Brave Enough To Love Again

Chapter 72

Eden

I did not know how to deal with the "Vic-issue". He kept popping up to greet me and handing me flowers and, or chocolates randomly. Others would call this kind of behavior stalking, and I would have to agree with them. However, he never really said anything other than greet me and wish me a good day. 

I wondered what he was expecting from me. Most of the time he popped out of nowhere and handed me whatever gift he had planned for me directly into my hands and disappeared as fast as he would come. There was not much time to react appropriately. 

If we hadn't had the history that we had and he and I were just two normal people, it would look completely harmless to others. Vic would just have been a guy pursuing a girl he liked and wasn't giving up so easily. But that was not the case at all, so confusion and irritation were the primary feelings cursing through my body during our "random" encounters.

My emotions completely changed to ire, wrath, fury, anger and so on, when I was once again contacted by my best friend Megan who was still working abroad, to inform me about articles that have been written about me in the gossip magazines. She had read them online and called me right away to ask me what was happening. 

I was on my way to work when she reached me on my phone. Due to her busy work life we had not caught up with news about each other in a while, so I had to explain to her what Vic had been doing to me in the last couple of weeks. 

"So, he's stalking you?" Megan's voice was annoyed. 

"Can one really call that stalking?" I really wasn't sure at all. "He wasn't really doing anything bad. Just giving me presents." 

"Well, then. Let me ask you some questions." She began in a serious voice.

"Okay."

"How do you feel when he approaches you?"

"Not good."

"Okay. What do you think about his presents? What do you do with them?"

"Well. I don't keep them, of course. I threw them all away."

"Okay." Megan wasn't finished yet and I wasn't sure where she was going. "Do you want him to continue to approach you and give you presents?"

"No, of course not. What kind of question is that."

"Well, there you have it. All those things can be considered stalking. Especially in your case, because of, you know, your past and all," Megan's last words were almost inaudible 

I knew. And she didn't need to say it out loud. 

Vic had hurt me countless times in the past. I hadn't forgotten, of course. 

"You should go to the police," my best friend suggested, "ask for a restraining order."

"That is a bit much, don't you think?" I found the advice exaggerated, "I'd better talk to him first before taking that step. I don't want to draw any more attention to myself. I really don't want the world to know about the Vic-drama in the past."

After talking to Megan, I hung up the phone, but I was still in deep thought about what she had told me. The news about the articles written about me just hit me hard.

Oh my goodness. I can't believe that they're still writing about me. Ugh. Keane already left the country so that all the fuss about us would die down. Now this. I have to deal with Vic soon. I'll call him after work. And now there is no escaping a talk with Keane about Vic too.

It was the same thing all over again when I got to work. Several colleagues threw me strange looks, and I could tell right away who had read articles about me and who hadn't. I tried to block their gazes from my mind and just focused on my job.