This entry is a thriller/dark romance for the QH Valentines Contest. Enjoy!
Your feedback and criticism will be much appreciated.
Theme: Secret Admirer. // Book cover by: oh_nakhrewaali
It started one evening when Zoya received red roses on her doorstep.
Her life had always been dull since she remembered it. She lived alone–well, not exactly–her husband, Asad, lived with her, but he barely noticed her. She had accepted this loveless marriage and that she would probably never get the fairytale-ish, adventurous love she had always craved for. It was a marriage of necessity rather than passion. Their parents had arranged it and they had agreed. Zoya initially thought that they would fall in love together after marriage like in Bollywood movies, but that never happened, so she had accepted her fate and stopped searching for anything from him.
Now she stared at the roses in front of her uneasily, a strange thrill creeping into her chest. Who had sent them? There was no sender name. Only her name was written on the note:
ZOYA,
TO THE WORLD YOU MAY BE JUST ONE PERSON, BUT TO ME YOU MEAN THE WORLD.
She shivered as she traced her fingers over the elegant handwriting. It made her feel uneasy, she could be in danger, but at the same time she had been lonely for far too long that whoever this person was, he was making her feel loved and valued for the first time.
That night, she found another note slipped under her door:
ZOYA,
THERE ARE MORE THAN ONE BILLION PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD–BUT ALL I SEE IS YOU.
She definitely had a stalker. Someone was watching her. But she wouldn’t tell Asad, she knew he wouldn’t care.
And after that day, the gifts kept coming. At first, they were subtle–a teddy bear, a romantic novel, a heart shaped pendant, a box of chocolates–but then, it got darker and creepier.
One day, she came into her bedroom and saw a message for her on the window: I'LL ALWAYS BE WATCHING YOU.
At one point, she had been enjoying the excitement of being watched, but now things were getting out of hand. She could feel eyes watching her everywhere. A shadow following her home from work.
When she could take it no more, she finally gave in and decided to confide in Asad. Her voice was trembling. “Asad, I need to tell you something.”
“Ji, boliye, main sun raha hoon.” Asad replied without looking up.
“Asad, please leave your laptop for a moment and look at me. This is a serious matter. I think someone is following me.”
Just as she expected, he didn’t even flinch. His eyes showed no emotion.
“Why do you think so?” He asked calmly.
She narrated everything to him–the roses, the gifts, the notes, the message on the window. He listened to it all with a blank expression on his face, then returned back to his laptop. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure!”
His reaction had made her feel even more exasperated. She figured she would have to deal with this situation on her own. Wasn’t he supposed to be her protector? She had definitely expected too much from him. It stung that whoever this dangerous stalker or secret admirer of hers was, he knew her better than her own husband.
The following day when she was walking home from her office, she saw him. A dark hooded figure watching her across the street, standing under the streetlamp. Her breath hitched, her heart slammed against her ribs as she ran all the way home and bolted the front door.
She stood gasping with her back against the door, when her phone beeped, notifying her of a text message from an unknown number.
DON’T BE AFRAID, I’LL ALWAYS LOVE YOU
When Asad came home, she ran to him and showed him the message. “Did you see the man outside?”
“No.”
Why did she not believe him?
The next night, she decided to confront the shadow. What she saw shocked her beyond anything. Standing in that same spot where the stalker stood last night was Asad. Her husband was her stalker.
The same quiet and boring husband she had ignored since she married him.
Suddenly it all made sense–the gifts, the notes, the message on the bedroom window, the watching.
“It was you all along?”
His face was unreadable when he turned toward her. “You never saw me, Zoya. So I had to do something out of the ordinary to make you notice me.”
She still couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “You were my stalker?” Was this a new side of him or had she just never bothered to see him before?
“Not a stalker. Just your secret admirer,” he said simply. “I loved you…I still do. I just didn’t know how to make you notice it.”
The next evening, Asad and Zoya went for their first romantic dinner date. It took her a long time, but she had finally come to terms with the fact that just because Asad didn’t love her the way she wanted him to, it didn’t mean he didn’t love her unconditionally. She realized that everyone had their own way of showing their love, and sometimes it didn’t even need to be shown at all–but it was still there. She had finally found the adventurous kind of love she always wished for.
After coming back home, she looked at his gifts once again, all lying on her dressing table–the roses, the teddy bear, the book–her lips curved into a smile when she read his notes again, but then a new thought crossed her mind…that handwriting…the handwriting was not Asad’s handwriting. Then she remembered the text message on her phone. Whose unknown number was that?
Her phone buzzed again with a new message: HE THOUGHT HE WAS WATCHING YOU, BUT I WAS WATCHING HIM.
Her body trembled in terror as the phone fell out of her hands. Someone was still watching her. No, not only her. Someone was watching both of them. “ASAD!”
There was definitely more to this. Asad was hiding something from her. “Asad, why didn’t you tell me those notes were not written by you? And that text message?”
“I didn’t want to scare you. But please don’t worry, we will catch him. I won’t let him harm you.”
For the first time, she didn’t see him as dull and boring. He was protecting her. For the first time, she felt safe in his presence.
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