I woke to footsteps outside my bedroom door. It took me a minute to orient myself and remember I was in my new apartment, so the person walking past my door had to be my new roommate.
Suddenly wide awake, I sprang upright. For three days, we’d lived together, and for three days, I’d been a tense, emotional wreck. We hadn’t crossed paths once since the day we’d moved in. He’d helped carry all my things up from the back of Noel’s truck, and once that was done, he’d disappeared into his room.
I couldn’t say much about that, though, since I’d been just as blatantly avoiding him. But I doubt he held his breath whenever he heard me through the paper-thin walls, not the way I did. I mostly just sat around and waited for the next time his footsteps would pass by my door. I would listen to him in the kitchen, getting food, in the bathroom, showering, at the door, leaving for work. It blew my mind that he was so close now, so...right there, and I was doing nothing about it.
I checked the time and nearly groaned aloud, wondering what he was doing up at seven in the morning. He’d worked last night so he wouldn’t have gotten home until well after two. I’d tried to wait up so I could hear him come in—since I was turning into his personal stalker—but I’d passed out sometime after one.
Unless he was just getting in now—in which case I had to wonder who he’d spent the night with—but that didn’t seem right since it sounded as if he was opening the apartment door to leave, not enter.
Wait. He was leaving? But where was he going?
Throwing off my covers, I flew out of bed, jerked my feet into some house slippers, grabbed a sweatshirt, and rushed from my room. I yanked my arms and head through all the holes as I raced out of the apartment in hot pursuit. I had no idea why my curiosity was making me do this, but I was like a woman possessed. I had to know where he was going, what he was doing. At all times.
Even though I hauled ass to catch up with him, he was halfway up the block by the time I exited the building, which, actually, was probably perfect. He might not catch me following if I stayed this far back.
Knox had his hood up and hands stuffed in his pockets. He didn’t appear to be in a hurry—he just walked that fast.
I didn’t think he’d go that far on foot, but six blocks later, I was panting and sweating like crazy in my flannel sleep pants and ready for a break and maybe a foot massage. Once again, I wondered why the heck it’d been so important to me to follow him. I was about to give up, calling myself insane, and go home, but he finally veered off into a parking lot, where he passed rows of cars to enter a building called Speedy’s Gym.
I stopped in my tracks and blinked as he disappeared inside.
Okay, so he worked out. For some reason, I had not seen that coming, even though he was built like a brick house these days. It just didn’t seem like something eighteen-year-old Knox would’ve done, making it even harder for me to believe he was the same person as the man I’d just tailed eight blocks.
But seriously, how could someone change that much?
Realizing I was just loitering outside a workout gym in my pajamas like a total creeper, I trudged home and crawled back into bed.
When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of my woods, and the strip pit, and a boy who apparently no longer existed. It was such a beautiful, bittersweet dream that when I woke again, tears clogged my lashes.