2

Robert was nice, if a little strange. He worked his way through a repertoire of small talk for the first ten minutes, speaking quickly, barely giving Abi time to answer, and moving to a new conversation as soon as the old one finished. She struggled to keep up. When the waiter came to take their orders, they had been discussing a popular crime drama, but as soon as the waiter headed for the kitchen, Robert jumped into a conversation about literature.

He was trying to impress and desperate to make an impact. He had clearly thought long and hard about how to do that. By the time the main course arrived, he had settled on a single conversation, but it was one that nearly sent Abi to sleep. Apparently, he worked in IT—she still wasn’t quite sure what he did and couldn’t recall if he’d told her among all the waffling—and had recently moved to the area because of a new job. He said he had spent weeks commuting, before living out of a hotel and then finally deciding to rent a house nearby. It seemed interesting to him, and if those facts hadn’t been lost in a mess of awkward conversation, questions, and hesitant silences, she might have found it interesting as well.

Abi thought him to be modestly attractive, and she wasn’t deterred by the nervousness. It was something she had sought in previous boyfriends, because she had always associated nervousness with intelligence. Although that probably had a lot to do with her grandmother. “Only smart people get nervous, dear,” the old woman often told her. “Smart people worry they’re going to sound stupid. Stupid people are too busy trying to sound smart.”

She swore like a docker and she could be very crude, but the old woman was incredibly wise and had a way with words.

Abi mentioned her grandmother during dinner, spoke about how the doting guardian had raised her, how she meant everything to her.

“I feel your pain,” he told her. “I also lost my parents and was forced to live with a great-aunt. She was crazy but fun. Like Mary Poppins, but with less singing and more diazepam.”

“I didn’t tell you I lost my parents,” Abi had said with feigned suspicion, arching an eyebrow as quizzically as she could and then correcting herself when she realized she probably looked like she’d had a stroke.

That had made him even more uncomfortable. He had shifted self-consciously, averted his eyes, and just when she felt like he was about to apologize for killing off her parents and pigeonholing her childhood in a single careless sentence, she jumped in and saved the day.

“I’m joking. I did lose them,” she said. She briefly thought about making a joke about losing them in a supermarket and stopped herself when she realized she couldn’t pull it off. She was still smiling at her intended joke when she uttered, “They died in a fire”.

His gaze shot to hers, caught her smile, pondered whether it was a joke or not, and then decided it wasn’t when she awkwardly turned away.

At that point, he had reached across the table, taking her hand in his.

She had been trying to eat her strawberry cheesecake at the time, so it didn’t go as smoothly as he probably hoped, but it was a touching moment, nonetheless. Robert had nice eyes, and she found herself getting lost in them as he gave her a sympathetic stare. It was because of that stare and that moment that she decided not to tell him the truth: she no longer felt anything for her parents.

Maybe she was angry at them, as if it had been their fault for dying. Maybe it was because she had been young and had since had time to heal. Maybe she was just lying to herself and had bottled up the truth. Whatever the reason, the death of her parents felt like little more than a footnote in her childhood.

Abi also considered herself lucky to have been raised by her grandmother, someone she believed to be the strongest and most supportive person in the world.

Her grandmother had convinced her to go on the blind date, actually. She had pushed Abi to respond to Robert’s messages on the dating app, one that encouraged users to message, chat, and even meet without profile pictures. It had been the only app she could bring herself to join. She didn’t want to let her nosy neighbors know she was on a dating site. She didn’t want to announce to everyone that she was single and alone, including her ex-boyfriends, schoolfriends, extended family, and neighbors. She also didn’t want to be rejected for being ugly or plain. At least this way she could just pin the blame on her tagline, her geeky profile, or the attempt at humor in her replies.

Abi had been paranoid that Robert would be too weird and that she’d have another messed-up relationship on her hands. She also worried that he would be too perfect, and that she would look like a stuttering, empty-headed troll in comparison. It wasn’t like she only focused on the black and white either—she worried about all the gray areas, too.

Her grandmother had been the one to calm her down, to tell her that everything would be okay; the one who insisted that Abi was beautiful and that she deserved the best.

Her grandmother would say anything to cheer her up—to justify her fears, delusions, and concerns. As a teenager, Abi had experienced a crisis after someone called her “average looking.” Instead of trying to convince her otherwise, something which would have inevitably failed, her grandmother managed to convince her that average was best. Because, as she put it, “The pretty ones end up pregnant at fifteen, abused at eighteen and dead at twenty-five. The ugly ones end up bullied, ignored, and abused. The world leaves the average ones alone.”

Robert had looked just as nervous as Abi felt. He didn’t seem capable of maintaining eye contact for longer than a couple seconds. On one occasion, they had stared into each other’s eyes in complete silence. He had seemed relaxed at first, but then he flinched, before spending the next few moments looking at everything but her while cycling through a slew of small talk.

“I’m so sorry,” he had said more than once. “I’m not used to this.” She hoped that by “this,” he meant the blind date and not human contact, but she suspected otherwise.

Even in the face of all his weirdness—even with the flinching, the stammering, the sweating, and the awkward conversation—Abi felt a mild attraction toward him. She didn’t exactly fancy him, and it certainly wasn’t lust. If anything, it was pity. But that was more than she had felt for any man in years.

Robert remained on edge throughout the meal. There was something strange about his mannerisms, a conflict—he seemed ill at ease, with the traits of a man who was scared of his own shadow, but at the same time, there were glimpses of confidence, of assuredness. It was almost like he was convincing himself to forget his anxieties and momentarily doing just that, only to remember that it was all an act and then instantly melting into anxiety again.

He seemed drained by the time the check arrived. He offered to pay for it, and after the slightest resistance, Abi agreed. That seemed to lift his spirits, but those spirits were dampened again when he dropped his wallet twice and then laughed awkwardly when the waiter tried to engage him in small talk.

By that time, Abi was ready to call it a night, keen to escape for his sake as well as hers. Mildly attractive or not, she wasn’t sure his heart could take it if she hung around any longer.

“Well, it’s been good.” Robert stood and offered her what seemed to be his first genuine smile of the night, one not born out of fear, nervousness, or humiliation. He was probably relieved it was over. Now he could dry out and calm down. “I’m sorry again for being so awkward. But I promise not to be that awkward next time.”

Now it was her turn to flinch, and judging by his reaction, he had seen it. Robert averted his eyes and she felt terrible. He was close enough to go in for the kiss, close enough for her to smell the sweat that had soaked into his formerly white shirt.

He turned back to her, smiled again, and then, just when she was ready to turn tail and run, lest he go in for a kiss, he extended his hand. She shook it, staring into his eyes and trying to resist the urge to wipe her hand on her coat afterward.

“I’d love to see you again,” she said.

That had come out of the blue, her mouth rebelling against her brain. It was pity, mercy, and a desperate need not to disappoint, but it was also stupid.

What the hell are you doing?

She felt herself deflate—she had a habit of letting pity get the better of her, even though it had never done her any favors in the past.

She had flashbacks of standing in the corner of her ex’s bedroom, doing a striptease dressed as Princess Leia while he pleasured himself and she slowly reevaluated her life.

“That would be great,” Robert said. Abi felt a little better when she saw the delight in his eyes. “Do you want me to give you a lift back home?”

“No,” she was quick to say.

“Are you sure? I don’t mind.”

“No,” she repeated. “I don’t live far. I have booked a taxi.” The excuses came thick and fast, canceling out one with the other.

“Well, if you’re sure.”

Abi smiled politely as he led her out of the restaurant, holding open the door for her. They stood outside, him growing more and more confident, her trying not to stand downwind of him.

“Well, thank you again for a wonderful night,” he declared. “I’d love to do this again.”

She was already walking away. “Of course. I have your number, so—” she shrugged, trying to maintain her smile “—I’ll call you.”

—

It was just past 10 p.m. The rain had stopped, the air was cold and wet. Abi loved the dark. She loved the mystery of it, the warmth of it. It was almost romantic. Some of her best memories as a child were of lying in the back of her grandmother’s car as she drove through the city at night. There was something so serene and magical about it, helped by the fact that her grandmother hated being distracted when driving, so it was always quiet in the car.

On foot, with the cold air wrapping around her, the lurching, skeletal arms of the overhanging trees looking more ominous than mysterious, and the shadows appearing more threatening than cozy, Abi felt exposed.

She pulled her jacket a little tighter, held her head low, and watched her feet as she walked. She left the glow of the street—where headlights from passing cars placed her in transient spotlights, where heightened voices from drunken revelers hung in the air—and took a shortcut through a park.

She should have felt more ill at ease in the park—branches reaching out to her like the bony, elongated fingers of death, myriad evils preparing to drag her into the shadows—but even in her heightened state, even without the comfort of a car and without the innocence and invulnerability of youth, darkness was still more of a friend than light.

Thoughts of Robert entered her mind, weighing up the pros and cons. The more she thought, the less of a catch he seemed. It wasn’t that she was picky, far from it. If anything, she was the opposite, always latching on to the smallest of positives, even if it meant ignoring so many negatives. The problem with Robert was that she didn’t know anything about him. He was nervous and average looking, that much she did know, but the rest—his interests, his job, his taste in music—she had no idea.

She was mulling over the date, trying to decipher what he had been telling her about his job, when she heard the footsteps—a succession of heavy thuds. All images of the date dissolved—dissipating into a cold, dark reality—and her mind instantly jumped to the worst-case scenario. Someone was chasing her.

The sound of the footfalls seemed to be getting louder and louder, increasing in volume and speed. The noises syncopated with the sound of her heels clinking against the pavement, but then she stopped. It was almost as if she wanted to hear them better, to convince herself that no one was running after her, that she was hearing things.

She should have known better, because she wasn’t hearing things. And now she was directly in their path, a short sprint and a short lunge away.

Abi could almost feel them grasping at her jacket, pulling back on her hair. The image of being pulled into the shadows and assaulted filled her head as the staccato beats of heavy feet continued behind her. Still growing in volume. Louder and louder.

She must have only been standing for a second or two, but it felt like an eternity. It felt like she had waited too long. The little girl in her, the one that had enjoyed those long nighttime drives, wanted to dive into the shadows, to curl into a ball and wait for this moment to pass. The woman in her knew that wouldn’t work, and it was the woman who acted.

Abi kicked off her heels and ran, her bare feet slapping the cold pavement, her handbag swinging wildly by her side as she sprinted down the dimly lit path. The street, and all of the life and support it contained, was now half a mile ahead of her; the park, vast, empty, and dark, all around her.

The sound of her own labored breathing and her own beating heart blocked out the sound of the chasing footfalls. But she knew they were there, keeping time with her beating heart, keeping her assailant one trip, fall, or stumble away from grabbing her. A stitch burned underneath her ribs—she was fit, she worked out, but she was scared out of her wits and that fear instantly eliminated all those hours of stretching, running, and lifting. The fear sucked the breath out of her lungs; the stitch stabbed at her mercilessly.

She powered through.

The skin on her feet was soft, supple. Every step shook her, every stone went through her. Several times her wayward running took her off the path and into the wet grass and mud that bordered it. She slipped, her stomach sinking as she felt herself stumbling, but she righted herself before she fell.

She felt like she was going to pass out, like she couldn’t run anymore, but she didn’t want to think about the alternative, so she continued, pushing until she couldn’t push anymore, until the anxiety, the fear, and the sudden burst of exercise had caused her lungs to tighten, her throat to burn, and her heart to feel like it was going to burst out of her chest.

Her legs burned as much as her throat and her chest, forcing her to slow down. She grasped for her phone, hoping she would at least be able to punch in the number of the emergency services. That way, if the struggle was long, they might appear just in time to save her life; if it was short, at least they would catch her killer.

But she couldn’t find her phone. It wasn’t in her pocket where she usually kept it, and she didn’t want to stop and search through her handbag. That was the final nail in her coffin. It wasn’t going to be her night—it never was.

There was nothing she could do, so she stopped still—better to face her attacker head-on than to let him catch her from behind and take her unawares.

Abi spun around.