From Where I Watch You

by Shannon Grogan

  Maybe he didn’t go to school in Arizona. Maybe he followed my sister and stalked her and wrote all the notes because she dumped him. But I remember hearing Kellen on the phone before she left for college: she said Nick got over her quickly because he already had a new girlfriend.

  What is going on? I don’t know what to think of it all.

  “Kara.” Mr. King smiles down at me. “Mail, please?”

  I muster a half-smile while I stuff the diary into my bag. When I step out into the hallway, he’s there, lingering outside my class.

  Noah Bender. He’s weird, no matter how much Noelle tells me he’s just nice and quiet. I don’t have time for weird right now.

  “Look, Noah, I know we haven’t talked to each other a lot before, but it seems that I always catch you hanging around. If you have something to say, spit it out. What do you want?” I feel a tad bitchy for how it comes out, especially because I’ve caught him with his mouth hung open.

  When he shuffles his feet, I spot his right hand tucked close to his thigh. He’s holding his hand in an odd way—flat—fingers together and two corners of paper stick out.

  “Hey,” he says before he nods at the door. “King in there?”

  I keep staring at him and notice that his eyes won’t meet mine now that I’ve seen the paper in his hand. Briefly, he glances at me, and then the floor when his right hand moves behind his back, to hide the paper from me.

  When I gasp, I can hear the catch in my throat. Noah dropped it on the floor behind his feet.

  It’s not just any old paper.

  Purple droplets and bloody red fibers.

  My eyes feel dry and my breath comes out loud and shaky. “If you move I’ll scream, Noah,” I say, sounding calmer than I feel.

  He swallows. I see the pulsing tendon in his neck.

  His face turns to chalk.

  “Kara, I’m sorry. He—”

  “Give it to me!”

  He nods fast and his breath rushes out, as shaky as mine. He bends even faster to pick it up and his hands are trembling.

  “Why do you have that, Noah? It’s for me, isn’t it?” My legs are wobbly. I need my legs. I may need to run because I know I won’t be able to scream.

  He clutches the note. “Kara, I’m sorry. He paid me. I needed money, to pay for a speeding ticket. I couldn’t tell my folks! I’m sorry!”

  He paid me.

  The dirty, scuffed floor in front of me draws closer, giving me the feeling of it rising and me falling backwards. I close my eyes and inhale so I don’t fall down. “Who paid you? For what?”

  “Look, I know it’s a shitty thing, me spying on you at school and reporting to him. Leaving these for you.” He waves the note. “But he paid me, I had to do it.”

  “Who paid you? Who is he? Oh my God, Noah, who?” I need him to say it.

  “I, I don’t know who he is. I only saw him once. He said no one would be hurt. He said they were just love notes for you and he was shy. I mean, if I knew who he was, I’d tell you. I didn’t recognize him. He wore a hat and sunglasses that one time. He leaves me all the instructions and the notes here at school and online.”

  The door swings open and Mr. King pokes his head out, smiling. “Hey kids. Everything okay? Kara, did you get my mail?”

  “Uh,” I reply. “No, I, uh, felt sick and Noah here was looking for a garbage can for me to be sick in.” I look at Noah and hope that Mr. King doesn’t notice how pale and sweaty he is.

  “Uh-oh, sounds like you better get to the office, maybe have them check your temperature. Let me grab your backpack just in case you end up going home.”

  I stare at Noah’s colorless face while I wait for Mr. King to come back.

  “There you go, Kara. Young man, maybe you can walk Kara to the office? Make sure she doesn’t get sick?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  We walk slowly down the hall, and I speak first. “So you don’t know who he is?”

  “No, I swear it, Kara! I don’t even know what he looks like except that he’s taller than me. I only met him the one time and I haven’t seen him since. He uh, he brings me the notes here, in lunch bags, and I deliver them wherever he tells me.”

  “You went into my apartment, Noah, my bedroom!” I hiss.

  “No! I never did that, Kara—”

  “Shh, lower your voice okay? I don’t need anyone hearing this.”

  He nods his head and backs up against the wall. “Kara,” he starts, his voice a loud whisper, “I swear! I never went in your house! The other notes, yeah, but not in your house.”

  I stand next to him, my back against the wall, too so I can watch out for people who might walk by. “You swear you don’t know him?”

  “I swear it! I’m always looking for him here, you know? It’s freaked me out thinking he could turn on me, turn me in for doing this to you, for practically stalking you!”

  I can’t believe this.

  “I’m sorry, Kara. I won’t do it anymore, okay? I’m done! I’m supposed to get another delivery today, and I’ll go and try to meet him and tell him I’m finished!”

  We’re halfway to the office when he turns and offers me the envelope. “Look, I better get to class. Do you want me to do something? Tell someone?”

  I shake my head, taking the note.

  “Kara, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, really. I just figured they were love notes, like he said. But your face—obviously something else is going on. I’m, I’m so sorry.” He pivots and walks fast down the hall.

  I watch him, unable to speak.

  Instead of going to the office I duck out the side door and down the path through a small cluster of evergreens where the smokers hide out. Since we’re halfway through sixth period the place reeks already, but the smokers ignore me as I scramble down the hill. The Metro rounds the corner when I cross through a gap in the fence. I hop on the bus and get off at my old house.

  Someone’s home today. And it’s daylight so I can’t very well sneak back to the trampoline or even sit under my favorite tree, still naked with winter.

  But as I turn to go I see Kellen.

  My sister stares out at me from her bedroom.

  She’s seventeen and I’m sixteen. She’s not wearing the brown and pink monkey pants, but instead wears the sundress she wore on the night she left me at the pizza place.

  My sister was stalked.

  Maybe my sister didn’t just drown in a pool.

  The envelope from Noah rests on top of dirty tufts of moss beside me. I hadn’t even noticed that I’d dropped it. When I look back to the window, Kellen’s gone.

  The wind rustles frozen leaves as I pluck the envelope from the ground and tear it open.

  You belong to me. I’m coming for you.

  32. Watch carefully.

  ..........................................................

  Where do I start?

  When I make it to the Ave I sit down on a bench and stare at the police station down the street. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want my mom to find out. Mom is over Kellen’s death. Why make her remember and suffer even more?

  I hear sirens. A lot of sirens, off in the distance. Taking it as a sign, I decide to walk home. Snow flurries about, landing wherever the wind drops it. Maybe I could stop by Crockett’s and tell Justine, or at least tell her what I found out about Kellen. But the explanation would require a lot longer than her ten minute smoke break. Besides, Justine has her own problems—she doesn’t need to worry about mine.

  When I get to the café I peek in the window for Charlie. I want so badly to see him, but I can’t face him right now, not with how I’ve treated him yet again. I’ll figure things out tomorrow. Maybe I’ll try to talk to Noah again, see if I can get more information because my list of questions grew the minute he left me.

  T
omorrow.

  I’ll tell Noelle and maybe she could take me to the cops, and they could start looking for Nick.

  No. I can’t! If the cops are involved, Mom will find out for sure. God, Mom doesn’t even know what Nick did to me. I can’t let her find out that and now this, too.

  I peek inside the café again. Mom has a handful of customers finishing up. She sits across the table from a woman, and I recognize her as the lady Mom introduced me to a few months ago—she used to run the bake sales at Mom’s church. Her husband died last year, so she won’t bake anymore because he isn’t there to steal bites of cookie dough when she isn’t looking, Mom said. And she comes to the café for dinner because her husband isn’t there to tell her that her fried chicken is the best on earth.

  Mom leaves the woman and goes to sit with a father and daughter who come in at least once a week. The man is young, mid-twenties maybe. His eyes droop and have dark circles like those of someone older and so tired and burdened. His daughter looks about four and behaves as if she’s older, too.

  The dad rests his forehead in his hand and now I remember—Mom told me his wife died a couple of months ago.

  Mom sits next to the little girl whose hair is pulled back into the sloppy ponytail that could only be done by the hands of a little girl or a daddy—strands bulge out, making the top of her head lumpy. Loose pieces of hair hang over earlobes where too-big earrings dangle.

  Too-big earrings. Grown-up-girl earrings.

  A mommy’s earrings.

  She uses her fork to roll a meatball around on her plate before using her fingers to bury the meatball with strings of spaghetti. Her fingers get wiped off on her shirt, and her dad doesn’t see but Mom offers a napkin. Then she pops up and rushes back to the kitchen, returning a minute later with a plate with one of my flower cookies from the freezer, setting the plate just out of reach. The little girl unburies that meatball and stuffs the whole thing into her mouth.

  Mom moves the cookie plate closer, kisses the little girl’s cheek, and squeezes her dad’s shoulder.

  My mom loves these people.

  They are like family. And this is what she does with her family—she feeds them dinner, and asks them about their new project at work, and if they passed their math test, and if they’re speaking to their best friend anymore. She asks them about the best part of their day, and she bribes them with dessert so they’ll finish dinner. She rubs their backs when they are tired and offers a tissue when their hearts can’t take it anymore.

  She does this because she doesn’t have her own whole family—me and Dad and Kellen—all together to feed anymore.

  My mom is happy and I won’t ruin it for her. I won’t ever tell her about the notes or Nick. I’ve gone this long; I can figure the rest out on my own.

  When Mom disappears into the kitchen, I sneak up to the apartment. To clear my head I soak in a bubble bath until I prune and the water’s tepid. I toss a frozen burrito into the microwave and get into my pajamas. After two bites of burrito I throw it away and brush my teeth. I’m tired and need the crazy thoughts out of my head so I steal my laptop from Mom’s room and climb into bed with it and a DVD.

  “Sweetheart?”

  “Yeah, Mom?” I feel a little bad about not getting up to open the door but I’m too tired.

  “Café’s closed up early and I’m off to Bible study,” she says. But the floor makes no noise so I know she’s still standing there.

  Half a minute passes.

  “I love you, Kara.”

  “I love you too, Mom.”

  The floor creaks and when I can’t hear her anymore I turn the movie back up.

  My cell buzzes with a text and I see that Noelle’s called me five times in the last half hour. She calls again.

  “God, Kar! Where were you? Didn’t you hear what happened?”

  I sit up, fully alert. “No.”

  “Noah Bender, Kar. Someone beat him up in the parking lot. That’s why we had the lockdown. Can you believe it, the last five fucking minutes of school and we have a lockdown. Shit, where were you? I texted you! We were going crazy, hearing the sirens and wondering what the hell was going on.”

  I can’t even get a word out before she speaks again.

  “Noah’s in the hospital and a bunch of us are going there, to see how he’s doing. Mason and I will pick you up in like forty-five, ’kay?”

  “Did they catch the guy who beat him up?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, the cops were there and people with cars couldn’t leave. Listen, I gotta go. Be ready!”

  “It’s like the middle of the night, Noelle.”

  “What? It’s only seven o’clock!”

  She hangs up before I can say anything.

  I wait downstairs. The cafe rests, quiet and bundled up for the night. Chairs stand on tables and the floor has been swept and mopped with a chalky-smelling solution Raul always uses. The espresso machine is turned off and since it takes too long to prepare I go into the kitchen to grab a Coke from my stash inside the walk-in fridge.

  Noah lies in a hospital bed and it strikes me that I might be the reason. I can’t think of a single person who has ever been hurt because of me. Even though he delivered all the notes, he didn’t know his actions hurt me. I think of him peeking at me at school and how at first I thought he just wanted to ask me out. I think of how he shook, and how the color disappeared from his face when I caught him.

  And now he could be dying in a hospital.

  The fridge drones and clicks and I’m taking my first sip when I hear something out in the dining area. My first thought is that Mom’s home from Bible study, but I know it’s too early. I set my Coke down on the stainless steel prep counter. For a minute I’m still, and I listen, but all I hear is the Coke bubbling and reacting inside my body. I tread lightly to the swinging door, opening it just a crack before I walk through.

  Only the front counter section is lit. Inverted chairs are black shadows, all corners and edges against the radiance of street lamps outside. This makes the dining area unfamiliar, and I have to focus to orient myself. Out in the front of the shop, people stroll by laughing and talking. A couple passes by, walking their dog in the frozen night.

  I’m jumpy and skittish and I know my mind is playing tricks on me. The sounds I’ve heard must’ve come from outside—there are still lots of people around.

  Making my way back into the kitchen, I stop behind the counter because I hear it again. When I turn around, lights scroll along the far wall of the café, casting shadows because of the bus thundering by.

  But the night silences itself enough for me to hear more sounds coming from inside. There shouldn’t be anyone here but me, and this realization keeps me locked in place and I don’t know what I should do. The door leading upstairs stands open just a crack.

  Each step of the worn staircase up to the apartment has its own sound.

  So I know by the familiar creak I’m hearing now that someone treads on the last stair before they enter my apartment.

  There’s silence now and I hear nothing but my pounding heart. Then, above me, I hear the slow thump of footsteps, and the groaning pop of the old oak floor. Kellen flashes across my vision and is gone before I blink. I make my way to the stairs and slowly climb them. By the time I’ve reached the last step, my skin crawls with goose bumps and everything inside of me loosens. Any second I might be sick. I climb over that last step so I don’t make more noise and enter the apartment.

  Once I’m inside I regret it. I should’ve called the cops, even though nothing looks out of place and I can’t see anyone. The apartment stinks of the burrito I tossed into the little trash bin. I creep along the wall, past the tiny kitchen, and into the hallway. Every other step I stop and listen and hear only my breath, my heartbeat, like I’m underwater. I make my way past the dresser in the hallway and into my room. Everything appea
rs to be the way I left it.

  A thud comes from my mom’s room next door.

  Kellen’s pink pocketknife and Justine’s pepper spray sit on my nightstand. I hope I never get close enough to use the knife so I grab the pepper spray and tiptoe out of the room. Mom’s door is open and something moves in there. With my arm outstretched and my finger on the trigger I push the door open quickly. But there’s no one there; only magazine pages fluttering from the wind coming through the open window.

  I drop the spray on Mom’s bed and rush to the window to see if anyone climbed out. Mom leaves her window open sometimes even in the winter and I always yell at her because we live in the city. I stick my head out even though I know no one’s there. They’d need the hospital if they jumped, and only an incredibly agile person could make it to the tree outside.

  I close the window on the night. Safety is mere feet away, really. I think about opening the window again and yelling for help, but I’d feel dumb if it ended up being nothing. I’d have a lot of explaining to do. Most likely I’d be ignored.

  Suddenly I hear the floor creak in the hallway.

  I squat down and hide behind Mom’s bed and my mind betrays me, making me think of the words he’s written for me and Kellen.

  . . . watch you.

  . . . your blood . . .

  . . . make you suffer.

  . . . ways to kill you.

  . . . coming for you.

  My heart hammers. The creaking and popping has moved to the living room. I wait on the floor by Mom’s bed trying to stop shaking so I can figure out how to get to my phone downstairs. I know I left it on the counter by my Coke.

  I don’t hear anything more, so I stand up. My legs are unsteady as I walk back out to the living room. It’s empty. I stop at the top of the stairs and listen but only silence comes from below.

  My hands clutch the banister as I make one foot and then the other move down the stairs. At the bottom I hold my breath and try to see my phone, but my view is blocked by the cash register. I wait, hearing nothing but the evening sounds outside. I rush to the counter. My Coke’s still there, but not my phone.