Page 14 of Hidden

Grounds sits at the edge of campus, still close enough to academic buildings, but out the way so not every student will be here filling the seats.

I stand on the pavement outside, phone in hand, but not looking at it. The window gives me a clean angle.

Her team has taken the long table at the back. Sadie is at the end closest to the wall. She's got a mug in her hand, her elbows are on the table, and she’s laughing at something one of them said.

I learned the team’s names in case I had to talk to them.

She's still in her practice clothes, a zip-up over what I assume is a leotard. Her hair is still damp at the ends where it didn't quite dry after her shower. She tucks it back from her face, and it falls forward again immediately. She doesn't fix it a second time.

She’s beautiful, and I bet she doesn’t even know it.

I watch her for twenty-two minutes. In twenty-two minutes, she finishes the mug, wraps both hands around it anyway as if it still has warmth to give. She checks her phone twice, both times briefly, with no visible reaction, and she puts it face-down after the second time. She laughs four more times: once so hard she has to put the mug down.

She's easy with her team mates, you can tell by the way her body is relaxed, the way she laughs, and the way she just goes about her time.

At nine-fourteen she says something to the tall one, Juno, I know from the team roster, and reaches for her jacket off the back of the chair. She makes a brief round of the table. She gives them all a hug as she puts on her jacket and then she steps out into the street.

I let her get thirty meters before I move.

Thirty is enough distance for me to be a part of the background. A campus at nine-fifteen has enough foot traffic that one more person going one in the same direction is nothing.

She walks with confidence, having learned the route already. She doesn't check her phone for directions, and she doesn't hesitate at corners. She’s listening to her music, in her own world, and I take the moment to admire her body from behind.

She's small, compact in the way that gymnasts are, not slight, not fragile, but precisely built. The zip-up she's pulling closed does nothing to hide the fact that her body is a thing she has worked for, earned, and maintained with discipline that most people talk about. The practice leggings sit low on her hips. When she tugs the jacket zip up, her spine straightens and her shoulders settle back, and I feel something shift behind my sternum that has nothing to do with data.

I want her.

That's the accurate thing to say, so I say it, to myself, I want her.

She tips her head back once to look at the sky for just a second and then starts walking.

I match her pace, not gaining on her, and not falling behind either. There are residential buildings on the left. The path narrows between two older academic blocks. The lighting goes from adequate to yellow and uneven. She doesn't slow down. I’m trying to work out where she’s going, but I’m not sure.

Then she suddenly stops halfway down the narrow path between the blocks. One hand goes to her jacket pocket. She pulls out her phone, it must be a message as her thumbs are moving over the screen, then pockets the phone and keeps walking. I count to five before I follow her again.

The building is called Alderton, she’s on the East Hall. It has four floors, badge access, and the east-facing rooms catch the morning light. I know which window is hers because I looked at the building the moment I knew she lived there.

She badges in without looking back.

I stop at the edge of the car park opposite. I’m not hidden, I’m standing in the open, with my hands in my pockets.

The fourth floor east corridor light comes on.

Forty seconds later, a light comes on at the window. The curtains aren’t drawn, so I can see everything in the room.

She moves across the window, and my breath doesn’t change.

She’s taken the zip-up off. She’s got a loose top on now, and her hair is down, fully down, not the damp ponytail from Grounds, and she’s doing something I can’t fully make out from this distance. She’s moving between two points in the room. The desk, maybe, and the wardrobe.

She stops at what must be the desk. Her back is to the window, and I can see the line of her shoulders, the way her hair falls between them, and the small movements of her arms that suggest she’s opening something: a box, or a bag, something that needs unpacking.

Then she turns, and for three full seconds she’s facing the window directly.

I don’t move.

She can’t see me. The car park is unlit, and I’m standing in the darkest part of it and the contrast between her warm room and the black outside means she’s looking at her own reflection more than anything beyond it.

Still, for those three seconds, something in me goes very quiet. She looks back down at whatever she’s unpacking.