The Ex by Freida McFadden(18)

“No, thanks.” Cassie rolls her eyes. The boys are harmless—she can tell that much. But there’s still something in the train car making her uneasy.

She glances at the woman at the far end of the train. The woman is staring listlessly out the far window. It should comfort her to see another woman on the train, but it doesn’t.

When the train finally comes to Cassie’s stop, she leaps out of her seat. She hops off the train, minding the substantial gap between the car and the platform. The tight feeling in her chest loosens up as she gets off the train, until she notices the platform is even more desolate than the train was. She strides purposefully down the platform toward the stairs.

As the train dashes off to its next stop, she can’t help but notice the car she’d been in is now entirely empty.

It is a two-block walk from the train station to Cassie’s home. Usually it’s a quick walk, but at this moment, those two blocks seem endless. She shivers under her Yankees hoodie, wrapping her arms across her chest. Why didn’t she let Joel get her a taxi? Stupid pride.

She starts to walk down the block, past the animal shelter, past the drug store, past the bank. Everything is closed now. And when she’s halfway down the block, she notices something.

With every one of her own steps, she hears a second set of footsteps.

There’s someone behind her.

Well, why shouldn’t there be someone behind her? After all, it’s Friday night—it’s reasonable there should be other people on the street.

Except there’s something in Cassie’s gut telling her whoever is behind her isn’t an innocent partygoer. It’s a dark feeling in the pit of her stomach. There’s someone following her.

When her Grandma Bea was alive, she used to sometimes read aloud stories in the newspaper about disappearances. Girl went out on a jog and never returned. Cassie strained her memory, trying to think of one story of a missing girl her age that ended well. She couldn’t.

The stories never scared Cassie. She was too smart to let anything happen to her. What sort of idiot goes jogging at five in the morning anyway? That’s just asking for trouble.

Why didn’t she let Joel get that taxi?

Stupid, stupid…

There was a policeman at the subway station. Maybe she could run back there and try to find him. But then he might insist on escorting her up to her apartment. And she can’t risk a cop getting a look at what’s in her apartment. That would potentially be… bad. Very bad.

Cassie starts walking more rapidly. It isn’t until she crosses the street that she’s outright sprinting. One more block to her apartment building. One more block. She reaches into her purse for her keys as she walks, wanting them ready but also anticipating they could be used as a weapon if need be.

By the time she reaches the front door of her building, she’s panting. She yanks her key out of her purse, but her hand is shaking too badly to fit the key in the lock. She’s certain she’s about to feel a hand cover her mouth, but she inserts the key on the second try and the door to her building swings open. She slides inside and slams it closed behind her.

It’s only after she hears the lock click back into place that she dares to turn around. She peers through the window by the door, trying to see whose footsteps had followed her all the way home.

There’s no one there.





Chapter 9: The Ex


I stood outside her apartment for an hour.

It was close to an hour, at least. I wasn’t keeping track. None of it was planned. I didn’t plan to follow her home. But then when her steps quickened and it became clear she was afraid, it energized me. I wanted her to be afraid. I wanted her to know there are consequences to dating Joel Broder.

I wouldn’t have really harmed her. For starters, I had no weapons aside from the nearly empty bottle of mace in my purse. (I haven’t used it on anyone, but I give it a practice spritz every time I go out late at night by myself.) And also, that’s not me. I am not a person who attacks a young woman on a deserted street.

But yes, I enjoyed giving her a scare. Joel broke my heart—what can I say?

In the light of day though, I was embarrassed by my behavior. I immediately deleted the WhereAmI app from my phone. Nothing good will come of tracking my ex-boyfriend’s whereabouts on my phone. That’s the last thing I should be doing.

Not that it’s any big revelation. “Stalking your ex-boyfriend is bad” ranks alongside with “the sky is blue” and “don’t put metal in the microwave.”

Now it’s a week later, and with Joel a little more out of my system than he was a week earlier, I’m doing my version of window shopping. Technically, window shopping involves looking into windows and admiring stuff you can’t afford. But that’s not much fun. My version involves trying on outfits I can’t afford and spritzing myself with perfume I can’t afford.

For the most part, it’s fun. But sometimes I see a top or dress I really love that fits me perfectly, and it’s impossible to keep from buying it. It’s too easy to plunk down my credit card, knowing I can deal with the bill at another time in the future.

This black cocktail dress is definitely a battle of wills. I tried it on and it was so sexy—the plunging neckline nearly made me gasp when I got a look at it. If I wore this dress and “accidentally” ran into Joel, it might make him forget all about that girl he was kissing with the olive skin. Of course, now that I deleted WhereAmI, I can’t engineer such a meetup anymore. And anyway, I’m forgetting about Joel. He’s distant history.