He Said I Was Obsessed, Then Moved Below Me

My colleague, Sarah, shoved her phone in my face. The company group chat was open, and someone had tagged me.

Autumn, did your ex move into your complex?

I saw him walking his dog below your unit building this morning.

A string of ellipses followed, along with several knowing emojis. I stared at the message for five seconds. Mark? The Mark I dumped three months ago? The Mark who told everyone, "She hasn't gotten over me, and I'm just so helpless"? Moved in downstairs from me?

Sarah lowered her voice: "You didn't really call him, did you?"

I handed her back the phone. "Sarah, I'm the one who broke up with him."

Her expression clearly showed disbelief. Right. The whole company had heard one version of the story: Autumn was relentlessly chasing Mark, who was utterly miserable. But now, tables turned. The one supposedly doing the chasing had moved into the other person's apartment complex. I suddenly found it amusing. And then, a chill ran down my spine.

01

After work, I circled the perimeter of my apartment complex.

In front of Unit 3, Building C, a black BMW 3 Series was parked, license plate ending in 762. It was Mark's car.

A notice for new residents was posted on the property management's bulletin board, dated the twelfth of last month. I stood there, calculating. We broke up on March 1st. He moved in on April 12th. Only forty-two days separated those dates. I had moved into this complex two years ago.

When I signed the lease for this apartment two years ago, Mark complained it was too far out of the way, said the commute was too long, and never once visited. Now, his car was parked downstairs from my building.

I stood for a few minutes, then turned and went upstairs. Once inside, I double-locked the door.

My phone lit up with a message from my friend, Lena.

"Autumn, do you know Mark moved into your complex?"

"Just found out."

"...Did you tell him where you live?"

"No. After we broke up, I changed my phone number and deleted all his contact info."

Lena sent a long voice message. I tapped to listen. Her tone was hesitant.

"Um... Alex told me Mark's been in really bad shape lately, lost a lot of weight. He said Mark never intended to move there, it's just that an apartment happened to become available in that complex. Don't overthink it."

Alex was Mark's college roommate. The word "happened" made my teeth clench.

"Lena, how did he know where I live?"

A few seconds of silence on the other end. "...Maybe he visited when you two were together?"

"He never came here. I moved in eight months before we broke up."

"Then I don't know."

Her voice held a wary retreat. I didn't press further.

I hung up, opened the window, and looked down. The lights were on in Unit 3, Building C. Separated by a flower bed, it was my building. The direct distance was less than fifty feet. I pulled the curtains shut.

The next morning at 7:15, I went out to take out the trash. The elevator door opened, and Mark was standing in the lobby downstairs. He was holding a corgi on a leash. Seeing me, he froze, then quickly averted his gaze. His expression cycled through "surprise" to "awkwardness" to a full "helplessness" in half a second.

"Autumn? You live here too?"

The emphasis in his question was on "too."

I didn't answer, walking past him towards the trash can. His voice came from behind me, very soft, like a murmur to himself.

"This is quite a coincidence."

Coincidence.

I dropped the trash bag into the bin with a dull thud. His corgi wagged its tail at me. Brown and white fur, a plump little rear. In our two years together, I'd said countless times I wanted a corgi, but Mark always said they were too messy.

"Dog hair flying everywhere, can you handle cleaning that?"

"Why get a dog? Isn't my company enough?"

Now he stood below my building, holding a corgi. I got back in the elevator and pressed the door-close button. Before the doors completely shut, I saw his eyes in the gap. Still fixed on me.

02

The first week, I ran into him three times.

Tuesday morning at the bun shop near the complex entrance, he was behind me in line and said, "What a coincidence."

Thursday evening in the underground parking garage, his car was parked in the empty spot right next to mine.

Sunday afternoon at the complex supermarket, I turned with a carton of milk, and he was standing at the other end of the aisle.

Each time, he wore that reluctant expression, as if to say, "I didn't want to run into you either." Each time, there were other people presentan elderly man out for a stroll, a neighbor parking their car, the cashier.

The second week, people in our mutual friends' group chat started piping up.

"Autumn, did you know Mark moved there and that's why you won't move out?"

"I think you should move to a different complex, it would be better for both of you."

"Mark says he's in a difficult position, just give him a break."

I read through each message. Not one asked, "Why did Mark move into her complex?" Everyone assumed one premise: Autumn was the one who couldn't let go. I set the group chat to mute notifications.

Wednesday noon, Sarah sat across from me, holding her lunchbox.

"Autumn, don't get mad, but I need to tell you something."

"Go ahead."

"Liam from sales said your ex-boyfriend contacted him last week and added him on social media. When they chatted, he asked about you, and his tone... how should I put it, it was that really heartbroken, helpless kind of feeling. He said you still hadn't moved on and had even moved near his apartment complex."

I put down my chopsticks. "Sarah, he moved into my complex. I've lived here for two years."

"I know, I know." Sarah nodded, but her next words betrayed her, "But still, you could consider moving somewhere else. Out of sight, out of mind, right?"

Out of sight, out of mind. I was living perfectly fine. He moved in. And then everyone told me to move out. I closed my lunchbox, suddenly losing my appetite.

At 4 PM, I received a text from an unknown number.

"Autumn, it's Alex. Mark's really not doing well lately, can you please stop this? Just pity him a little."

This. Stop what?

Me living in my own home, going out for breakfast, shopping at the supermarket, was "this"?

I didn't reply to the text. I opened my phone's notepad and created a new file. The title was two words: "Record."

The first line I wrote was: April 12th, Mark moved into Harmony Garden complex, Unit 3, Building C.

The second line: Starting April 23rd, "coincidentally" met three times in the complex within a week.

The third line: Late April, at least five people in the mutual friends' group chat advised me to "let go."

The fourth line: May 1st, Alex texted me to "stop this."

After writing, I placed my phone face down on the table. The sun was bright outside. I took a deep breath.

03

The second week of May, things started to get nasty.

Monday, I came home from work and the parcel locker indicated I had a package. But after entering the pick-up code, the locker was empty. I called the delivery person, who said someone had already retrieved it using the code.

"Sir, the pick-up code was only sent to my phone, no one else could possibly know it."

"Ma'am, the system shows it was indeed picked up. Did you ask anyone in your household?"

I live alone.

Wednesday, another one went missing. This time it was a bathroom shelf I bought online, a forty-seven-dollar item, not worth a trip to the delivery station. I stood by the parcel locker for a while. The entrance to Unit 3, Building C, was right to the left of the locker, less than ten steps away. The screen of the parcel locker's keypad was highly reflective; from a side angle, one could clearly see the numbers being entered. I took a photo and saved it to my phone.

Thursday evening, I ordered takeout, with a note to leave it at the door. After waiting forty minutes, the takeout hadn't arrived. I called the delivery rider, who said, "Your friend already took it for you, a man, said he was your boyfriend."

My fingers went numb. "I don't have a boyfriend."

The rider was silent for two seconds: "Then... the man said he lives downstairs from you and would bring it up. Wait a minute, he should be there soon."

Just as he finished speaking, the doorbell rang. I looked through the peephole. Mark stood outside, holding my takeout bag. His expression was natural, even a little concerned.

"Autumn, your takeout. The rider delivered it to the wrong building. I brought it up for you."

I didn't open the door. "Leave it at the door."

"It's already cold, do you want me to warm it up for you..."

"Leave it at the door. Thank you."

Silence for a few seconds outside the door. The sound of the takeout bag being placed on the ground. Then footsteps, gradually fading. I waited a full five minutes before opening the door. When I picked up the bag, I noticed the seal had been torn open and re-taped. Half of the spicy hot pot soup inside had spilled. I dumped the entire bag of takeout and cooked a bowl of plain noodles.

While eating the noodles, I continued to write in my notepad.

Seventh line: May 8th, May 10th, two packages claimed by someone else.

Eighth line: May 11th, takeout intercepted by Mark and delivered to my door. Seal showed signs of being opened.

After writing this line, I paused for a long time. I tried to analyze these events in the most rational way. If I removed the name "Mark" and replaced it with "a man you have clearly rejected," what would these actions be called?

Stalking.

Surveillance.

Boundary intrusion.

But because his name was Mark, because he was my ex-boyfriend, because everyone believed I "couldn't let go"these things became "he still cares about you," "you should be touched," "don't be ungrateful."

I washed the bowl and poured the noodle water down the drain. My phone rang again. Lena.

"Autumn, Mark said he brought you takeout and you wouldn't open the door? He's really upset."

I held my phone, saying nothing.

"Even if you don't want to get back together, you don't have to be so heartless, do you? He took care of you for two years after all..."

"Lena."

"Hm?"

"He broke the seal on my takeout."

"...Huh?"

"Nothing. I've eaten, I'm hanging up now."

I put my phone on silent. That bowl of plain noodles was bitter from too much salt. No, I had put too much salt in it.

04

Starting the third week, I checked the door lock every time I left the house.

It wasn't paranoia. It was because twice when I came home, I noticed the shoes on my shoe rack had been moved.

I have OCD; I always arrange my shoes with the toes pointing outwards when I leave.

On Tuesday, when I returned, the gray sneakers were facing inwards.

On Friday, when I returned, there was an extra shoe print by the door, size 43, covered in red mud from the flower bed downstairs.

I wear a size 37.

There are only two apartments on each floor of this building; next door lives a retired couple in their sixties.

I crouched down and took a picture of the shoe print.

After taking the picture, I wasn't scared. I went downstairs to the property management office to check the surveillance footage.

The property manager, a very friendly woman, pulled up the hallway footage from that afternoon.

The video showed a man walking to my door at 2:17 PM. He stood for about thirty seconds. Then he left.

The camera angle didn't capture his face clearly, but the height, build, and the grey-blue jacket were all too familiar.

I had bought that jacket for him at Decathlon last year for four hundred and sixty-nine dollars.

"Do you know this person?" the property manager asked me.

"Yes."

"Good, I thought it was a thief."

She smiled, dismissing it. I requested a copy of the footage and saved it to a USB drive.

On my way home, I detoured to the hardware store next to the complex and spent three hundred and twenty dollars replacing my lock cylinder with a C-grade one. The locksmith asked me after installing it: "Miss, the previous lock showed signs of having keys duplicated, did you know that?"

I paused. "What do you mean?"

"Well, there were scratches around the keyhole, like someone had taken it to get a copy made. Not for certain, it could also be normal wear and tear."

I paid, saying nothing.

I remembered. Last August, I kept a spare key in the second drawer of the entryway cabinet. One weekend, Mark came to my place to cook. I stepped out to pick up a package, gone for less than ten minutes total. I hadn't thought anything of it at the time.

Ten minutes. That was enough time to go downstairs, find a key duplicator, and make a copy.

Three more lines appeared in my notepad. My records now filled two pages. Each line was short, specific, and included a date and time. Like knots on a rope, getting tighter and tighter.

In the same week, something happened at work. During a team meeting for new topics, my team leader asked me to create a redesign proposal for an app. After three days of work, I submitted my design on Friday, only to find the file format had been altered, all the color values were wrong, and the layout was a mess.

My team leader frowned at it, but said nothing.

After the meeting, Sarah quietly told me: "Liam said your ex-boyfriend looked for him last week, and they had drinks. She doesn't know what they talked about."

Liam was the technical person in our department, and he had access to my work drive.

I didn't want to think the worst.

But I still changed my drive password. When I did, I noticed an unfamiliar IP address in the login history, with a login time of 2 AM on Thursday.

I took a screenshot.

Fifteenth line.

05

The last weekend of May, Lena invited me out for coffee.

Her face didn't look too good when we met. "Autumn, I need to tell you something. Listen calmly."

"Go ahead."

"Mark... he posted something on social media."

She handed me her phone. The post's picture was of the complex's flower bed, sunny, with his corgi lying on a bench. The caption read:

"Moved to a new place, sun's great. Hope everything slowly gets better. She lives close, but I choose to respect each other's space. It's hard to let someone go, but learning to let go is also growth."

This post had forty-seven likes and over twenty comments. All the comments were

"Mark, you're too kind."

"That toxic ex doesn't deserve someone as good as you."

"The more generous you are, the more she'll walk all over you."

"She even moved into your complex, that's terrifying, call the police!"

I reread it twice.

He said, "She lives close."

I had lived there for two years. He had moved in forty-two days ago. Yet the wording of that post made everyone believe I had moved to chase him.

Lena stared at my face. "Autumn, shouldn't you say something?"

"Say what?"

"Explain it! You moved in first, he moved in later. Post the property records."

"And then what?"

"Then everyone will know the truth."

I took a sip of coffee; it was acridly bitter. "Lena, what do you think will happen if I post the property records?"

She thought for a moment. "Everyone might think... you're looking for evidence to prove you're not chasing him?"

"Exactly."

I put down my cup. "No matter what I post, the conclusion will always be 'she still cares about him.' Explaining itself is proof of entanglement."

This was Mark's cleverness. He had seized control of the narrative. In the story he constructed, I had only two choices: silence, which equated to agreement; explanation, which equated to still caring.

Either way, I lost.

Lena chewed on her straw, silent. After a while, she asked, "So what are you going to do?"

"Nothing for now."

"But..."

"Wait for him to make a mistake."

My tone was so calm when I said this. Lena probably thought I was putting on a brave face. On the way home, she sent me a message.

"Autumn, I believe you. But you need to take care of yourself."

I replied with "Okay."

On Monday at work, I distinctly felt my colleagues' gazes change. Before, it was scrutiny; now, it was pity.

Pity was harder to bear than suspicion. Because pity impliedthey believed I truly was that pathetic, clinging person.

During my lunch break, I stood on the rooftop for a long time. Cars flowed continuously below. The May breeze blew into my shirt collar, a little cool. I looked down at the records saved on my phone.

Property move-in date proof.

Hallway surveillance screenshots.

Package receipt records.

Takeout platform rider call recordings.

The locksmith's verbal testimony.

Login screenshots of unfamiliar IP addresses on my work drive.

Twenty-three entries.

I put my phone back in my pocket and took a deep breath. Not yet. But soon.