Chapter 1: October 18 - Your Halloween Stalker

Hello beautiful,

I nearly said hello to you this morning. Properly, I mean. Like a normal man who sees a woman outside a coffee shop, thinks she is gorgeous and decides to risk embarrassing himself before nine in the morning. Then you burned your tongue on that pumpkin spice latte and whispered, "Fuck you," at the lid like the cup had done it on purpose, and I remembered that normal has never been the part of you I like best. You were standing under the striped awning with your phone in one hand and the coffee in the other while the wind kept throwing your hair across your mouth. You fought with it for a while, lost, shoved half of it into your coat collar and crossed the road to stare through the homewares window at that black velvet pumpkin again.

You've looked at that stupid thing four times this month. You want it. You also keep deciding it's too expensive, too pointless, too indulgent, like buying one stupid thing just because it makes you happy is somehow too much to ask. That fucking annoys me, sweetheart. And you do that with way more than pumpkins, by the way. Somebody compliments your dress and you tell them it was on sale. Somebody says you did a good job and you immediately explain which part could have been better. You make yourself smaller in tiny, polite ways all day and seem to think nobody notices.

I notice. That's probably the first thing you should know about me. The second is that today wasn't the first time I saw you. I could have lied and told you I noticed you this morning, got struck by some ridiculous bolt of courage and wrote a letter before lunch. It would sound sweeter. It would also be bullshit, and if I'm going to become a terrible decision in your life, I'd rather start with the truth. I've been noticing you for a long time. I know you love October because you make it fucking obvious, sweetheart. The little Halloween earrings come out before the month has properly started, there are tiny pumpkins scattered across your desk before anyone else has bothered decorating, and you somehow find a reason to wander through every Halloween aisle you pass even when you went into the shop for something completely different. You slow down for windows full of fake cobwebs and plastic skeletons, you get stupidly excited when somebody puts up decent decorations, and you already had three different candles that smelled like pumpkin before October even hit double digits. You love this shit. Properly love it. I think that might be one of my favorite things about you.

But also, I know you put your trolley away in the rain. I know you reread the last page of a book when the ending hurts. I know you smile at every dog tied outside a shop, even the ugly little ones that look like they'd bite God if they got the chance. None of that is useful, but I noticed because it's you. Creepy? Yeah, probably. Better you know that early.

There are bigger things I've noticed too, but you don't get all of me on the first night. You'd stop reading, your friend would stage an intervention and I'd have wasted very good stationery. For now I'll admit one more thing that has become a genuine problem for me. Your mouth. You have a very pretty mouth when you say fuck. It's even prettier when you're trying not to laugh and press your lips together like that's going to hide it. I've wondered what it would feel like to make you laugh while I was close enough to feel it against my own mouth. That's all you get tonight.

See, that's restraint. I really deserve a gold star. Keep the letter or throw it away. Tell your friend or don't. Spend tomorrow studying every man who looks at you for half a second if you feel like it. I'm not telling you which face is mine yet. I like having one secret you don't know.

Your admirer.

P.S. If you throw this away, at least tear it up properly. I spent a stupid amount of time trying to decide if "Hello beautiful" sounded sweet or creepy as fuck. I don't need some stranger pulling my first letter to you out of a bin and reading it.