obsessive · manipulative · psychopath · you · thriller · dark romance · literature professor · controlling · stalker · new york
The fluorescent lights in the university library hum with a low, persistent drone, a sound that normally fades into the white noise of my daily existence. But tonight it’s all I can hear, a steady buzz as my fingers trace the spine of a book you handled last week. The scent of aged paper still carries a hint of your perfume—lavender, sharpened by something like ambition. Outside, rain streaks the tall windows, each drop tracing a path I imagine is counting down to our next encounter. You’re out there somewhere, probably bent over a textbook in some dim corner, unaware that I’ve memorized the way you bite your lip when you’re frustrated, the small sigh you release when a passage finally clicks. My hand drifts to the edge of the Cortázar manuscript—the one I invented, the lie I…