Insane - Who Are You To Judge? (Gripping Psychological Thriller)

Chapter 14 - Avery

This week has been a strange one. I have been looking over my shoulder everywhere I go. I am certain I'm not alone. Yet, I have seen no one.

I try to put my newfound paranoia to the back of my mind and stay focused on what I need to do. I haven't yet found the right potentials. That's why I am returning to the coffee shop this weekend as well.

When I get there, I partake in small talk with Heidi as I always do and then sit at my corner table and my day begins.

This process may seem rather tedious to some and perhaps pointless. I disagree. I find this step the most intriguing – well, besides the end game. Observing the people who cross my path and understanding their tale fascinates me. For example, the man over by the door looks as though he is having a lovely morning coffee with his wife – on the surface. But why is there merely the ghost of a wedding band on her ring finger and why do his eyes continue to shift between the door and her?

Unusual for a Saturday, business is slow this morning and few people come into the coffee shop. Those who do enter are not very telling people at all and are most definitely wrong for the tale I am searching for. It's a shame, really. Waking up today I felt as though this was going to be a productive day. Nevertheless, I wait patiently and observe. I know that the right one will come in eventually.

Early afternoon, the clouds have blanketed the sky and I am close to calling it quits for the day and joining the sun in her slumber, when a young woman comes into the café with a girlfriend on one arm and a hot pink Marc Jacobs clutch bag on the other.

"Honestly, it was the weirdest thing ever!" Her irritatingly screechy voice is so loud that I need not eavesdrop – she is hanging her dirty laundry very much in public. "He went completely notebook style. He was hanging there I was like what are you doing? Like completely freaking out obvs, then basically he was like agree to go out with me or I jump and I was just thinking OMG what if he actually does? Like he wasn't going to die or anything but he might have broken something and I don't wanna carry that on my shoulders!"

Her voice resembles nails on a chalk board and I wince with every word. I want to kill her just so she'll shut the hell up.

"So anyways, I was like yeah fine okay I'll do it and he actually made me keep to what I said but I was just thinking like one date and then that's it, you know?" Her friend acts like a Beverly Hills Chihuahua, grinning and laughing along with everything she says. "But anyways, I like so wanted to not like him, like at all, and I kept saying throughout that I didn't. Like he is such a loser! But I couldn't help it, I just did, you know? Like, you can't control who you like, even if you really, really don't want to."

Through the ringing in my ear caused by her intolerable high-pitched squealing, I can just about concentrate on her story. The corners of my mouth twitch as I breathe into my steaming cup.

I think I've found my Beauty.