are you ever going to leave her?” I was tempted to respond but elected to stay silent because I now realized that the sound of frustration and desperation to come out of my voice was exactly the intentions of the whispering voice. Bothered by the sounds of continuous rings throughout the night, I disconnected the receiver to silence the unknown caller. Therefore, I registered a success for the rest of the night since I never had to answer a call from this strange caller that I strongly suspected was Lynn.

  But I was very wrong if I ever thought they were going to give up on me. I just did not know that they were going to up the ante on me as time passed. One night, a surprising alarm by the front door caught my attention. Ding dong, ding dong, and looking down at my watch, I was concerned why someone would be randomly pressing the doorbell at my job at an odd hour of the night. Slowly approaching the door, I feared who it could possibly be. I just did not want to think about the response to this question. “Just go and see.” I whispered to myself as I continued to tip-toe to the door that suddenly was looking like it’s one of those from the haunted house in a movie. But yes, it was still my door – and wasn’t a haunted house at all! The stalker really had messed up with my mind!

  Right now, in the middle of the fear, I forced myself to remain calm with the possibility of revealing the person behind the whispering voice. Slowly reaching for the door knob with the intent of surprisingly catching the person who's responsible for the private calls, I swung the door open only to be greeted by my own reflection standing in a glass door. I walked further into the driveway then continued into the street. Looking in every direction my eyes could possibly see, I remained in anticipation of this person behind the whispering voice only to find no one but myself standing alone.

  Some days later while looking down at my phone, there was an incoming private call. It can't be! I thought to myself before pressing the answer button. “Hello?” I hesitantly spoke into the phone as I kept my ears as alert as those of a wild animal in the jungle. If I had to survive, I really had to be this alert every time I responded to the private calls. It was the only way that I was going to reveal the identity of this troubling person.

  “Why not just leave her?” The voice, once again, whispered the same thing that had now become a broken record. Hanging up my phone, I immediately changed my number once again. After several attempts of changing my phone number, I realized there was no escaping the private calls. The worry had now spilled over to Angela. I would step into our bedroom to find Angela with a concerned look on her face. She would be troubled as she hands me a disturbing photo of her that would have been taken from a distance.

  This is now happening! With a look of distress from some random guy catching her off guard asking for her name. Feeling threatened by a photo being tossed on the table identifying her as the person he was seeking. Visions of Angela being approached by a stranger riled me, they pushed me to the brink! My jaws began to clinch as my body shook with rage. My mind was, indeed, set to rage, but more so, concerned of the extent to where this was going to end. I felt completely lost in the whole mess. How had things got so out of control?

  Stage 1

  One day having my boys over for some drinks while standing in the parking lot listening to them discuss their affairs. It was cool for most as they are being reeled into each other’s stories being told. Even though they were enjoying themselves, I just couldn’t afford the luxury as I had to keep one eye open and an ear out for strange bystanders. I was very sure that somehow Lynn was listening to cause trouble for me, my relationship or even my friends. You know, there were no boundaries when it came to stalkers - all they wanted was to make sure they caused pain and anxiety around me. The most boring thing was that Lynn was so careful in doing this, and no matter how hard I tried, it was just too difficult to catch her in the act. But I remain hopeful that one day the chickens would come home.

  I was always feeling this uncomfortable, creepy crawl behind my back. It was such a feeling that someone is surely listening in on all what we were saying, especially when I would be the one talking to my friends. I would, from time to time, glance over their shoulders in search of an unfamiliar face. Sometimes, I would ask my friends to lower their voices in fear of being heard by the unknown person. Knowing what the situation was already like with my life, they would comply and pause and then continue with their conversation after a few moments.

  After a while, I would ask them, once again, explaining that someone was listening in on our conversations. It was really an awkward moment. My boys were trying to enjoy themselves and my paranoia was playing a major role in their night as well. But I was too busy being worried to notice any of that. It was just a disaster waiting for the right, or bad moment to explode, depending on which side of the fence you’re standing. As for me, it was, indeed, a disaster waiting to explode in my face.

  After a while of doing this, I noticed that my boys were getting concerned about my behavior. At this moment I was all over the place and nowhere near any of that “calmness.” You know, at that moment, the idea of laughing at the thought of having a stalker wasn’t so funny for me. But in time the drinks began to taste smoother as my night became more relaxed. Under the influence when temptation presents itself, crossing their path was a sight to see. Temptation as he and his friends began to stare. Her beauty was something difficult to disconnect. Snapping his friends out of their deep stare he reminds them of his stalker. Under the influence of temptation, lead them to the proceeding of her wanted attention. Like, how could I allow myself to fail to temptation when it’s what got me here in the first place.

  Later on, some days after our eventful night with the mistress crossing our path, letters were placed on my front door only to be found by Angela. They were addressing everything about me and my friends’ nightly encounter, I mean everything!

  Every decision that I made was known to these people. When you come to think of it, you would think that the unknown person was my own shadow. With my mind racing all over the place, the thoughts of how someone could be so consistent and correct from a distance caused me to believe that I was losing my mind. Grasping in several areas of my body, I would search for some sort of a chip implant because it was strange that someone would know my exact location at any time. I would be questioning myself if God was personally punishing me for all my past wrongdoings.

  In the end, I feared losing my family altogether because all these things were coming directly to Angela. So I decided to remove myself completely from affairs. More so, I distanced myself from society. At this moment, I was at a breaking point that I questioned everything and everyone around me, including my best friends. Whoever was behind this had done the most damage in my life. Removing myself from society felt like I had my life completely stolen from me. At this moment, I could look at myself in the mirror in the bathroom and just think, “I hope you’re happy, Lynn, you win! You took it all from me. You took everything and I am just this sorry person living life in hiding.” It felt so sad, I even lost some weight but Angela was happy that she got to see more of me because of the ordeal.

  Besides getting phone calls, my stalkers had other means to get into my life. They used letters to communicate to Angela. And, as much as the letters were addressed to her, I knew that it was a way of sending a message that we can get to your family and whatever you do, we have means to tell that to her. This, I thought was meant to instill fear in me because the more Angela knew about my dealings with the other girls, the more she would fight with me and that was just dangerous as it could lead to our separation. This was a direct threat to my relationship with the mother of my children. Just like the volume of my own phone calls, the volume of the letters that Angela received from the stalkers kept on increasing.

  One morning, I
could see myself as the old man stumbling from a pile of letters in his hands. In fact, it was like a classic story about an old man that left his home for a whole month and when he comes back, he goes straight to the mailbox to check for his letters and newspapers that he found in their tens, resting in his letter box, waiting for his return. And, instead of taking them into the house in batches, he decides to just go for it all at once and puts them all in his weak arms almost tripping himself as he walks back into the house.

  That was me when I opened my door carrying those letters, all of them, addressed to Angela by the stalker causing havoc in my life. Why were they contacting her alone using letters and not me? If they could get their hands on my number, I was sure they could get Angela’s number too? So why choose a different means of communication when it came to her? These were all questions that sounded like nothing more than just rhetoric as my head spun. Carrying all those letters in my hands, dressed scruffy in the morning and with a confused-looking face, I surely could be easily mistaken for a mad man. Would you blame me given all that was going on? Perhaps I was getting mad!

  As I entered the house with more of these letters in my hands, stumbling both in my body and mind, I really felt overwhelmed by this whole situation. I could feel the weight on my shoulders and some strength was leaving me. I questioned Angela how she was able to receive these letters without coming in contact with the stalkers? Angela would try to explain the situation the best way she could, but nothing made sense to me. All I could do was keep on guessing who my stalker could be. At this point, Angela and I took a very funny curve – like she never remembered to question me about the other girls because we were now fully focused on the stalker, whoever they were.

  It’s so funny how a bigger crisis, as you see it, can make you lose focus on another form of a crisis. That was Angela, she forgot about the crisis she had where I would always be with different women, sometimes get caught and deny it all! Even though what was happening was really ugly, it gave birth to something nice between myself and Angela. The first thing was me realizing that she was a strong girl that had supported me through my moments of madness when I went around being involved with all these other girls while she was with me. In addition, she also stood with me even when my past actions were coming back to haunt me.

  I felt like thanking her for both forgiving me and carrying my load willingly. But my pride stood in the way, and I only decided that I would thank her by way of staying faithful to her. The truth is that I was now scared of losing my relationship with her. I mean, who wouldn’t, seeing that she was this strong young lady that could stand for all the nonsense I put her through? So, in fear of jeopardizing my relationship, I made it very clear to my friends that if any female was seeking my attention, I was not interested. My friends were told (by me) to never bother introducing me to anyone new because I was just at a point where I wanted to spend all my time with the people I should have been caring for the most from the beginning. But I guess I had failed them in many ways since they were now being scared of the stalker together with me. I was supposedly the protector of my family that turned into this huge villain – I hated thinking about this because it came to my mind over and over again, especially when I thought about how my dad had kept children on the side without my mom’s knowledge. I hated to think that I had also let down my own family.

  When I was with my friends, spending time at the club, I always made sure to hint to them that if any female was asking for me they should say I am not interested. That was me getting serious with my family. I would get to the club, enjoy some time with friends and go back home to my family. I guess the stalker, instead of setting me apart with Angela, had actually helped me become a better man to her. Even though the situation was still very difficult for her. How can one keep on loving a man that is being haunted by ghosts from the past? And the same man can’t even tell which ghost was haunting him because they are just too many? As you can see, my life was just so complicated, where would Angela fit in that whole web with many strange women, some I wouldn’t even remember?

  But when with friends, there is no telling what could end up happening. You know, hanging with friends can sometimes lead you in the wrong direction, even when that’s not something they are trying to do. I figured out that when you want to completely change your life, you have to do the difficult thing and just change your lifestyle completely. As for me, trying to change was always going to be difficult because my friends and I loved the girls and the club scene. I wasn’t going to fit in if I decided to completely change. It was just a way of life for us.

  As predictable as it was, I assumed my friends went against my wishes. This was besides the fact that I had precisely explained to them that I was not talking to any females while we were in the club or anywhere else. But once they mentioned she was a good friend of mine by the name Kris, I found myself being happy to see an old friend. In the end, I spoke to her with no worries of the wandering eye because she was a trusted friend, who just so happened to be in town. Even though I could feel the presence of the stalker staring us down I felt like I just needed to enjoy the moment of a longtime friend. She noticed that I was distracted and tried to calm me down. Indeed, her tricks worked. I found myself momentarily forgetting about the stalkers as I enjoyed an adult conversation with her. We spoke for the better part of the night and honestly, it was so refreshing. Her conversations were so refreshing that I forgot all about stalkers.

  As we were about to leave the club, we started planning to meet up with each other the next day for lunch and eventually exchanged phone numbers as we agreed on a place. The club closed and we all left for our places. You could be surprised when I say I left right after the club was closed, well, because that wasn’t a part of me – it was my habit to stay in the club until it was closed. I wasn’t a person that was shy to be the last one to leave if it went down to that. Fortunately for me, besides my friends, it seemed like a couple of other people in our area loved staying late in the club.

  Nevertheless, the next afternoon arrived and I picked up my phone to dial Kris’s number so her and I could go grab lunch before she headed back home out of town. Dialing her number, I was surprised just to get an unreachable number. Shocked, I rushed to think that perhaps she was one of the stalkers. Why then did she give me a number that suddenly doesn’t work? I tried again and again, and after a few attempts, I still didn't understand how a number could be unavailable after I just talked to her on the phone the night before. Was she now thinking twice about meeting me just after a few minutes’ chat in the club? Could she be the stalker? Or did she learn about my recent predicaments from someone else and she chose to not get involved with my messed up life?

  In the end, I chose to stay calm and ignore it because I had figured maybe something was wrong on her end. After all, my life needed some calmness without adding to potential drama situations like hanging out with another girl that was not Angela. With me having given up on her, which was unlike me after such a short time, I stayed for an hour and noticed I was receiving an incoming call with no name attached to it. I responded to the call and got surprised to hear Kris asking what had happened to me calling her. I said I was just as shocked as she was, I explained how I had tried to call her to no avail and had many questions running in my mind. But I did not tell her about my paranoia that almost kicked in with the whole drama with the stalker.

  Later on after dropping the call, I decided to look into her number and compare it with the one she had called me. Comparing the incoming number to the number I had stored in my contacts, I noticed that two single numbers had been changed around, making it difficult to notice. Once I noticed that, I got angry and went straight to Angela. I questioned her if she had gone through my phone. I must say that Angela had managed to stay with me and all my bad behaviors because she had studied me and knew how best to deal with me. So, if she flipped the numbers in my phone, she did it to protect herself without confronting me because she knew
that doing so was just going to make things worse.

  So now because I had noticed, we could talk about the subject of another girl that she knew she couldn’t just come up to me and ask me about it. More so, if I had asked her about what she would have done with my phone in my absence, she would deny. In the end, I felt, what she wants, she gets and I couldn’t be too upset with her if I wasn’t for sure if, indeed, it was her doing it without concrete evidence. I enjoyed spending time with my friends and it was part of my daily routines to meet up with one of them. Sometimes we would meet in groups. I guess spending more time home was difficult. Even during the time when I had decided against spending time with the girls, I still did not take most of it and availed it to Angela, my friends got to get the most of me when I should have been home with Angela, enjoying our beautiful kids, but I always had some ideas.

  Regarding the stalkers, I was never safe anywhere. They seemed to follow me every time I got out of my house. The feeling really disturbed me, but I got some courage when I realized that they were not out to hurt me because if they did, they could have caused so much damage to the ignorant me. Their aim was simply to destabilize my life. They wanted me to live a miserable lonely life without Angela and my children. It was obvious that whoever was behind this was really bitter and did not care whatever happened to me as long as I lived in pain for the rest of my life.