The socket

Chapter 2: The socket

Hope

The hours following the meeting were strange. I couldn't get rid of the image of Brett, his face frozen in my mind like a painting that I could not erase. The bookstore suddenly seemed to be less warm, the walls tightened around me, as if each radius of light filtering through the windows was an extension of its presence.

I tried to focus on my work. But with each book that I put away, to each customer I served, my thoughts inexorably returned to him. Why did he look at me like that? Why had he said my name, as if he has always known him?

He had been so calm, almost threatening in his serenity. He had spoken to watch me. I shivered it. The idea that a man can monitor me, know me without my realizing it, disturbed me deeply. I was only a simple bookseller, what could me?

I closed my eyes for a moment, chasing my thoughts. But they always returned. "See you soon," he said. As if all of this was part of a plan that I did not understand yet.

That evening, I slept late, my mind always agitated. I felt like something bad was going to happen, something that I could not prevent, and that completely escaped me. But I had no idea what it was.

---

The next day, I went to my work as usual, but the weight of the previous meeting was heavier on my shoulders. I arrived at the bookstore a little earlier than usual, hoping that the activity of the day could help me distract myself. But as soon as I pushed the door, I felt observed. The impression he was there, somewhere, followed me. I forced myself to ignore this feeling, but I knew he wouldn't stop there.

At the end of the morning, when I reorganized a novel shelf, the door bell rang. I looked up, and my heart would squeeze. It was him.

Brett entered the same presence that had struck me the first time. This time, he wore a leather jacket, less formal, but just as impressive. He headed straight for the counter without even looking around, as if he knew exactly where he was going. I tried to keep my calm.

-"Hello," I said, my voice a little colder than before, but I could not totally hide the anxiety that rose in me.

He smiled slightly, a smile that did not reach his eyes.

-"I knew you would be there," he replied, calmly, almost as obvious.

I was tending myself. How could it be so sure of that?

-"I ... I work here every day," I stammered, trying to find a rational explanation in his presence. But his penetrating gaze prevented me from concentrating. He saw me as an open book.

-"I know," he said, staring at me intensely. "That's why I'm here."

He sat down without waiting for an invitation. I had no choice but to sit too, although the idea of finding myself at a table with this man was terribly uncomfortable. I felt a thrill running along the back, but I couldn't stop it. He had this strange power to give birth to contradictory feelings in me: a mixture of attraction and fear, curiosity and distrust.

"You don't understand yet, right?" He said, breaking the heavy silence.

- "Understand what?" I replied, trying to appear indifferent, but my voice was shaking slightly.

Brett looked at me for a long time, almost amused by my attempted resistance. Then he leaned slightly forward, as if I listened to him carefully.

- "You are important, Hope. You don't know it yet, but you will soon discover it. It is already too late to retreat."

His words were sense of meaning. I felt a ball formed in my stomach. I barely understood what he meant, but part of me knew that his words were not just the fruit of a whim.

-"I don't know what you want," I said in a firmer voice, although my hands betray my bustle by scoring nervously.

Brett got up and approached me, deliberately, like a predator who is about to make his movement. He had this certainty in him, a certainty that made him almost invincible.

-"You are more precious than you think," he whispered, his face a few centimeters from mine. "And I will make sure you understand it."

I remained frozen. The proximity of Brett destabilized me. I felt my heart beat louder in my chest, an adrenaline rise which pushed me to flee, but another part of me was attracted by him, curious to understand what he really wanted. He was not like the other men I had met. There was something deep, dangerous in him.

I forced myself to look away, trying to resume my senses.

-"I have nothing to do with your things," I said, but my voice was less assured than it should have.

Brett smiles, a smile that was nothing comforting.

- "This is where you are wrong, Hope. Everything you are now part of my world. And you will learn to understand it."

He left me there, without one more word, heading towards the door. Before crossing the threshold, he turned to me one last time.

- "I will come back."

And without another look, he walked away.

I was frozen behind the counter, my hands tight on the wood. I was shaken, frightened, but something in me, an unknown glow, said that I could not get rid of him so easily. What he wanted was not just to know me. He had a plan. And I didn't know yet if I could avoid it.

But basically, part of me wondered if I was not already too involved.