…”Kyle followed her again tonight, Mike. Three blocks behind her the whole way home. I saw him from my porch. Put a camera in her car. We need proof.” I read it twice. The date was in March. Kyle. My ex. The one I’d told everyone I was “totally over.” The one I had never admitted was still showing up behind me on the highway.
Dad turned the laptop back on and opened another folder. Hours of footage from the rear camera. Kyle’s gray truck, in the background, again and again. In parking lots. On my street. Outside my work at night. “Rosa saw him first,” Dad said quietly. “Then I saw him on the camera. Forty-six times in six months.”
I couldn’t breathe. I’d known he was around sometimes. I’d told myself it was coincidence. I’d booked a flight across the country because I couldn’t stand the feeling of being watched, and I never once realized who was really doing the watching.
“Rosa called me about the flight because she was afraid you’d be alone at an airport at six a.m. and he’d follow you there,” Dad said. “She wasn’t betraying you, honey. She was trying to keep you alive.”
He slid a folder across the table. Printed screenshots, dates, times, license plate. A police report number. “I took it to the station last week,” he said. “They said with this much, you can get a protective order. Tomorrow, if you want.”
I started crying. Dad got up and sat beside me. “You don’t have to sneak away,” he said. “If you want to leave, go. Go to Rosa’s in Arizona. Start over. But I’m driving you to the airport. And I’m walking you to Gate B12. And I’m watching your plane take off, because that’s the last time anybody is going to follow you without your permission.“
He did. Rosa met me at the other end. The protective order went through that same week. Kyle never found out where I went. The dash cam is gone now. I took it out myself. Dad didn’t argue. He just asked me to call him every Sunday. I do.
