A Character Hiding Underneath The One You Thought You Knew

It wasn’t too long ago that a woman got out of a rocky relationship.

To be fair, everyone around her, family and friends and coworkers, thought it had gone on longer than it should have.

They told her as much just about every chance they could.

After the split, the woman deleted him off everything. All of it. All social media, out of her phone, everywhere.

She made a clean break from all of him, and also went out of her way to make sure people in her life knew it was a clean break and that she was picking up the pieces of her life.

She redecorated her apartment. New furniture and photographs in the living room. New routine in the mornings. Journaling. Hobbies. She showed people the new version of her life with a very, very deliberate enthusiasm, saying she had processed everything and come out the other side a stronger person.

When his name came up, and it came up, because it always comes up, she was strangely generous. No bitterness. She said she understood why it didn’t work. She wished him well.

It seemed pretty clear to folks that the woman had evolved past wishing it had gone differently. Her family said they were proud of her and everyone who knew her watched her move through the end of that relationship with grace and composure.

But.

There was one problem.

Every night after work she drove twenty minutes out of her way to pass by his house.

Sometimes she stopped.

Parked across the street.

Watched his windows, watched the front door.

Sometimes she was there when a new girl arrived. Sometimes she waited to see if the girl would leave.

Sometimes the girl didn’t leave until morning.

But.

Still.

She waited in her car, watching anyway.

And, dear writers, the reader of that story now has a problem.

Read more