Famous.
Christine Pelletier was stabbed thirty-two times in a parking lot and this person called it famous, like it's a landmark, like it's a place you'd pin on a map and visit.
I delete every message. Block every account. Clear my comment section. Set my profiles to private.
It doesn't help.
Because whoever is doing this already has my name. Already connected Bell to Halstead. Already knows I'm in Morgantown, at WVU, in my early twenties.
The forum post from last week laid it all out like a treasure map, and now people are following the trail.
I sit on my bed with my phone in my lap and scroll through my own profiles, looking at them the way a stranger would.
Photos of campus. The Mountainlair. A coffee cup with my name on it. A selfie with my mom at Christmas, both of us smiling, the tree lit up behind us.
My mom's face. On my public profile. Accessible to anyone who clicked the right link and followed the right thread.
I delete the Christmas photo, then I delete a whole bunch more.
I sit there with my thumb hovering over the button that would wipe the entire account and start over, the way I wiped the name and started over. I wonder how many times a person can erase themselves before there's nothing left.
I put the phone face down on the nightstand and don't touch it for the rest of the night.
Mom calls Wednesday evening. I'm at the kitchen counter eating cereal because I haven't been to the grocery store and the milk expires tomorrow anyway.
"Hey, baby." Her voice has the lightness she uses when she's about to say something she doesn't want to say.
I set the spoon down. "What happened?"
She exhales. "I saw the truck again."
My hand curls around the edge of the counter. "Where?"
"The gas station on Beechurst, near the pharmacy." She's moving while she talks. I can hear her footsteps on the kitchen tile, pacing the way she paces when the anxiety won't let her sit.
"I was filling up, and he was parked on the other side of the pumps. Same truck. Same man."
I curl my fingers around the edge of the counter. "Did he say anything?"
"No. He didn't get out." Her footsteps stop. "He waved at me, Saylor."
Her voice tightens. "Through the windshield. Like we're old friends."
The cereal turns to paste in my mouth.
He waved.
Not a threat. Not a confrontation. A wave. Casual, friendly, the gesture of a man who wants you to know he sees you without giving you anything concrete enough to report.
My mother is being stalked by a man who understands exactly where the line is between legal and criminal, and he's dancing on it.
"Mom, you need to call the police."
Her laugh is short and hollow. "And tell them what? A man waved at me at a gas station? They'll tell me to stop being paranoid, how he was simply being friendly."
She's right. She's absolutely right, and that infuriates me.
"Has he come back to the house?"