The Facebook Stalker

The Facebook Stalker -- Chapter 9

The next morning when Kate woke up, blinking her eyes, she realized her room was empty. Looking around, the bag that Amanda had brought was gone. Confused, and a little concerned, Kate looked in the bathroom. Empty. Walking back into the main area, the bedroom, Kate noticed a folded piece of notebook paper on top of her laptop with her name scrawled on it. Walking over and picking it up, Kate saw that it was from Amanda. For such a pretty girl, she had terrible penmanship. 

‘Sorry to leave so early. Had a few things I needed to get done. Didn’t want to wake you up. Call or text me later. xoxo Amanda’

“Well, that was odd.” Kate said, sitting in her desk chair. Looking at her computer, she flipped it open and turned it on. “Let’s see what ol’ Pete has to say this morning.” 

Logging into her account, Kate only had one notification. Pete had wrote on her ‘wall.’ With a slight bit of hesitance, Kate clicked on the notification that redirected Kate to her profile. 

‘Hope your slumber party was fun. I bet it was. Hope you enjoyed the pizza.’

Kate considered not replying, but then just typed in a simple ‘Thanks. It was.’ This guy was giving Kate creepier feeling by the minute now. He seemed to comment about everything she said and done. 

Getting up to go to the bathroom, Kate left her laptop on her Facebook homepage screen. While out of the room, she heard the infamous Ding!

“Let it be someone else.” Kate said, walking out of the bathroom. But it was Pete. More reliable than Old Faithful. 

‘I hope you have a good day today.’ Kate read in the instant messaging box. 

‘Thx’ was her quick reply. She hovered over her desk, waiting to see if, and what, he would say back. After a few seconds:

‘Are we not being very talkative this morning?’

‘Tired.’ Kate punched in.

‘Ahh. I see. You should’ve went to bed sooner. They call it ‘beauty sleep’ for a reason. Although, you don’t need any, in my opinion.’ Kate was becoming highly irritated.

‘Just how do you “know” me, really?’ she typed quickly.

‘I told you. I was in the tour. You must not remember me. I’m easily overlooked.’

‘I don’t think you were there at all.’ Kate answered him.

‘Why not?’

‘I just don’t.’ Kate’s anger was building up, but for what reason? He hadn’t actually done anything to her. Commented on a few pictures. Posted a few things on her wall. Instant messaged her. Every. Single. Time. She. Was. On.

‘What’s wrong?’ came his next message, a few seconds later. And then another. ‘I tried to meet you, but you were, and always are, busy with something.’ Well, that was true. Then Kate had an idea.

‘I’ll meet you for lunch. At the diner. Mel’s. At noon.’ His response was quick.

‘Deal. Don’t be late.’ And then his name went gray and the message popped up that he was now offline.

Dang. What had Kate gotten herself into? She hoped her ‘plan’ worked.

****

A couple hours later, after a hot shower and trying to think out her ‘plan’ the best she could, Kate left her room and made her way down to Mel’s. Glancing at her watch, Kate saw that it was 12:14pm. She was being intentionally late, and planned on sneaking quietly, and hopefully unnoticed, into the diner. Walking past the large front window that had ‘Mel’s’ painted across it in large, red cursive letters, Kate stopped and scanned the diner. It was a busy Sunday lunch rush, as she had hoped for. Lots of people. Then, towards the back of the diner, was Pete. His back was facing the window. But as sure as Kate knew what one plus one was, there he sat. Taking a couple steps backwards, Kate saw he had his hands wrapped around a coffee cup, looking down into it. No one else was at the table, but another set of silverware and a menu lay on the table across from him, Kate noticed, slightly squinting her eyes to get a better look through the sun’s glare on the window.