I am someone who lives a relatively peaceful life, all things considered. I am a woman in my mid-thirties who gets to work from home as an editor and has a fairly cushy, two-bedroom apartment. At the moment, my fiancé is on military leave, and as of late, I’ve been feeling a bit trapped and lonely being home by myself while he’s away. I’ll be honest, I don’t really have many friends to call or text at any time. I haven’t really felt the need to have a vast number of friends, even if I were able to. Although I do have a close friend named Janine, who has felt like a big sister to me for years, I met her when I was working my first job as a barista. Janine was my former manager, who eventually became a chosen family member. I guess for now, it’s just me, my dog, and my work to keep me company. Just like it was when I was dorming in college.
Most of the time, when I’m alone, I can thrive, for the most part, pretty decently. But a number of odd and unusual things have been happening since my fiancé left for work. The type of unexplainable occurrences that would sound like I was going mental if I explained them out loud. I’ve decided to turn to the internet for faceless advice instead of being put on a 24-hour psychiatric hold by some therapist. The following entries are from my own personal journal of nearly the entire recorded experience, except for some names I had to change for privacy reasons. I don’t really know how to start this, so I guess I’ll just go from the beginning.
Sunday, June 3rd. My fiancé, Nick, officially left for his military deployment last Friday to an undisclosed location. Nick has been in the army ever since the first year of our relationship, but he hasn’t had to go on a trip in a long time now. I’ve been feeling a bit bitter at his absence since I’ve gotten used to him always being there recently. Ive been trying to keep my emotions in check and dive head first into my editing. Maintaining the entire apartment by myself has been a struggle; I forgot how hard it can be sometimes.
I keep ruminating on whether or not Nick is going to be okay wherever he is. I’ve noticed that it’s much harder to ignore what’s going on in your head when you’re alone. Every negative belief, catastrophic thought, or worry about the future is just emphasized when you’re alone.
Meanwhile, there are two large book manuscripts that I haven’t even begun to work on, as well as the fact that new authors interview me to edit their work all the time. I had to miss my Alcoholics Anonymous meeting today because of the lofty workload, but at least I can get away with it without Nick being here to get all disappointed in me. I just didn’t have the time. I had to go out and get Riley’s special dog food, but got sidetracked, going to unessential stores and paying an ungodly amount of money for non-necessity items. Nick’s sergeant won’t let him make phone calls just yet, so it’s been hard to adjust to having to live by himself for the first time in three years.
I suspect that my friend, Janine, has noticed my negative mood this past week because an unexpected delivery was left at my door this morning. A beautiful vase of red roses and a baby’s breath. The tag on the side read, “To Cassidy, I thought you might like something to look at while you work. I hope it brightens your day.” I’d recognized my friend’s handwriting anywhere: the same heart above the ‘I’, and sharp cursive writing. I just knew it was her. Of course! This is the exact kind of thing that that woman would do. I hope there’s a way I can pay her back somehow.
Monday, June 4th. After I ate breakfast, I ended up giving Janine a call to thank her for cheering me up with the flowers yesterday. I started by asking her if she wanted to stop by the apartment for mocktails.
“Sorry, Cass, I’m in the middle of visiting my parents upstate. I’m coming back tomorrow; can we do it then?” Janine responded.
“For sure! I just wanted to pay you back for the little gift you dropped off yesterday.” I explained.
“Oh? What was the gift?” She sounded thrown off. “You didn’t have to send me flowers; stopping to say hi would’ve been enough.” A moment of silence passed.
Apparently, Janine had arrived at her parents house last Saturday for her mom’s birthday, hours away from town. I found myself perplexed by the situation. The only other person I could imagine sending me flowers would be Nick, but the note said that whoever dropped off the flowers did it themselves.
It’s hard to be overly concerned because it did seem like a wholesome gesture from whoever it was. It was either that or a prank pulled by some neighborhood kid. Either way, I’m not too worried.
Wednesday, June 6th. After Janine came back from her parents’ place, we decided that we’d go to her friend’s barbecue and then pick up some coffee afterwards. The subject of the flowers came up only once or twice after we got coffee. Janine joked about the possibility of a secret admirer who may be hopelessly desperate to catch my attention. She suggested it could be one of my past clients.
“Let him down easily,” she laughed as she sipped on her coffee.
When I got back to my apartment earlier today, I was exhausted from all the socializing at the barbecue and was ready to finish the rest of my day off in solitude. I was about to go outside when I saw a square brown package beside my door. Did I order something recently? Perhaps. I can’t really remember.
Looking further, the package didn’t even have a normal-looking shipping label or return address on it. I put my stuff down, sat at my table, and peeled the tape off the box.
Inside was a smaller, white box that contained a silver-chained necklace adorned with a beautiful aquamarine gem encased in gold edges.
I’m certain I haven’t ordered any jewelry lately.
This had to be some sort of mistake.
When I examined it further, I felt like I’d seen a necklace like this before. I was blanking. I tried my hardest to explain the deja vu, but I failed. The defeated frustration nags at me relentlessly. What bothered me even more was the inscription, written on top of the white box. ‘From Alex’.
I went through the list of my co-workers as well as friends and acquaintances, and I came to no conclusion. Who the hell is this man? At first, I thought it might’ve been shipped to the wrong address, but it couldn’t have been. The label clearly had my address printed on the front.
Tuesday, June 12th. It’s been almost a week since I’ve written here. I’ve been having some odd physical symptoms recently. I’ll have these weird, dizzy spells that come with severe headaches. These episodes started last Friday. When I feel them coming on, sometimes I’ll go on autopilot until the symptoms improve. Sometimes I’ll even forget where I am while the spells are happening. Come to think of it, I think I remember my mom telling me about a similar issue she had when she was a kid.
My mother has been a heavy subject on my mind lately. Ever since she died, I’ve kept a large collection of pictures of her from my childhood home. I was skimming through some old pictures today, experiencing an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. I stumbled upon some Polaroids of me and my mom at a fall festival in 1997. One of them showed my mom and me coming off of a hayride. We were both laughing, with giant grins on our faces and autumn leaves sticking to our hair and clothes.
I felt a tear roll down my cheek. I miss that woman so much, even with her many flaws. She would always be the one to suggest family outings whenever it got too stressful at home. I kept looking at similar trips for a while until I noticed something in one of the Polaroids. My eyebrows furrowed, and I held the Polaroid closer to my face. Around my mother’s neck was a delicate silver chain, and the pendant was an aquamarine gem with gold edges. The moment the realization clicked in my head, it caused my whole body to stiffen.
Wednesday, June 13th.
I tried to convince myself to hold off on calling my dad just so I could ease my own mind. After fighting the urge for what felt like so long,
I couldn’t stand it anymore.
When I called my dad, he was with his girlfriend, eating lunch. He seemed frazzled and unprepared to hear my frantic voice over the phone.
“Hey Dad, Are you home right now by any chance?” I attempted to calm my panic to the best of my ability so as not to freak my dad out.
“At the moment I am, is everything okay?” He stuttered.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.” I paused.
“This might sound weird, but would you mind checking mom’s old vanity and seeing if her aquamarine gem necklace is still there?” I blurted out.
He sounded confused but said that he would see if it was still in its place. Before he reminded me, I’d forgotten that necklace was one of my mom’s favorite pieces in her jewelry collection. She wouldn’t even let me touch it as a kid, much less let me go near her vanity. I guess I never noticed how much she wore it in pictures when I was younger. When my dad checked for it, he said that he kept the display on, saying that it wasn’t there. He reassured me that he probably just misplaced it somewhere. And, all the while, that same necklace was sitting in the palm of my hands as we spoke on the phone. My breathing came to a halt, and my heart sank to my feet. Who this person was—this motherfucker. He knew where my dad lived and somehow got inside to collect the necklace.
Friday, June 15th. I tried calling the police after what happened on Wednesday and was turned away each time I called 911. I thought it might be better to go down to the police station myself. I told the officer at the front that I thought someone might be stalking me and had possibly broken into my dad’s house.
I turned my mom’s necklace over to the investigation officer and was asked to fill out a number of different statement forms. When I finally met with the lead officer, he did everything but laughed in my face when I explained my situation to him. I know I didn’t technically see the break-in happen, nor did I know who this ‘Alex’ person was, but I thought that someone could at least help me figure out what to do. I should’ve known that not much could be done without evidence, but I was desperate. I couldn’t call Nick about it. I’m left to my own devices now to deal with whatever the fuck is going on
I saw another package at my doorstep this afternoon.
Saturday, June 16th.
I felt like a walking time bomb today.
Anxiety loomed over my head like a vulture. I was struggling to finish editing one of my manuscripts, and I can tell my client is getting frustrated at my lack of progress on his book. My mind has been scattered today, trying to figure out ways to get an I.D. on this person and catch them in the act. I went out to Costco and bought one of those doorbell cameras because it was really all I could afford in terms of security. I had another one of those dizzy spells today. When I was driving on the freeway back from the store, this feeling of vertigo crept in, and I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings. When the episode was over, I realized I was on a different exit than I was on originally. Miraculously, my car was still in tact, and I had no visible injuries on my person. These episodes were beginning to make me concerned for my well-being. The stress of this situation is eating away at me.
The package I got yesterday was larger than the first one. It was a padded envelope with a brown book inside and a thin, twined rope tied around it. It was a photo album of sorts, but it looked handmade, almost like a scrapbook. Still no return address and no name on the envelope, besides the name ‘Alex’ scrawled on the front page of the book. There was a torn-off piece of paper attached to the front with a note. It read simply, “Hope this can cheer you up.”
In the context of what’s been happening, the words on the note sounded oddly normal and off-beat. My heart was pounding against my ribcage, and fear encompassed my being as I prepared for the contents of this book. My suspense dropped when I skimmed through the first couple of pages. Most of the pictures in this album were shots of trees and the sky, with some pictures of the city thrown into the mix.
This whole album just consisted of nature photography and cityscapes; there was nothing noteworthy about them. Just pages and pages of pretentious shots of nothing.
The rest of the day was spent installing the doorbell camera, which, admittedly, took an hour to complete. I hope that dreaming can be somewhat of an escape for me, at least. I need sleep. I just need sleep.
Wednesday, June 21st. It’s been almost a week since the last package came, and I’ve been checking the front door camera like a hawk. I asked my mailman last week if he recognized any of the packages I’d gotten and if he had been the one who delivered them. He checked the computer in his truck and found that the packages I received weren’t even in the mailing system, noting the lack of a tracking number on the boxes that I showed him. My mailman said the packages would have had to have been hand-delivered if they had shown up on my doorstep. The words sent a chill through my body, and beads of sweat started to appear on my forehead.
A day ago, something stranger even happened.
When I was coming back from a run, I noticed that some flyers had been stuck in the opening of my door. The flyers were mostly advertisements, so I just went through them, standing over my trash can as I did.
I almost threw the last one in the garbage when I felt that the last two were stuck together. The second-to-last flyer It didn’t look to be an ad at all. It was a postcard. Written on the back was a small message written in bold letters: “Look closer, there’s magic here.”
I mentioned the strange postcard to Janine when she came over later in the day, showing her the message written on the back. She seemed to question its significance, considering how dull the picture was. It was a picture of a long stretch of road, showing fields of gated farmlands on both sides and horses gathering behind the road barriers. Why would anyone choose this hideous postcard to send? The thought baffled me. I also showed Janine the photo album I received in the last package. She scrolled through the pages for a bit and didn’t say anything for a while.
She came to the last page of the book, and a bewildered expression spread across her face.
“Did you notice this when you got the post card?” She commented. The very last picture at the last page of the album was the same image on the postcard.
I now realize some other things about the new photo album that I didn’t pick up on before. It was subtle, but it was obvious when you looked for it. All of these pictures seemed to be taken of places I’ve been to in the past few weeks. One of them had the corner of the pet store I went to when I got Riley’s dog food. Another picture revealed the parking lot of the Costco I drove to last Saturday. It was hidden on the side of the image.
What scared me most was the picture showing the edge of the sign of my apartment complex.
What the hell is this?