"What is this? Why is he even here? How does he keep finding me?" Ken's thoughts raced as he stared at the dark-haired man behind the wheel. The air around the black car felt heavy, almost predatory.
"No... I'm not," Ken said, his voice rough and uncertain, but final.
He didn't wait for a response. Ken turned and continued walking down the road, leaving the sleek vehicle behind.
"Well, it seems he's still holding up. That's fine," Lucien smirked to himself. He shifted the car into gear and drove slowly past Ken, who was now walking aimlessly, his shoulders slumped under the weight of Sara Newman's words.
Whatever Mikael's mother had done, it stayed with Ken throughout the day like a shadow he couldn't shake. By the time he reached the restaurant for his shift, he was a ghost. He stood by the counter, arranging and rearranging the same stack of napkins over and over again.
Amy and Laura watched him from a distance. He looked distraught, his eyes fixed on nothing. Amy finally walked over and placed a steady hand on his shoulder. The sudden contact jolted him back to the present.
"Hey... are you okay? You seem so... distant," Amy said softly, her eyes searching his.
"Yeah... I think," Ken replied with a hollow uncertainty. "I... I don't know," he added, finally looking at her.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't know... maybe I'm overthinking it. Maybe it's—I don't even know anymore," Ken whispered.
"Kenny, I need details," Amy pressed. "Who is it? What exactly happened?"
"It's—"
The door bell chimed, cutting him off. Lucien walked in, followed by Lance and Sylvia. They moved with a chilling grace, taking a seat at a table in the far corner of the restaurant. Sylvia's eyes immediately swept the room, landing on Ken for a fraction of a second with a look of cold calculation.
"Hmmm..." Amy hummed, her eyes flicking toward Lucien. She felt instinctively that this man was the center of Ken's storm.
"Can I talk to you later? After work?" Ken asked desperately.
"Alright," Amy agreed, turning to head toward the new customers.
Ken retreated to the restroom. He stood before the mirror, gripping the edges of the porcelain sink until his knuckles turned white.
"It's too much... all of it," he muttered to his reflection. "All I ever did was love him. Why is it so difficult? Why is everything falling apart? One moment it's fine, and the next, I'm caught in another chaos. Where did I go wrong? I'm just... I'm so tired."
Suddenly, his phone buzzed in his pocket. A message from Mikael.
"Hey Bae, I saw your gift and I heard you visited. Thanks for checking up on me and for taking me home that day. I'm feeling a bit better. I'll come by tomorrow morning. See you later."
Mikael had woken up. He sounded happy, oblivious to the fact that his mother had just torn Ken's heart out. Ken began to type, his thumbs flying across the screen with a week's worth of suppressed fear:
Do you have a wife? Are you betrothed? How many people are you dating? Do we have an end goal? Do you intend to marry a woman? Did you tell your parents about us? Am I a secret? Why did you approach me if you knew this wouldn't last?
He reached the end of the paragraph, his chest heaving. Then, he stopped. He looked at the words—each one a tiny dagger. Mikael had just recovered from a fever and a breakdown. If he sent this now, it wouldn't be a conversation; it would be an explosion.
He took a deep breath and hit the backspace key until the screen was blank.
"Alright... see you soon," he sent instead.
He held the phone to his chest, his hands shaking. He needed answers, but he wasn't sure if he was strong enough to hear them.
After the restaurant closed, Ken, Amy, and Laura sat on a bench in the small park nearby. It was the same spot where he had first read Mikael's letter.
"So... what exactly happened, Ken?" Amy asked.
"A lot, Amy. I don't know what I'm doing anymore."
"Take a breath. Start from the beginning," Laura urged.
Ken told them everything—from the moment he stepped into the Newman mansion to the cold interrogation by Sara, and the cryptic warnings about a "woman in his life."
"Oh, my... his mom actually said that?" Amy asked, looking perplexed.
"And Mikael? What does he have to say about it?" Laura added.
"I haven't told him yet. I haven't had the chance and..." Ken paused, looking at his feet.
"And??" they asked in unison.
"I don't know if I should. We just got back together. It's been three days. If I bring this up, it's another crisis. I'm scared to break what we just fixed."
"Your relationship is a drama series, Ken," Amy sighed. "Wait, do you know who this girl is? The one his mother mentioned?"
Ken looked up, a thought clicking into place. "No... but Mikael had that panic attack yesterday. And while I was looking for him, a new girl at school was asking about him. She was... intense. I have a feeling she's the trigger."
"A new girl and a sudden panic attack?" Laura questioned. "That's not a coincidence."
The wind blew through the trees, a cold draft that made Ken shiver.
"Hey, Kenny? I think I have a plan," Amy said, sitting up straight. "Rather than confronting Mikael and getting a version of the truth that might be skewed... you should become friends with that girl. If you get close to her, you'll find out the truth much faster."
"Yeah, I think so too," Laura added.
"Wait, why?" Ken asked, visibly bothered. "Isn't it easier to just ask him?"
"If Mikael is deceiving you, he'll just keep doing it," Amy explained. "If you want to know the truth, you need a third-party perspective. You need to see what she thinks her relationship with him is."
Ken stared at Amy. The plan was effective, but it felt like a betrayal. "Would that even be fair to Mikael?"
Back at the Newman estate, Mikael finally felt human again. The fever had broken. Needing air, he pulled on a black hoodie and joggers, grabbed his headset, and stepped out for a walk.
The evening air was crisp. It was the first time in the six years since his family moved here that he had actually explored the neighborhood on foot. He walked for nearly an hour, the music in his ears drowning out the world.
As he turned the corner back toward his own driveway, a voice pierced through the music. It was a girl, calling out to someone across the street.
"Mom! I'm back with the groceries!"
Mikael stopped dead. The voice was a ghost he'd known since childhood. He slowly turned his head, his face pale with shock.
Standing in the driveway of the apartment building directly across from his was the source of his trauma. The girl he had run from at school. The girl who had been his everything—and then his nothing.
It was Emily Jacob. She lived right across the street.