When Alison sees that her neighbor’s house has finally been sold, she is curious to find out who has bought it. Shocked, she discovers that her new neighbor is a colleague from work. Soon things go from coincidental to creepy, and Alison is left trying to understand her paranoia…
The “For Sale” sign next door had been up for months, and I’d almost stopped noticing it. Rebecca and Ben had moved to their little beach house months ago, and as far as I had heard, they were just waiting for a buyer of their house.
My neighborhood was quiet, with its neatly trimmed lawns and well-kept houses. There were hardly ever any issues, and everyone just seemed happy to be here. Just the way I liked it.
Then, one Friday afternoon, as I was pulling into my driveway after a long day of work, thinking of a huge bowl of ramen, I noticed a moving truck. Being the curious cat that I am, I glanced over, squinting to see through the setting sun.
My jaw dropped. There, directing the movers, was Emma. Emma, my colleague from work. I was shocked that I didn’t know about her move to my neighborhood, let alone about her buying the house next to me.
“Of all the plot twists…” I muttered, watching Emma pick up a box.
Emma and I had always had a pretty casual relationship at work. She was the kind of coworker you’d chat with about weekend plans or office gossip, but nothing more. She always watched my friend and colleague, Wren, and me closely but didn’t try to spend more time with us.
We weren’t actually friends; we didn’t know much about each other’s lives, and certainly didn’t hang out outside the office. So, seeing her moving into the house next to mine felt… odd.
What were the chances?
She looked up then, as if she sensed me watching. A big grin spread across her face, and she waved, her hand high in the air like she’d been expecting me to notice.
“Alison!” she called out loudly. “Hi! Surprise!”
I waved back a bit awkwardly, then hurried inside. I tried to tell myself that it was just a strange coincidence. But there was something about the whole thing that made my skin crawl.
The next day at work, Emma was unusually talkative. She hovered near my desk, asking about my weekend plans, my thoughts on the neighborhood, and what time I usually got home.
“Should we carpool?” she asked enthusiastically, sipping her coffee.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I usually go to the gym or hang out with Wren after work before heading home. So, I don’t think a carpool is going to work for me.”
She nodded slowly and then went straight back into conversation, talking about the old couple that lived next to her.
I tried to play it off, chalking it up to her wanting to be friendly now that we were neighbors. But there was this undercurrent to her questions, a probing curiosity that felt invasive.
“She’s being weird,” I told Wren when we went to get drinks after work. “I don’t know how she even knew where I lived.”
Wren gave me a sheepish smile.
“That might have been me,” she said. “Emma asked if we were roommates because we always get to the office at the same time, and we leave together, too. So, I told her that we weren’t and I just mentioned where we lived. Nothing specific. Just the neighborhoods.”
That made me feel slightly better. At least Emma hadn’t stalked me; Wren seemed to have nudged her in my direction. But still, something was weird about it all.
“Okay, I guess that’s better than what I was thinking,” I laughed.
But over the next few weeks, things got stranger. Every time I left the house, there she was. Emma would either be gardening, fetching the mail, or just sitting on the porch, staring across at me with an intense, almost unnerving expression.
“What the heck…” I said to myself as I got into the house and locked the door behind me.
And that wasn’t all. The conversations, too, became stranger between us. Emma would bring up things that I hadn’t told her, things that she would have only discovered if she was eavesdropping on my conversations with Wren.
Like how my brother was planning to visit in two weeks, or how I wanted to repaint my living room to look like the plant-mom vibe I had become.
Okay, innocent enough. But why would she eavesdrop? Why not join the conversation and try to be part of our lives in a better way?
Then, something odd happened.
Wren and I had gone out for dinner and drinks with her sisters, so when I got home, I was wobbling on my feet, my heels having given my ankles a workout. All I could think about was getting into a hot shower and soothing my muscles.
As I fumbled with my keys at the front door, I glanced up and saw her. Emma was standing at the window, the dim light behind her casting a long, eerie shadow. Her eyes were locked on mine as she sipped something from a mug.
Emma lifted her arm slowly and waved.
“Oh, no,” I said, slipping inside and locking the door behind me in an instant.
“What is this girl doing, Alison?” I asked myself out loud.
The next day, I decided to confront her. I could barely sleep the night before, and I had dreams of waking up and seeing Emma standing in the corner of my bedroom. Whatever was going on, I knew that my subconscious didn’t feel safe either.
During lunch, I found Emma hunched over the bar fridge, trying to decide which flavor of yogurt she wanted.
“Hey, Emma,” I asked her, trying to get into the conversation.
“Hey, Ali,” she said, leaning against the counter with her chosen tub of yogurt. “What’s up?”
“How did you end up living next door to me?” I asked.
Sure, I knew that Wren had mentioned it. But I needed a bit more information.
“I was ready to buy a home, Ali,” she said. “And when I searched online, your neighborhood popped up.”
That was a perfectly suitable answer, except that she didn’t mention anything about Wren. Immediately, I was on guard.
That night, as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, I couldn’t help but feel paranoid. I thought about encounters with Emma and the things that I had noticed in the past weeks.
Like how her car was always facing my house, or how she always seemed to just sit on her porch, or how she seemed to know my schedule perfectly. It wasn’t just weird or even coincidental anymore. No, it was just creepy.
But of course, that wasn’t all.
A few days later, I found the note. It was stuck to my front door, typed out on a piece of white paper. Just three words:
I’m watching you.
The blood in my veins turned icy. It had to be Emma. I mean, who else would do something like this? I felt violated, exposed, and scared. My own home didn’t feel safe anymore. I had to confront her. I needed answers, and I needed them quickly.
I stormed over to her house, note in hand.
“What the hell is this, Emma? Are you stalking me?” I asked.
She blinked, staring at the note, then back at me.
“Come inside,” she whispered.
I hesitated. I had no idea what I was walking into. But there was something in her eyes that made me follow her.
“I didn’t want to tell you this,” she said. “But you’re not imagining things. I did move here because of you, I’ll admit that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been dealing with something… someone. My ex-boyfriend, Ben. He’s been stalking me for months. He knows where we work, so I couldn’t escape him at work or my old apartment. I thought that if I moved, then maybe it would change something.”
I felt for her, I’ll give her that. I couldn’t imagine having to deal with an ex-boyfriend who was so unhinged.
“What do I have to do with this?” I asked.
“I overheard you telling Wren that you were doing self-defense classes at the gym. I started doing them too, but in the mornings before work. And when Wren told me where you lived, I had already been looking for a new place, please believe me. When I stumbled upon this house and saw the neighborhood was the same, it felt like a sign.”
“So, you thought that I could protect you?” I asked, finally understanding her thought process.
“Yes! I thought that if you saw or heard me struggling, that you would come over and help me. But the note… Ben is back. And clearly, he got confused about which house I was in.”
It all made sense now. Emma wasn’t watching me; she was trying to stay safe. And the note was from her stalker, who now knew where we both were.
“Let’s call the police,” I said.
And we did. But when they arrived, I could see the doubt in their eyes, the way they exchanged glances as they took Emma’s statement.
“Can you show us photographs of him?” an officer asked.
Emma nodded and whipped out her phone.
“Here,” she said. “I can print them out if you want.”
The officer nodded, and Emma went ahead and printed the photos.
“How long has this been going on for?” the officer asked.
“Months,” Emma said. “Can you get an officer to stay here and watch these two homes?”
“Yes, we can send over an officer in plain clothes,” he said. “If this guy comes back, we’ll catch him. Try not to worry too much.”
They caught Ben three days later as he tried to make his way around my house at midnight. In the weeks that followed, Emma and I grew closer. We began to look out for each other in small ways: sharing dinners together, carpooling on some days, and overall just checking in.
At least Ben was gone, and with him the uneasiness, too.
What would you have done?
