I See You

29

The silence and the tension that fell over the kitchen could have been cut with a knife, there was an electric aura around the three people that sat at the kitchen and with each passing second in silence, it seemed as if they would turn into statutes.

"What?" whispered Nicola "What do you mean?"

Junior, who had kept his eyes over Lena for the past minutes, slowly looked down at the box and the envelope, Lena followed his sight.

"I'm being followed" she answered, she placed her hand over the envelope and caressed it gently, almost as if her gentle touch could erase all the terrors that had been unraveling before her.

"Can I see the box?" asked Junior, his eyes were still over it.

Lena pulled the box over her lap once more and looked up at the two young men in front of her, she glanced from Junior to Nicola and then back down to the box.

"Not yet" she whispered.

"Ok" said Nicola, he leaned over the table "How do you know you are being followed?"

Lena pulled out her cellphone and scanned through her text messages "It started when you came back to town"

Lena and Nicola turned to look at Junior, he frowned and crossed his arms over his chest, he wasn't sure if Lena was accusing him of being the one doing all the weird shit she was talking about.

"I got a text after I slapped you" she handed the phone to Nicola, Junior looked angry and she wasn't sure she wanted him to crack and lose control right there in her kitchen.

"You are gonna regret that" Nicola read out loud, he turned to Junior and showed him the words that appeared over the phone screen.

"I didn't send that, Lena" said Junior as he turned to look from the phone back to Lena, he leaned over the kitchen island "I swear"

"I know" she whispered "But I did think it was you until I got the second one"

Nicola looked down at the phone and read the text once more, he wasn't sure what to think of all that and above all he wasn't sure why Lena was just telling them this, when it was obvious it had been going on for a while.

"The next message that I got wasn't a text" explained Lena, she opened the box and pulled out a brown envelope, she opened the envelope and placed the photos over the table, Nicola put down the phone and looked at the phots just like Junior was doing.

Junior looked up at Lena and she handed him the threat, he took it and Nicola leaned towards Junior to read the message; the first time they were being civilized with each other.

"Stop what?" asked Nicola as he eyed Lena.

Lena looked pale as paper, her eyes looked dry and with heavy bags under her eyes, it was then that Nicola noticed that her eyes were a little bit puffy; how had he not noticed all the horrors that she had gone to?

He took a deep breath as he tried not to feel like the worse person in the world, Lena looked at him and gently reached for his hand and placed her hand over his. Junior looked away from the photo and down at their holding hands, the rising tide of anger came back, this time hitting him stronger.

"What came next?" he asked to get Lena's attention away from that weirdo sitting next to him.

"I got a photo text from Stuart's party, and a text from when we saw each other again" said Lena as she looked at Nicola. She made a pause "You can look at the texts, I got two from the two confrontations you two had" she made a pause and her eyes hardened "Thank you for telling me"