…last night. The photo had been taken eleven hours earlier, while I was napping in my car after my shift, with the doors locked. I dropped the bag, slammed the trunk, ran inside, and locked every door in the house. Then I called the police with my back pressed against the bathroom wall.
Two officers came within ten minutes. One of them read the note out loud, frowned, and put on gloves before touching anything else. “Ma’am,” she said, “do you know who this is?” I told her what I knew. Same machine. Same weight. Three gyms. I didn’t even know his name.
The gym managers knew. Every one of them had his membership on file. Same man, same address, joining within days of me every time. By the next afternoon, detectives had a name: Calvin Reese, thirty-eight, a former maintenance worker at my college gym.
They opened Unit 214 with a warrant. I didn’t go inside. The detective told me afterward, carefully, what was in it. Hundreds of photos. A copy of my car key. Printouts of my class schedules from eight years ago. A calendar on the wall with every gym visit I’d made, color-coded. And a folding chair facing a corkboard covered in pictures of me, like someone had been sitting there, studying.
He was arrested at the Tuesday gym. On the machine next to the empty one. Waiting for me.
He’s charged with stalking, burglary, and identity theft for renting the unit in my name. I have a protective order now, and a new lock on my car. I work out at home for the moment, in my living room, with the blinds open and the music loud.
The detective gave me one piece of advice before she left. “You did everything right,” she said. “You noticed. You moved. You called. Most people tell themselves they’re being paranoid until it’s too late. You were never paranoid. You were paying attention.”
