She stared at her wall, home to a gallery of pictures of Alexander.
He's beautiful, she thought, her eyes misting over.
As she scanned her wall, looking at older photos of him, her eyes fell on her camera, set on her desk. Waiting for her to go and stalk- no, not stalk, she didn't like to think of herself as a stalker, him some more.
Her hand closed around it, and she thought, Maybe I'll go find him.
One month later…
I must find her.
Her family, her house.... I need to find her.
The girl now had another wall of pictures. But on this one, there were no pictures of Alexander Nester.
Instead, the girl had now dedicated a special place, a shrine, if you will, to Melody Torielli, the one who Alexander loved so dearly. At least three times a week, the girl went out and took photos of Melody.
And yet Melody had no clue who the girl was.
It's a good thing, the girl mused, that I don't have any relatives.
Otherwise how could I dedicate my time to Alexander with so many people in the way?
The girl was eighteen, almost nineteen years old, of slim frame and with pretty, wavy golden brown hair. Her name was Fabienne Leveque, or so she had been told by the rich, childless aunt and uncle that had adopted her after her parents had died in a plane crash.
Later, she found the article in the newspaper, which seemed to take a huge interest in Fabienne's family, mentioning her parents more than four times. And there was a whole paragraph on Fabienne herself. In the end of Fabienne's paragraph, the article said: Subject unavailable for interview.
She remembered something about some people with big cameras and microphones knocking on the door of her aunt and uncle's mansion, shouting for her aunt Esther to let her niece come out. Eventually, when the warnings of the butler to get off the property would not suffice, Esther and Vincent (the uncle's name) themselves came out and told the reporters never to come again.
But still, Fabienne would forever remember that whenever a reporter passed their house, a couple of them would twitch and say, "That's where the girl..." then rush away.
Now, nine years later, Fabienne was a multimillionaire- the sole heiress to her aunt and uncle's fortunes. Her guardians had died, one by one: first, her uncle, from the cancer developing in his body since even before Fabienne was born, then, her aunt: who had lost so much over the past few years (Fabienne's mother was, indeed, her sister, and Aunt Esther loved her very much, and earlier than that, both of her parents and her little brother had died in a freak car accident caused partly by a drunk driver and partly by a hurricane) that her heart finally gave out.
Fabienne was actually somewhat sorry for that loss. Her aunt and uncle were excellent people, and treated her very well, with the attention that she deserved. But a girl like her, who had been bounced around from foster home to foster home until she was nine, dealing with countless greedy and cruel guardians before being permanently adopted, had learned to raise herself rather than rely on adults, who she'd found to be promise-breaking, heartless human beings.
She'd learned not to get too attached to somebody, because eventually they were going to die and leave you alone.
Now, she had no commitments to make to family. She still went to school- a private girls' university on the other side of the city (she was driven there by her chauffeur), still kept up her A+ average. By day, she was Fabienne Leveque, that rich girl who nobody really knows much about.
By night, she was Fabienne Leveque, the person with the knife to your throat.
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Melody had always been very well liked at school. Nice clothes, nice house, nice person in general. People who had less than that had the right to be jealous.
She could understand that. Not that she was vain, though- she didn't expect people to be jealous of her. She was just aware of the fact that a few people were, that's all.
And the jealousy had been noted a few times by Melody. Like in fifth grade, there was that girl that always watched what Melody did, trying to make herself more like Melody. And in eighth grade, the same thing happened.
This time, something like that was happening.
But this time, she was being trailed.
Now, contrary to popular belief, Melody wasn't stupid. She wasn't like all of those other 'popular girls' at her school, who giggled at every silly little thing and only spoke of their boyfriends and clothes. Sure, she liked to look a little nicer than just anybody, still went out and bought the stuff of that designer everybody started to talk about. And she still socialized with those dumb girls, because after all, they were nice people, but she had her own little social circle of friends who were like her in some ways-- and actually had brains.
But she was not stupid. She trusted her gut with most things, had common sense, street smarts, and general intelligence. When you're in an alley, and you get uncomfortable, you get out of the alley. Simple.
So of course she could tell if she was being stalked.
After school, accompanied by both her boyfriend, Alexander, and a growing sense of paranoia, she'd rush home as fast as possible, and when Alexander, sweet kid, asked her if anything was wrong, concerned as ever, she'd just laugh and kiss him on the cheek. "No, everything's perfect!"
Alex'd still look kind of wary, but then say, "Alright then, whatever you say..."
And that was another thing! Whenever she was around Alexander, Melody couldn't help but feel like she was being watched. Sometimes she'd even hear the sound of a camera's shutter clicking, like some insane, creepy stalker took endless pictures of her.
Then it happened. She had a note delivered to her door, a simple note written on a blank piece of paper.
I'm watching you, Melody.
It was almost too much for her to take.
But she didn't show it to anybody-- yet. She promised herself that she would show it to somebody, a trusting adult like her mother, as soon as she got another article of proof.
She didn't know who the person was, or what they wanted, but she was pretty sure that they were serious about this whole stalking business.
