Within twenty-four hours, new accounts followed.
No profile pictures. No real names.
One commented beneath the guitar photo: Still keeping broken things.
Another under the coffee: You used to hate it black.
A third, beneath a picture of the library entrance: Quiet corners were always your favorite.
Ben traced what he could. IP addresses, account recovery links, patterns in timing. Within two days, he had enough to place the accounts near Rebecca’s home, then near Riverside on the days I had seen the gray sedan.
He showed me the report in his office, a small room above a tax preparation business.
“She’s visiting twice a week,” he said. “Sometimes more.”
I looked at the page until the words blurred.
“There’s something else,” he added.
I did not want there to be something else.
“She’s cataloging your life. Not just contacting you. Tracking routines. Testing boundaries. Sending objects. Watching reactions. This isn’t reconciliation behavior. It’s possession.”
Possession.
The word settled into me like a stone.
For years, I had thought Rebecca’s distance meant she did not want me. Now I wondered if distance had only been another form of control. Love me when I allow it. Chase me when I withdraw. Hurt when I command it. Stay available even when dismissed.
And when I refused the role, she came looking for the strings.
Ben gathered everything into a folder and recommended a no-contact order. But before filing, he suggested one public conversation.
“No threats,” he said. “No private meeting. Nothing emotional if you can help it. Make it clear. Make it final. I’ll be nearby.”
I hated the idea. But some part of me knew he was right.
I had left without a word because she had given me nothing worth answering. But Rebecca had turned my silence into a space where she could invent meanings. Maybe she thought my leaving quietly was proof I still cared too much to fight. Maybe she thought restraint was weakness. Maybe she needed to hear the door close.
We met at a café near the courthouse on a bright Wednesday afternoon.
I arrived early. Ben sat two tables away with a newspaper, looking so ordinary he was almost invisible. My hands were steady until Rebecca walked in.
She looked smaller than I remembered.
That was the first thought, and I hated myself for it. Her hair was tied back carelessly. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath her eyes. Her coat hung loose on her shoulders. She paused when she saw me, and for one reckless second, I remembered the woman she had been at twenty-seven, laughing in a grocery store aisle because I had dropped a watermelon and split it open like a crime scene.
Then she smiled.
Not with joy. With strategy.
“Larry,” she said softly.
“Rebecca.”
She sat across from me, glanced around, and noticed Ben without knowing she had noticed him. Her fingers tightened around her purse strap.
“You look different,” she said.
“So do you.”
Her eyes filled almost immediately. I felt nothing at first, then guilt for feeling nothing, then anger at the guilt.
“I know how this looks,” she whispered.
“Do you?”
“I know I went too far.”
“You broke into my apartment.”
Her face flinched. “I didn’t break anything.”
“That isn’t what breaking in means.”
“I just wanted to see how you were living.”
“You put a tracker in my bag.”
“I panicked.”
“You sent packages to my workplace.”
“I thought maybe if you remembered us—”
“Stop.”
The word came out sharper than I intended. A couple at the next table glanced over. Rebecca’s mouth trembled.
“Stop pretending this is about love,” I said. “You told me you didn’t love me anymore. You watched me leave. You filed for divorce. You signed everything away like you were clearing out a storage unit. You got exactly what you asked for.”
“I didn’t want this,” she said, and now she was crying. “I wanted you to fight for me.”
I stared at her.
There it was.
Not remorse. Not really. A confession of design.
“You wanted me to beg,” I said.
Her tears fell faster.
“I wanted to know I mattered.”
“You mattered for eleven years. I made coffee for you every morning. I fixed everything you broke or hated or ignored. I stayed through every silence, every mood, every time you punished me for not reading your mind. And when you told me to leave, I finally believed you.”
Her lips parted, but no words came.
“I built a life after you,” I said. “That is not a crime against you.”
Her expression changed then. Grief hardened into something colder.
“With her?” she asked.
“Maya has nothing to do with you.”
“She looked at you like she knew you.”
“She knows the person I am now.”
Rebecca leaned back as if I had struck her.
That was when Ben stood and approached the table.
“Miss Jameson,” he said calmly, placing the folder down. “This is formal notice that Mr. Bennett does not want any contact from you. Continued calls, messages, visits, surveillance, or third-party communication will be documented as harassment and used to support further legal action.”
Rebecca stared at him, then at me.
“You hired someone to spy on me?”
“No,” I said. “I hired someone to stop you.”
Her face drained of color.
For a moment, she looked genuinely frightened. Not of Ben. Not of the law. Of losing access. Of finally finding a locked door where she expected a hinge.
She stood so abruptly her chair scraped against the floor.
“Let me keep something, Larry,” she said. “Just one piece of you. One memory. One thing.”
I looked at the woman who had once known every soft place in me and had chosen to press on each one until I moved.
“No,” I said. “You lost that right.”
She left without another word.
Ben watched her through the window until she crossed the street.
“You did the hard part,” he said.
I wanted to believe him.
For five days, nothing happened.
No calls. No messages. No gray sedan. I slept better, though not well. I started walking home the same route again. I watered the fern. I thanked Maya when she brought me a bag of basil because she said I looked like a man who lived on sandwiches. I almost played the guitar.
Then the USB drive arrived.
It was left at the library desk in a small padded envelope with my name on it. No return address. No note. My stomach knew before my hands opened it.
Ben told me later I should not have plugged it in myself. He was right. But fear makes people stupid in practical ways.
The screen filled with video files.
Short clips.
Me unlocking the library door.
Me crossing the street with coffee.
Me sitting on the bench behind the building.
Me standing outside Maya’s shop as she handed me something wrapped in paper.
Me looking up at my own apartment window.