It all started the night I was attacked on my walk home from the laundromat. I’d had creeps follow me before, but it had always been relatively harmless—just the occasional whistle or crude comment. That night was different.

He’d watched me from the parking lot, his eyes ripping into me as I loaded my clothes for the drying cycle. When I left, he followed me, maybe fifteen steps behind, until I reached the alleyway. He closed in on me so fast that by the time I registered the sound of quickening footsteps, it was too late.

His hand clamped down so tightly over my mouth I thought he might break my teeth. He dragged me into the secluded pathway and slammed me onto the ground. The blood started running down the back of my head immediately and I was so dazed that I couldn’t fight back. I was already to come to terms with what was about to happen when he showed up. My own personal hero. Damon, as I would come to know him. I still don’t know where he came from, all I know is the guy who grabbed me is still in a coma.

I still remember Prince Charming pulling me to my feet, ripping off his jacket and using it to blot the blood on the back of my head. He was kind. Handsom in a way. Friendly as they come. Too friendly. Looking back, I knew even then that something was off, but what was I going to do? Shoo him away after he saved my dignity and maybe my life? No. This guy had risked his own safety to help me, the least I could do was have a friendly conversation while we waited for the cops.

It should have ended there.

Instead, Damon offered to walk me home that night and I’d let him. Why? Because it felt like the right thing to do. He was being chivalrous, and I felt obligated to let him be. Mistake number one: letting this stranger know where I live. Number two: giving him my phone number. He’d said he wanted to check in on me in a couple of days to see how I was. My plan was to answer, put his mind at ease that I was fine, likely politely reject a date invitation, and then block his number.

Funny enough he hadn’t asked me on a date during that first call. He really had called just to check on me and when I respectfully rushed to end the call, he obliged. I thought it was done there, but then, a few days later, I came home to the first bouquet of white roses on my doorstep. The note read: almost as pretty as you, even with the scrape on your head. It might have been cute if it wasn’t so unsettling. I ignored it. I shouldn’t have. I should have told someone the second I got that feeling in my stomach, but I didn’t.

The next day was worse. No flowers this time, instead, he called again. My phone started blaring at almost ten o’clock. I turned over in bed and grabbed it to see the number I had never created a contact for. I knew it was him. What I don’t know is why I answered it.

“Hello?” I answered, being sure to lean into the grogginess in my voice from having just woken up.

“Grace, it’s Damon,” he said, his voice level and calculated rather than friendly and chipper like before.

“Oh…hi.”

“…Did you get the roses?”

I didn’t reply right away. I was using the pauses strategically, hoping he would get the hint. Hoping he would eventually see how weird this was.

“Oh yeah, I got the flowers. The are really pretty,” I said, knowing full well they were buried under a mountain of garbage in my trash bin.

“Roses.”

“I’m sorry?”

“They weren’t flowers, they were roses. There is a difference. Maybe you would know that if you had looked at them for more than two seconds before throwing them away.”

Click.

I pulled the phone from my ear in disbelief as I looked to the screen for confirmation. I wasn’t crazy. He had actually hung up on me. Rude as it was, that didn’t bother me nearly as much as the fact that he knew I had thrown them away immediately upon finding them on my porch. There was only one way he would have known that.

He was watching.

I let myself believe that that was the end of it. That I had hurt his feelings, he had called to make that clear and now my life could move on like normal. I was able to believe that for four days. On the fifth day that fantasy went up entirely in flames as I arrived home to fourteen bouquets of red roses and one bouquet of white. The white batch had a note attached.

Good luck throwing all of these out. Your trash can isn’t big enough.

I ignored them and went inside. That week on trash night, I piled them up next to the can and was relieved when I woke the next day to find them all gone, along with the garbage. That relief lasted two more days, but it was stolen completely on the third. I arrived home to find the porch bare. No flowers, no notes. It wasn’t until I was inside that I realized something was wrong. There was a single bouquet of white roses sitting on my dining room table. I was frozen in time, that is until the sound of the deadbolt broke me from my trance.

I spun around to find that the door had been locked, and I did not have a clear path to it. Damon was standing in the way. He wasn’t smiling now. He was blank. Emotionless. I couldn’t move. It was like my feet had been nailed to the floorboards. My voice was caught somewhere deep in my esophagus. All I could do was stare as my body began to shake.  He took a step toward me and spoke.

“You know, you have a very odd way of showing appreciation Grace.”

Now he smiled.

“Its okay though, I am going to teach you.”