They’ll come. One of these days they will come.
I sit by the window and watch, waiting for the cars to pull up.
You only get away with something like that for so many years. They track you down in the end.
I order food online, have them leave it outside. I haven’t been outside for a long time.
I seldom sleep for more than an hour at a go. I wake thinking the footsteps have finally begun on the stairs. Climbing slowly. Steadily. Climbing to my door. The hand drawn back to deliver the fatal knock. The knock that signals the end.
Why is it taking so long? What is keeping them? This tension is killing me. Grinding me down, controlling me.
There, that man on the bike! It could be him. He is stopping right outside. Leaning his bike against my railings. He must be the one. At last. Oh thank God, at last. Why is he locking it? This won’t take long. Damn, he is not coming here. He’s not the one.
I am crying. It’s not relief. I don’t think it’s relief.
Now I am laughing as well. I’m still free.
Still completely free.