---- On the other side ----
Mei Ling's hands were shaking so hard she almost dropped her phone. The blue dot on the GPS app blinked steady as a heartbeat: right outside Noelle's building. Again.
Her throat tightened. For the fourth night in a row, Ethan was there. He had told her he was "working late."
She didn't even think before she grabbed her coat and keys.
Noelle's apartment lights were off when she arrived. The hallway smelled faintly of old paint and rain. She banged on the door until a neighbor peeked out and muttered that Noelle hadn't been home in days.
An icy dread settled over her. She found Noelle's number and called.
"You need to stop pretending," Mei Ling said the moment Noelle picked up. Her voice was sharp, but it trembled underneath. "I know Ethan's been at your place. I can see his location. Just tell me the truth, Noelle."
There was a pause on the other end: breathing, uneven and quiet.
"Mei Ling," Noelle said softly. "I'm not with him. I'm at Ren's. He's been following me."
Mei Ling let out a disbelieving laugh. "Following you? You think Ethan is stalking you? Come on, Noelle—"
"He's outside my work. He knows where I live. I didn't even tell him—"
"Enough." Mei Ling's voice rose. "Do you even hear how that sounds? You're trying to make me think he's crazy? He's my boyfriend, Noelle."
A faint sound came from Noelle's end; someone speaking in the background, a man's voice, steady and low.
Then another voice came through the line.
"Mei Ling," Ren said. "It's me. She's telling the truth. She's been staying here for the past week. She's terrified. She told me that Ethan's been showing up near her building... her apartment. I believe her."
Mei Ling froze, gripping the phone tighter.
"Ren, you're covering for her," she said. "You don't know what's going on between them."
"I know enough," Ren replied. His tone was calm but edged with steel. "You should check your own boyfriend instead. Ask yourself why your boyfriend keeps showing up at places he's not supposed to be."
"You're both lying," she snapped. "Do you think I'm stupid?"
Ren's sigh came through the speaker, quiet, tired and sad. "No, Mei Ling. I think you're scared of the truth."
She ended the call before he could say more.
Her hands were shaking again as she reopened the GPS app. The blue dot was moving. Slowly. Toward Noelle's street.
Mei Ling grabbed her keys and followed.
The night was damp and heavy with fog, the kind that blurred streetlights into hazy halos. Mei Ling parked a block away from where the GPS dot had stopped moving. Her hands were slick on the steering wheel.
She kept telling herself she wasn't crazy that she'd catch him and this awful ache in her chest would finally make sense. He was cheating. That was all.
She turned off the headlights and waited. A car idled a little way down the street, which Mei Ling recognised as Ethan's black sedan. She knew that shape, that license plate, even in the dark.
Her pulse raced as she ducked lower in her seat. The seconds stretched. Then Ethan stepped out. He moved quietly, deliberate, like someone trying not to be seen. He crossed the road, staying close to the shadows of parked cars.
Mei Ling frowned. There was no one else around. Noelle's apartment building loomed at the end of the street, dark except for one lighted window on the second floor.
Ethan looked up at it. He didn't move for a long time. Just stared. Then she saw the faint glint of something in his hands: a camera lens catching the streetlight.
He raised the camera and began taking photos, zooming in on the apartment window. Click. Click. Click.
Mei Ling felt a sick chill spread through her. His gaze was sharp and calculating, like he was hunting prey, not simply watching.
Mei Ling's breath caught.
He wasn't just taking photos. He was documenting.
She decided to do the same. Her hands shook so violently that at first, she wasn't sure if she was holding the camera correctly. The lens blurred, but she focused it again, snapping photo after photo.
Click.
Ethan at the mailbox.
Click.
Ethan at Noelle's window, camera in hand.
Click.
He slipped the camera into his bag like it was an everyday task, something he did on his way to work.
But then, to Mei Ling's horror, he lowered the camera. He turned to the mailbox, a small metal box at the base of Noelle's apartment complex, hidden under a row of hanging vines. Ethan stepped forward, casually, as if it were a normal part of his routine.
He opened the mailbox with ease without even a glance around to check for anyone nearby. Mei Ling's heart skipped a beat.
He was rifling through her mail.
Her mail.
He pulled out a few letters, flipping through them with clinical detachment, as though he were scanning for something important. A receipt. A bill. A personal note from someone Noelle knew.
Mei Ling could barely breathe.
Ethan wasn't just obsessing over Noelle from a distance. He was invading her life in every way. The camera, the binoculars, the mail; it wasn't just spying. It was an invasion of her privacy and her safety.
The weight of it crashed over Mei Ling. All the arguments she'd had with herself over the last few days, the doubts, the suspicions, they melted into a horrifying reality.
Ethan wasn't cheating. He wasn't just a boyfriend acting strangely.
He was stalking Noelle. And had been for a while now.
Ethan slipped the mail back into the box and closed it carefully, making sure the latch clicked into place. He took one last glance at Noelle's apartment with his expression blank but the way his gaze lingered on the window made Mei Ling's skin crawl.
He walked back toward his car with the same eerie calm, the kind of stride that said this was routine for him. Mei Ling couldn't breathe.
The moment the car's tail lights disappeared around the corner, Mei Ling took a long, shuddering breath, but the reality didn't make sense in her mind. She wanted to scream. To drive after him and demand answers. But the truth was more terrifying than anything she'd imagined.
Noelle had been right all along. Ethan wasn't the man she thought he was.
And Noelle had been telling her the truth the whole time.
She needed to talk to Noelle. Now. But she couldn't shake the thought that maybe,... just maybe,... Ethan knew she was watching him.
The fear squeezed tighter around her chest. What would he do when he realised she knew?
After Ethan left, Mei Ling sat still in her car for a long time with the engine idling in the misty silence of the street. She stared at the photos on her phone, images of Ethan lurking around Noelle's apartment, peering through windows, rifling through the mailbox.
What had she missed?
She ran her thumb over the screen, scrolling through the images again. It all seemed so clear now. Ethan had been so careful about hiding his obsession with Noelle, pretending to care for her, creating a perfect cover.
He wasn't interested in her.
The sickening truth hit her like a freight train.