Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
The fourth time, I decided it was maybe the job I’d been working at a chain store.
The fifth, I decided it must have been through my utilities. It was the first time that I’d been staying somewhere that the utilities weren’t included, so I’d needed to set them up myself.
“I never figured out how he found me the sixth time,” I admitted. That had been weighing heavily on me for a long time. Amplified after the phone call a bit back.
“Were you as lucky each time as you were the first two times?” Atlas asked.
“No,” I admitted.
Once, he’d found me working a night shift alone, waiting for me behind the dumpster out back, and beating the hell out of me right there in the parking lot.
He’d been dragging me toward his car when a group of teenagers who were likely up to no good, given the hour, had decided to be heroes, and rushed over, getting me away from him.
One of them even used his skateboard to knock Joss on the head before he got away from them and ran to the safety of his car.
“Had you considered going to the cops that time?” Atlas asked.
“I did,” I said, nodding. “I even went to the station, asking ‘hypothetical’ questions to a female officer I caught walking out.”
She’d been quick to tell me what she, officially, needed to tell me about filing a report, about getting a restraining order.
“But?” Atlas prompted.
But then she’d pulled me a little further away from the station, and told me what she’d seen and learned from experience.
About how stalkers don’t give a damn about paperwork. About how, if anything, all it did was piss off your stalker, and make them escalate.
She’d also told me that, with many restraining orders, your address is actually shared with your stalker or abuser, unless you have a separate meeting where you can convince the judge that you are in danger.
“And without any documented evidence of prolonged abuse, she didn’t think that was likely.”
“So, you decided to keep relying on yourself.”
“Yeah.”
I took everything I learned from each time he found me, and wrote down a list of things not to do moving forward.
Do not get a phone plan.
Do not work at a chain store or restaurant.
Do not pay for utilities in my name.
Do not get rentals through a website.
Do not get any social media.
I’d been dreading the day I was going to have to register my car again. Or update my license.
There were some things that you simply had to do just to exist in society.
It was why I was so crazy about keeping an eye on my spending, about socking away as much money as possible. Because having a savings was the only thing that allowed me to start over each time without having to live in the car again.
The problem was that, in the past, I had no attachments. I never really got out of survival mode enough to make friends or become attached to my surroundings.
Now, though?
I was attached.
To my job and my coworkers. To this house that felt a little more like mine than anywhere else I’d ever stayed. To Navesink Bank in general.
And now, of course, to Atlas.
For better or worse.
“Can I ask you something?” Atlas asked when I finally stopped talking.
“Sure,” I invited, reaching for my orange juice.
“That night, after we went out to get dinner, when you got a phone call, was that him?”
Sucking in a deep breath, I exhaled it slowly.
“Yes.”
“How did he find your number?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I looked into it, and I blocked him, but I have no idea how he figured it out in the first place.”
“It was a new number?” he asked.
“New since I came to Navesink Bank,” I said.
“Hm,” Atlas said, sitting back.
“Yeah, I know. I’ve been racking my brain ever since.”
“Just to be safe, how about I order you a new burner?” he asked. “You can just tell your work that you switched providers. No one has to know.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” I agreed.
Atlas reached across the table, taking my hand, and giving it a squeeze.
“Thanks for telling me.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Atlas
I knew I’d been right about her having an abusive ex.
There were just too many signs for it to be anything else. Her timidity. Her fear about displeasing me over even the smallest of things. The way she felt like she wasn’t allowed to have an opinion.
I hadn’t anticipated the stalker angle, though.
But I guess that made sense.
Guys who were that controlling didn’t want to let their victims go.
I imagine it went double-so for AJ’s situation, since she’d been groomed by a much older man.
He’d likely seen a young, insecure, impressionable, girl and thought he could pluck her, unripe, off the vine, then mold her into the shape he wanted.
The problem was, men like that were never actually satisfied. Nothing she ever did would be good enough.