Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
“I have to go,” she adds. “Bye.”
He starts to say something else, but the call is terminated. I log his number and add it to my other file.
She was not lying. Her break is over and she has to disappear back into the restaurant. For a brief moment, I consider going in and ordering dessert just so I can watch her, but I know I have to be careful. I do not want to become a familiar face to her. I need to keep distance for the moment.
Instead, I wait. Her shift is another four hours. I busy myself with other work while I wait, enjoying the quiet of the car and the way people pass by without any sense of my presence. There is something delicious about being unseen. I will have to expose myself soon, and that will add a new layer of intensity to this little game. But I am enjoying this part a great deal.
My pulse spikes when I see Laura leave through the back door. She looks tired, but satisfied. She seems to enjoy her job. I like that about her. It takes a certain kind of temperament to truly enjoy waitressing.
I watch her walk across the parking lot, cross the street, and take up her customary position at the bus stop, waiting for a bus that might arrive in five minutes if she is lucky, or twenty if I am. More time to watch her gives me deep satisfaction. It is like god himself is granting me a little more time with one of his greatest works.
She’s leaning up against the bus shelter reading that romance novel now. I wonder how many times she’s read it. Dozens, at least. Hundreds, more likely.
There are three seats inside the shelter. She’s not taking any of them, even after a long shift at work that followed a full day of school. This girl works every hour she gets, aside from the ones where she is forced to sleep.
Now she is pressed up against the edge of the scratched and grafitti’d Plexiglas, the book held up close to her face.
She needs a new glasses prescription. I noticed the way she squinted when she was trying to help customers with the menu. I should take her to my optometrist and get her a cute pair of new frames if she wants them. The ones she’s wearing are nice, but look worn. The same can be said of many of her things. Almost nothing Laura owns is new. She thrifts much of her attire, and wears it until it cannot be worn any longer. This does not make her any less stylish. She has an eye for aesthetics that I very much admire.
The bus pulls up. Tires screech, complaining from lack of maintenance. I can see a series of tired people sitting staring out the window.
She deserves to have someone drive her everywhere she needs to go. She deserves to be put on pretty display. Soon she will know what it is to be truly cherished. The time is coming, sooner than she thinks.
The bus rumbles off and I put my car in gear and slide into the night, following the bus. At each stop, I pull in behind and wait for it to go again. If the driver were paying attention, he might notice he was being followed. But he’s not interested in what’s behind him.
She goes to the main station, and I could lose her there when she changes buses, but I pick her up on the 56 out toward Westbrook. She commutes an hour each way to get to her waitress job. She cannot afford to live in traditional campus housing. It’s too expensive. But if you go further out to the other side of the city, you can find places to live that even a full-time student with a part-time job can afford.
If I were an impatient man, I would have taken her already. But I know how to draw out enjoyment. I know that all of this waiting, this watching is going to pay off, and very, very soon.
I park outside her building, around the back, where there are no street lights and no security cameras. I am invisible here. And I wait again, this time with a growing excitement. Tonight is the night I begin to teach Laura a lesson she very much needs to learn. Teach might be the wrong word. Tonight I plan to start training her to be mine.
I will not be gentle, but I will be thorough.
Her apartment is a fourth floor walkup. The security door is propped open with a brick, even at eleven p.m. She moves it on her way in, but I already know the door code.
I walk up the stairs, to her apartment.
I let myself in.
CHAPTER 2