Chapter Text
There was no way this didn’t count as stalking.
The groceries being replenished in your fridge every week without you being the one to do it was definitely odd. Especially since whoever was doing it seemed to know exactly what your tastes were, down to the brand. It had been going on for the past month or so, you’d kind of forgotten it was unusual.
Initially of course you were not this calm. You’d started off thinking it was surely a mistake, a neighbour must’ve walked into the wrong apartment, but as soon as you thought about it for more than a second that explanation made no sense whatsoever.
Mistaking an apartment in a building where all of the doors look the same minus the small gold numbers above the handle, sure. Actually getting in though? How would they have done that without the right key. If they’d mistaken your apartment for theirs they would’ve tried the key, realised the mistake, and moved on.
But that didn’t happen.
You did consider the possibility you’d just not locked the door, however surely upon entering your apartment this supposed neighbour would’ve seen your coats and scarves hanging on the hooks, your pots and pans on the side, your picture frames and posters on the walls, and your rug on the floor, and turned right back around and left.
There was absolutely no way this had been an accident. Not a chance.
You feared the worst, obviously. A young woman living alone in an apartment finds her fridge and pantry fully stocked with everything she usually buys and more, there’s only one explanation. It’s drugged.
As soon as you had gotten over the shock, you’d loaded all of the food into a bin bag, and chucked it.
You had felt a bit guilty, you hated food waste, but there was no way to tell if this was safe to consume without either taking it to a lab or, consuming it, and you were not about to fuck around and find out.
You’d thought it would be a one time thing, a strange blip in the flow of your life that you could bring up as a funny story at dinner parties in a few years time.
Until the next week, when it happened again.
Only this time, there had been a note, stuck on the fridge with one of your heart shaped magnets.
‘Not spiked, not an accident, please do not needlessly throw away good food again :)’
Okay. Yeah. Really fucking weird.
You’d kept the note, in case it could be used as evidence if this escalated. Whatever this was.
You’d also done something very very stupid. Something you would’ve absolutely scolded your friends for had they done this.
You’d eaten the groceries. What you could eat in one week at least.
After that the groceries had appeared weekly, like clockwork. Only without any new notes attached.
Whoever was doing this did not seem to have harmful intentions, they never touched anything else in your flat. Everything other than the fridge and pantry was always exactly the same as before. Not to mention how helpful not having to buy groceries was for you and your student budget. So you had let yourself get used to it.
Which leads us to present day. You knew the groceries would be there, it was a Monday afternoon which was the day they always got ‘delivered’. What you were not expecting, was a bouquet of your favourite flowers, sitting in a beautiful vintage glass vase on your dining table. The glass caught the light of the mid winter sun, bouncing it onto the lace table cloth in a way that felt magical.
You paused in the doorway, just staring at the display. No one other than your best friend had bought you flowers before.
Of course you were unsettled, this was crossing a line you’d drawn in your mind. The day you’d received the note and accepted the groceries you’d made a promise to yourself that if this ever went any further than just groceries you’d do something about it.
But lodged right next to the sinking feelings of uncertainty and mild fear was something else. Something you’d only tasted a couple times in your life, something you didn’t know well enough to name, something that left you a little breathless, with a light heat behind your cheeks, and wide eyes.
Slowly you stepped into your apartment, the door clicking shut behind you with a gentle thud. You decided you would ignore the flowers, you wouldn’t throw them away yet, you couldn’t, but you wouldn’t make it a thing. You wouldn’t photograph them and post them on your instagram, you wouldn’t sit there and ogle them, you would simply pretend they weren’t there. Don’t people always say it’s best to ignore your stalkers? Something about all attention, negative or positive fueling their obsession.
So you averted your eyes, unbuckled your Mary Janes, and toed them off, peeled off your gloves, lifted your earmuffs off your head, unwrapped your scarf, and finally unbuttoned your coat.
Your friends had made fun of you for being so bundled up, no matter how many times you explained that you got sick really easily, your winter wardrobe remained the humorous highlight of classes that day.
You checked the time on your phone, 15:48.
Not even nearly time to start preparing dinner. You sigh and head to your bedroom, making a point of looking anywhere other than the bouquet on the table as you pass it.
With no work to catch up on or deadlines to meet or groceries to buy you were left with time to kill. You changed into pyjamas and decided on trying to come up with an action plan on how to deal with this mystery stalker.
There was obviously the option of going to the police, however one of your friends had had a far more serious sexual harassment case that had gone absolutely nowhere. You were hesitant to go down that avenue. You and your friends still harboured resentment towards them because of it. Although hers hadn’t involved trespassing and breaking and entering. Maybe if you framed it as if you were worried about your apartment and potential theft they’d take it more seriously.
The only issue with that was nothing had been stolen, not a single thing, you’d done thorough checks the first few times to make sure. How would it sound in court?
“Your honour they bought me groceries multiple times and put them in my flat and left a bouquet on my table!”
Somehow you could imagine it not going down very well. No, you would have to deal with this yourself until it got worse.
You ran through your options in your head, you could skip classes and sit at the dining table waiting for them to show up and do a face to face confrontation. That way you could also offer a description if you did eventually go down the legal route. The cons of this idea though were A) what if that’s exactly what they’ve been waiting for and they finally strike out violently or kidnap you or something B) What if they have some crazy quirk that you have no idea about, the possibilities for that are endless C) when faced with confrontation you have a history of completely freezing up, which would definitely be not very good.
Eventually you decide to steal your mystery persons idea and leave a note. You have 6 days to decide what to write. 6 days to hopefully nip this in the bud.