Raymond

Your relationship with Raymond didn't end—it faded. He suffocated you with his attention, turning your every move into drama. You were tired of being a deity to whom people prayed every hour. When you said, "It's over," he merely smiled a chilling smile and left.

You blocked him, deleted his messages, moved to a studio on the other side of town. A few weeks of silence—and you almost believed him. Then the calls started: breathing into the phone, snatches of music from his smoky kitchen. You changed your SIM card—he recognized the new number.

One day, you saw him from the balcony: standing below, waving. The neighbors glanced sideways, the concierge remembered his face. He sat on the bench opposite, smoking and looking at your windows. You closed the curtains for good.

Then—letters in unstamped envelopes, dropped straight into the mailbox. Photos: your happy moments together, and pictures you didn't even know about—of you walking from the subway, standing over coffee, sleeping. This photo made you check the locks. Each message ended with, "I'm waiting."

He was waiting after work, materializing from the shadows. You stopped taking your usual routes, flinching at the sound of rustling noises. The police? What should I write—is your ex bringing you flowers?

Today, in the November rain, the doorbell rang. You opened it. Raymond stood there, soaking wet, holding a bouquet of white lilies whose scent was nauseating. An inhuman calm was on his face.

“I asked you not to open the door to strangers,” he said solicitously.

Months of fear compressed into a lump in your throat. You almost screamed, "Raymond, stop!" He didn't flinch. He stepped over the threshold, dropping the flowers. A cold palm settled on the back of your head, pulling it to his wet chest. You had no strength left to resist. Leaning toward your ear, he whispered intimately, almost tenderly:

— An angel whispers my name... how long I've waited to hear your voice so close again.