"The Dark Stranger"
© VeGirl 2014

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The next morning I do my best to avoid Peter. When he walks to the kitchen for breakfast I take a long shower; when he sits by the TV, I choose the kitchen. Finally he manages to intercept my effort of avoiding him in the hallway. "We need to talk."

"No we don't."

"Yes, I'm sorry I was the jealous husband last night, I just..."

"You're not my husband."

"Yet..."

That shuts me up; and that is also when I realize that maybe I don't want him to be my husband. "I just saw that guy walk you to the door and he had his arm around you." His voice trail off and he pull a hand through his hair. "I just..."

I say nothing, but am beginning to feel bad for the guy.

He starts to shift weight between his feet. "Have you've been cheating on me?" he asks silent and doesn't look at me.

I sigh. "No I haven't, I'm not that kind of girl and I thought you knew that."

"Yes, that's what I thought."

"Don't you lay that on me!" My mood changes in an instant and anger erupts. "I have not done anything wrong here, all I did was to out dancing and then Milo took me home when I was scared." I swallowed the last part of that sentence and wished I had swallowed more of it.

"Scared?"

Damn it! I didn't want him to know that. I close my eyes and take a calming breath before I turn to him and give him the most natural of my fake smiles. "Yeah, I had some kind of stalker there yesterday, that's why Milo was like a shadow on me."

"Stalker," he asks confused. "What do you mean stalker?" Peter demand to know.

I don't want to talk about this with him. "Just drop it, will you," I sigh. "That was last night and it's over now."

"Who is following you, Sam?" Peter's voice is raw and threatening.

I exhale in abjection and my eyes narrow in on his face. "I don't know. I shouldn't have told you, I knew you would be like this, all protective and like a raging bull." I watch him with the annoyance obvious on my puckered eyebrows.

"Of course I will, when somebody is after my girl!"

"I am my own, you don't own me Peter," I say soft.

He furrows his eyebrows. "Are you saying I can't protect you?"

"All I'm saying is that you don't own me." I sharpen both my tone and look.

"I've never said that, but you're still my fiancée, aren't you?" His anger turns into sweetness and I regret my harsh words, but everything seems to make me on edge nowadays, I guess that Eddie was right about that.

* * *

Peter is giving me full attention at home for the following week, and it starts to get on my nerves. He is constantly asking how I am and if there is anything he can do for me. Finally I have to ask what is going on. "Have I got some mortal disease or something, to make you act like this?"

He is taken aback by my blunt approach. "No! I'm just... You've been acting strange ever since..."

I look expectantly at him to get the rest of that statement. "Since what?" Mentally I cross my arms over my chest, and then I get it. "Ah... Since you found the pregnancy test," I conclude slowly and tiredness is paralyzing my body.

"The truth is; you've been acting weird!" His tone is defensive.

"Peter, stop it, just stop!" I finally snap. "I am not going through some break down." I can't deal with this and everything else that's been going on.

"It's okay if you are. I promise to be here for you."

That is actually a sweet thing for him to say and I can't really break his heart by telling him that this was for the best, so I just pat his cheek. "It'll work out." I put on a brave face with a smile. "I'm heading out for a run." I leave him with that.

The sun is still warm in the early night, and even if it isn't twilight yet, you could feel it's getting there.

There is a feeling of change in the air.

I send a silent thanks' to my granny who used to own the house Peter and I live in now, the one who bought a house in this remote part of town, next to this amazing setting with unusually many trees and with the red sandstone mountains. In parts of it, it actually feels like a place where fairytales was originated. Different acacia- and  pine-trees are swallowing a lot of the sounds from town, only to being replaced with birds chirping. It actually feels as if the house was planted there.

I have no focus on birds now though; all I am listening to are the feet pounding on the gravel beneath me, and my breathing. This is the best time for me to be in the moment, with mindful meditation and all that. To just sit with my legs crossed and be in my head is much harder, there is so much rolling around in my head that I'd rather read a book to get away.

This is my way of doing nothing.

When I interrupt my internal babble I note there is something wrong. I am still on the right path; I'm not lost or anything so I try to shrug the feeling off. All I hear are the soft thumps as my sneakers hit the gravel beneath my feet and my repetitive breathing.

Suddenly I notice that that is all I hear and I stop abruptly.

I try to listen to the usual sounds in the forest, the soft rustling of leafs and the birds chirping, but all I hear is my own breathing.

The forest is eerily quiet.

My blood runs cold the second I realize that and I start to run again, looking over my shoulder to notice dark shadows lurking behind every corner as I pick up the pace. The panic of being followed return to me and I realize that if somebody was after me I was in deep trouble here all alone in the forest. When I get home I am breathing much harder than regularly, I had held a much higher tempo than usually.

"What's going on?" Peter is looking worried at me.

"Whoa! That was a fast run; I think I beat the scoreboard." I fake a smile not wanting to worry him.

"Shouldn't you take it a little easier if you..."

I raise my eyebrows in a questioning face.

"I mean if you..." The fact that he can't get the words out intrigues me. "If you want a baby I mean."

My mouth falls open and I widen my eyes in surprise. "Have I said that I want a baby?"

"Err..."

"Don't you think that's something we need to discuss first?"

"Yeah of course, but..." He doesn't know what to say, that is painfully obvious. "But I just thought..."

It could be the scare in the woods and it could be his assumption that makes a rage erupt. "Don't think, stop thinking at all!" I snap and walk out on him; I stomp up the stairs and slam the bathroom door shut behind me. My teeth grinds together until my jaw hurts, but it doesn't make my anger subside the slightest. I growl out loud and I wish I hadn't had that scary experience in the woods so I could head out on another run. Without anymore brooding I stomp out of the bathroom, flip the laptop open and order myself a treadmill to be delivered later that week.

Peter walks into the spare bedroom that serves as an office or workroom, but I just slam the laptop shut and walk out of there, heading into the bathroom again where I do my best to relax under the hot soothing water of the shower.

How can he enrage me like that?

What is it about him that makes me so damn mad every time he opens his mouth nowadays? I don't get it. He used to be the light of my day, but that seems to be all gone. Now everything he does irritates the hell out of me.

I take long calming breaths and think about Eddie and her assumption that I was pregnant. I exhale half a laugh, no wonder she talked about my mood-swings, I'm freaking pms'y. I look at myself in the mirror to find the usual calm eyes that were dark brown when I was a child and have over the years got hazel with green streak; they are now sparkling with a furious glow. I stand there while practicing deep-breathing to lessen the fury, and it seems to work.

A lot calmer I dry my hair, walk out of the bathroom, slip on a light summer dress and walk downstairs again.

"Are you okay?" Peter meets me downstairs.

"Yeah, I'm sorry, but I need to be on my own for a while," I sigh, make myself a cup of coffee and take it outside. I light all the candles on the table and in the light of those and the fairylights I settle down on the sunbed, in the back yard of our house while dusk is about to engulf this neighborhood. Since we live on the outskirt of town, we only have one neighbor and then this lot only has the forest lining it on one side, and on the back of the house.

The closest neighbor is the one across the street, if it only wasn't empty.

Soon I am tired of the thoughts on repeat in my head, the worry of somebody watching me and the conflict with Peter that is only getting worse. I fetch a book from my nightstand and do my best to take advantage of the serenity of this Sunday.

Of course this book would be about some stalker, what are the odds? I put it down on the garden table, lean my head back and close my eyes.

Thoughts about why I got so spooked in the woods return to me. I must have been imagining everything. Surely the forest can't get completely silent in a second. I've been running around this forest pretty much my entire life, and I have never experienced anything like this before.

Peter walks out on the back patio and interrupts my inner ramble. "Hi, I don't want to disturb, but Noel is wondering if we want to come over to them to watch the game tonight?" He holds his phone propped against his chest, asking in a muted way.

I have to keep myself from sighing. "I'm sorry, I have a headache, but you can go. I think I'm going to bed early tonight." I try on my best fake smile and he buys it.

"Okay Noel, I'll pop over," I hear him saying on the phone as he walks in through the door again.

Now I can allow myself to take a deep relaxing breath; I'm gonna have the house to myself tonight. I smile and plan to take a relaxing bath in the Jacuzzi upstairs and perhaps pour myself a glass of wine or mix a Margarita, even if it is a Sunday.

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay?" Peter pops his head out of the door and looks a little guilty.

"Yes, please just go," I sigh.

"No need to be rude," he mutters before he says goodbye.

Really? I think. But what if he can't take the hint?

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So guys, thank you for reading. I would really want to hear your opinion on this story. Is it interesting? Capturing? Weird? Boring?
Please let me know!

Yours truly! VeGirl

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