The Man Who Watched Me Every Evening at 10:17 PM

I don’t know when I first started noticing him.

Maybe he had always been there.

Every evening, at exactly 10:17 PM, the man would appear under the streetlamp across from my building.

He stood perfectly still.

He didn’t smoke.

He didn’t talk on the phone.

He hardly ever moved.

He looked up at the windows.

At my window.

At first, I thought it was a coincidence.

I live on the third floor, on a poorly lit street.

Maybe he was waiting for someone.

Maybe he lived nearby.

But no one stands motionless under a streetlamp for thirty minutes.

And no one comes back every single night at the exact same time.

The first week, I ignored it.

The second week, I started closing the curtains before 10 PM.

The third week, I stopped sleeping.

One evening, I decided to test him.

At 10:15 PM, I turned off all the lights in my apartment.

At 10:16, I hid behind the curtain, leaving only the tiniest crack.

At 10:17, he was there.

As always.

But that night, he did something different.

He slowly raised his arm.

And waved.

Not at the window.

At me.

My heart was pounding so hard I could hear the blood rushing in my ears.

I was well hidden.

He couldn’t see me.

Unless…

Unless he already knew where to look.

That night, I called the police.

They arrived within ten minutes.

When I went downstairs with them, the streetlamp illuminated nothing but an empty sidewalk.

No one.

One of the officers asked,

“Ma’am, are you sure someone was there?”

I nodded.

But as I went back inside, I noticed something that hadn’t been there before.

A sheet of paper slipped into the crack of the front door.

It was a photograph.

A photograph of my window.

Taken from inside.

I never slept in that apartment again.

I stayed with my sister for a few days.

I changed the locks, had the building’s security cameras checked.

No recording showed that man.

As if he had never existed.

After a week, I went back home.

I felt foolish.

Maybe it had just been my imagination.

Stress.

At 10:16 PM, I was already in bed.

At 10:17, my phone vibrated.

Unknown number.

A message.

“I’m under the streetlamp.

Aren’t you going to wave tonight?”

I stopped breathing.

The curtains were closed.

The lights were off.

And then I understood.

He wasn’t watching me from outside.

He was inside.