Writing for Myself to You

Oren had moved to a new town, in a new state. She had settled better in Ashalot than she ever had in Lucasville. Arguably, she was in a better place than she’d been in Pearl City. She lived on her own and worked as a barista. She devoured library mystery novels until they were out and sent in monthly requests for more to be stocked. She did a good enough job pretending the cold didn’t bother her in the winters. She stayed in a third-floor apartment on Jackson. Not big enough for a roommate. No lovers, apparently purposefully. She had a couple of friends ranging from ages twenty to eighty-four, mostly formed through a writer’s club. She started it twelve years prior, just a year after she moved. She’s seeing a hypnotherapist. She doesn’t trust the usual kind, she can see through them too easily. The hypnotic element makes it easier for her to stop seeing the human hand behind her treatment. She journals every other day, often about unique customers she met or odd things she noticed on her commute. She was doing well, all things considered. She was a remarkably well-put-together woman.

He strode into the café, wearing the same mustard-yellow suit jacket he always wore. He paired it with an ensemble he knew she liked, black dress pants and a white dress shirt underneath, though no tie. It was the same sort of outfit he usually sported, something Oren was quick to detail in her journal. She’d written about her predilection for the well-dressed many a time before she met him. He wore a Panama hat; one he held to his chest when he ordered.

“Yes, may I have a sixteen-ounce americano?”

He ordered the same thing every time he went. Half of the men Oren mentioned in her journal that she expressed interest in ordered an americano. She of course preferred her coffee black, a staple among the mystery novels she adored. Even after months of frequenting her place of work, they still followed the same routine they had the first time he came in. With the exception, of course, that she had that nickname he had given himself committed to memory.

“I’ll have that right up, Art.”

“Thank you, miss.”

She wrote about the well-dressed man in her journal frequently, always on Mondays and Tuesdays after seeing him but sometimes on off days or weekends as well. She wrote about how she wished he would waltz in one day and whisk her away. She mused about scenes where after his order he would ask her to go to some local event or other, always up to date with what was current. A holiday market in winter, a springtime singles dance, and now an early summer fair. She went to these events on her own, of course, and she did have a nice time. She’d write after the fact, though, about how much nicer they would be with someone as well put-together as he was with her.

As she handed the drink to him, his fingers brushed against hers. He spoke so smoothly it sounded rehearsed.

“I’m sorry, darling, but would you be interested in letting me take you away sometime? I’ve heard there’s a summer fair over the weekend, if you don’t work.”

She had him. That was a near perfect paraphrasing of what she had planted for him in her journal. This was the final piece of evidence she needed to know he had been reading her journal. That he had been getting into her home. That he had been following her. She could put a face to the man who had been stalking her since she was young. Art, Arthur Vaughan, Debonair St. Clair. Now that she had him, she was going to tear his life apart.

“Oh, I’d love to!”

June 5th, 1997. The day Oren’s search ended.

Hell 4

Spawn 4

Writing for Myself to You