Stalking Kasey

Ch. 10 Try Anything And You'll Regret It

🤷🏻‍♀️ It's short but it's something

I smiled. I smiled.

It was just a stupid game but playing it brought back our inside jokes and our funny memories and how safe I used to feel with him by my side.

How ridiculous, it seemed now, that I'd ever felt safe with him.

It made me sick, remembering all of that, knowing that that entire time, he'd been stalking me, obsessing over me, planning to do this.

And yet, when we got to that part of the game where he'd always do that stupid trick, I smiled.

I tore it from my lips before he could see, but it almost didn't matter. I was winning the game, but out here in real life, I'd never been losing this bad.
When the loading screen came up for the next episode, my eyes flit back to the book he'd taken from me. I felt a flicker of anger that he hadn't told me it was his favorite, that he'd made me love something he loved too. It was different than all the things we'd shared before. This book came after. And he tricked me and played with me, and it made me so angry because I wanted nothing to do with him and yet there was so much of him in everything I did and was and liked and wanted.

I wanted to set that book on fire, and at the same time I couldn't even stomach the thought.

When the game was over, he handed back the book and picked up his own, but though I'd opened it back to the page I'd left off on, I couldn't get myself to read a word. I just stared at it. And stared and stared and stared so hard I didn't realize when Chase had begun to stare at me.

"Kasey," He called, his voice soft, soft like all the times he'd comforted me when I'd had to deal with a mean customer or got upset over a disagreement with my friends or felt down about my pathetic life in my studio apartment working overtime at a book store.

He didn't deserve to speak to me like that anymore.

"You don't have to give up what you enjoy just because I enjoy it too." He murmured. "Why do you think I fell in love with you? We have so much in common. We click, Kasey. Fighting it is only going to make you miserable. And for what?"

I didn't respond, glaring down at the book.

He just sighed. "Fine. But if you're not going to read the book, I might as well take it back."

He reached for it, but I recoiled, instinctually hugging it to my chest. He paused, and a slight furrow touched his eyebrows. He slowly withdrew his arm, but I didn't relax, on edge for whatever he would try next.

"Why didn't you ever read before?" He asked.

"What are you talking about?" I cautiously unfurled myself, closing the book but leaving it in my lap.

"All those years working at that bookstore, you never read anything. You didn't have any books at home and you never picked up any at the store. But clearly," He gestured to the book, "you enjoy reading."

My mouth felt dry, and I couldn't drag up a response. My fingers curled tighter around the book. He arched a brow and I swallowed.

"No time."

He just smiled. "You forget how well I know you. You had plenty of free time."

I grit my teeth. "I didn't want to read. Better ways to spend my free time. Not much else to do here."

The silence between us made my skin prickle and I couldn't stop from glancing at him, something dropping in my stomach from the way he observed me.

"Why are you hiding the truth? It can't hurt you."