Anonymous
She sat at her desk tucked away behind the door, the one that's hard to see from the hallway. But he sees her. If he peeks just the right way through the dust-streaked panel of glass in the top half, he can just see the top of her head, her hair high in a ponytail, flowed down her back like golden red silk, waving gently.
If she looks up at just the right time, he can see her eyes, safely hidden behind grey-framed glasses.
He whispers her name to himself at night, when he's tucked up in his bed watching the shadows of trees play across his window-shade, and his cheeks burn crimson.
He takes to following her after work. Only a few blocks at first, but he gets bolder, less cautious, and he discovers she lives only seven streets away. She has a younger friend with blonde hair, and an older brother. One time he sees the older brother, toying with a beat-to-shit old bike, one he doesn't recognize because he's not really into motorbikes, and he almost says something when he see's him and Claire argue about him being more careful with her 'baby', but doesn't quite dare.
(Isn't this romantic?)
She slips away from the building during her lunch break and after a moment's hesitation, he swallows the rest of his sandwich and follows her.
His shoes crunch over the leaves as they get further and further into the woods that tangle at the periphery of the car park.
There's a man waiting in the clearing, a man with sleek blond hair and the ghosts of a beard along his jaw, and Claire leans up on her tiptoes and kisses him, and from his hiding place behind a tree, he feels something break inside. It's painful, this new handful of splinters and broken glass prickling in his chest, and he slips away, as quietly as he can.
He doesn't want to see the rest, he doesn't want to see his Claire (though she doesn't know it) with this man, this man with broad shoulders and a leather jacket.
