I waited for you. I waited at the top of the steps, just like you said. The evening air chilled my face, my hands burned with the cold.
I'm waiting, watching the street bustle below, the car lights reflecting in the puddles blind me without warning. The fine rain flickers as the headlights hit. Flecks of the winter that's well on its way.
Around me the world continues; a chaotic chorus of sounds, cars, buses, raised voices rising above it all compelling me to look up whilst trying to avoid eye contact. The street itself is alive, the hum vibrates with constant chatter. Phone screens illuminate and punctuate the pavement shielded by the shadows holding them. Connected online but so far removed from this place; here, now, where I stand and wait for you.
The smells of the street are carried though the jagged breeze, A sweetness I can't place that makes me feel both hungry and sick at the same time. The air cuts through the thin flimsy material of my jacket, I pull the sleeves down over my hands to try and stop the stinging. My trainers, wet from the walk here soak through to my socks and I can't feel my toes. I feel only a fraction of gratitude that it is, at least, taking my mind off the pain in my fingers.
Where are you? I feel the irritation start to grow into something more. I refuse to succumb to the anger that's rising through my stomach and up into my chest. I look out across the road again, the sea of bodies moves in a natural rhythm, separating out seamlessly as people head down into the station whilst others carry straight on.
I don't know it yet, but you're not coming. You've changed your mind, you're sat at home too busy to care if I even turned up. She looks out of the window of your flat, glad to be inside as the wind rattles through the gaps between the thin glass and rotten frames, chilling the air. The smells from the street find their way in and she can't quite work out if the sweetness in the air makes her hungry or nauseated. She doesn't know it yet, but you chose her instead of me. Chose her to be your next victim.
The days pass, I get up and head to work as normal, still feeling crushed, rejected and humiliated at being stood up. I walk down the steps and join the crowds pouring into the station. I mindlessly pick up a paper, a big headline stamped over a beautiful smiling face. She looks up at me: MISSING. I scan the story, still not paying much attention but then I stop. I look again at the grainy CCTV picture, she's standing waiting at the top of the stairs, in the exact same spot where I waited for you the other night.
I'm angry again at the memory; It stings and I can't help but wonder whether you had any intention of meeting me at all. I wince to think how I've shared so many secrets with you, more than I should have. The late night message alerts electrified the atmosphere of my lonely room. You, the shadow in the dark, me the light to your sorrow, you said so yourself.
I feel so foolish, so desperate to connect, for someone to do more than swipe right. I didn't put you off, like the others, with my eagerness. What was it you said? My vulnerability was beautiful. We chatted for hours, talked about everything and nothing, we have so much in common. I joked that you know me better than Cambridge Analytica, except I don't find that so funny anymore and think even they couldn't find you now. I feel as though you're hiding, I can't track you down. I've tried, I've looked everywhere for you.
I glance back down at the paper. it strikes me as strange that the image of her, standing waiting there at the top of the stairs, is the final sighting. My stomach lurches and the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. An ice-cold sensation flows down my spine and seeps out across my skin, I shudder and, for a split second, feel sheer terror. I can't place the feeling, this unease at these circumstances. This is nothing to do with me, but I sense something very, very wrong, I feel a morbid connection to this, to you, to her.
I start to wonder... is it beyond the realm of possibility that you could be part of this?, The darkness searching for the light within, that's what you said, and I can't seem to shake it. I close my eyes tightly when I recall our chats, I force myself breathe in deeply as I recall them all. Too intimate, too dark, both thrilling and terrifying. The excitement clouded all reason and I 'm relieved now, that I never met you.
I've read the messages over and over again trying to work out if it was something I said, work out what I did to put you off. You, the dark shadow, at first so fascinating, now feels creepy and sinister. I sense your presence but I can't see you. I feel like I'm losing my mind, like I've had a lucky escape.
You haven't answered my messages, you've turned into a ghost. You, as missing as the woman in the paper, who, when I look again, can't help but notice looks a lot like me.
