The turquoise ring weighed heavy in my pocket. A symbol of the secrets I’d kept and the lies I’d told.
“Because the first time I saw you wasn’t the day you signed the lease at the Mirage,” I said. “It was five years ago.”
Stella’s mouth parted in shock.
The truth emerged in bits and pieces after years of being hidden.
“I was sitting outside a cafe in Hazelburg. You were walking past when someone grabbed your purse and ran.”
I hadn’t cared about such a minor theft, but I’d been intrigued enough to stay and watch the scene unfold.
“I remember that day,” Stella said quietly. “It was my senior year of college. I was on my way home from class.”
I nodded. “A passerby caught the kid, the police came, and that should’ve been it. But when you found out he stole your purse because he needed the money for food, you gave him all the cash you’d had on hand instead of pressing charges.”
“Are you sure?” The police officer looked at the brunette like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You want to give him the money?”
“Yes.” She glanced at the surly teen. He glared back at her, but I spotted the tiniest glint of hope in his eyes. “The cash means more to him than to me.”
“He tried to steal from you.” The officer sounded as baffled as I felt.
I leaned against a nearby building and scrolled through my phone, but all of my attention was focused on the interaction playing out less than ten feet away.
I didn’t know what’d compelled me to stick around after the kid had been caught, but I was glad I had.
I’d been bored all day, but this…this was interesting.
Why the fuck would someone give money to the person who’d tried to rob them?
“Yes, I know,” the brunette said patiently. “But he’s just a kid, and he needs the cash. Charges aren’t necessary.”
The officer shook his head. “It’s your money.”
I tuned him out as he closed out the case and examined the brunette, fascinated.
I’d heard her give her name when the police first arrived.
Stella Alonso.
She looked like she was in her early twenties, with curly dark hair, green eyes, and a quick, warm smile. She was gorgeous, but that wasn’t what enthralled me.
It was the gentleness with which she spoke. The absurdity of her action. The unwavering optimism in her eyes even when an attempted robbery in broad daylight should’ve shaken her faith in humanity.
The way she’d reacted hadn’t been at all what I’d expected. If there was one thing that never failed to spark my interest, it was people who subverted my expectations.
A smile curved my lips for the first time that day.
Eventually, the officer left after giving the teen a stern warning. The kid lingered like he wanted to say something. He must’ve thought better of it because he soon scampered off without a word, not even a thank you.
Stella didn’t appear perturbed.
She simply hiked her bag higher on her shoulder and walked away like nothing had happened.
As she did, something slipped off her hand.
I didn’t call after her to alert her to the missing item. Instead, I waited until she disappeared around the corner before I walked over and retrieved the turquoise ring from the ground.
I pulled the ring out of my pocket. The usually warm stone felt ice cold in my palm.
Stella stared at it for a second before she sucked in a sharp breath.
“My ring. It was always falling off because it was too loose. I thought I…” Her eyes met mine again. “You’ve had it this whole time?”
I swallowed hard. “It reminded me of you.”
I’d kept it as a token of her goodness. A reminder that, amidst all the death and chaos, a light existed somewhere in the world.
Some days, that light had been the only thing that’d kept my soul intact.
“I was fascinated,” I said. “You were an enigma, a puzzle I couldn’t solve. I didn’t understand how anyone could be…good enough to do what you did. So I looked into your background.”
I couldn’t read Stella’s expression, but she didn’t say anything, so I forged on.
“It started with basic background information, but it spiraled until it turned into what you saw. The more I learned about you, the more I wanted to know.”
Not wanted. Needed.
She was a living contradiction, and she’d consumed my thoughts in a way no one and nothing had before or since.
The fashion blogger who spent hours putting together the perfect outfit and the volunteer who spent her free time cleaning up trash from the parks.
The social media star who was glued to her phone but was always there for her friends.
The introvert who lived her life in the public eye online.
The calm and the chaos, the silence and the storm.
The calm to my chaos, the silence to my storm.
I’d been obsessed with Stella Alonso for five years, and I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.
“How long did this go on?” Stella finally asked, her voice dull.
My hand closed around the ring. “Almost a year.”
“A year.” She paled further. “You were stalking me for a year?”
“I wasn’t stalking you. I...” Guilt and frustration knotted in my chest. “Other than the background info, everything I knew was public knowledge.”
It was a flimsy excuse.
I hadn’t followed her physically, but I’d used all the tools at my disposal to dig through her life. Nothing and no one around her had been off-limits.
It wasn’t stalking in the traditional sense, but I’d crossed massive boundaries, nonetheless.
“I stopped when I…” Realized how attached I was getting. Even then, I’d known that Stella was a dangerous distraction, and I’d resented the hold she had on me. It had been equal parts fascinating and frustrating.
“I stopped after that,” I finished. “I didn’t dig any deeper, and I only knew what you posted online. I had no idea about your stalker, Greenfield, or anything that happened that you didn’t talk about publicly.”
It had taken all my willpower to stay away physically, but no matter how hard I tried to forget her, I couldn’t.
I hadn’t spoken a word to her, and she’d remained at the forefront of my mind for years.
Then, in a stroke of luck, her best friend fell in love with Rhys, who referred Stella to my building, and the rest was history.
“That doesn’t change the fact that you lied to me this entire time.” Stella wrapped her arms tighter around her waist. “You let me believe we’d never met before.”
“Because we hadn’t.” “I shouldn’t have deceived you, but I can’t change the past. If I’d told you what I did, you would’ve left.”
After wanting her for so long, I’d finally had Stella close, and I hadn’t risked driving her away.
“I’ll destroy the files,” I said desperately when Stella remained silent. “I’ll never look at them again, and we can move on from this.” Every word scraped through my chest.
Her humorless laugh singed my lungs. “We can’t move on from this.”