I Dreamed the Perfect Blind Date Was Lying to Me Chapter 14

I Dreamed the Perfect Blind Date Was Lying to Me Chapter 14

The next morning, I did two things.

First, I called my building’s security office and reported that a stranger had been loitering outside my door. I asked for increased patrols.

Second, I called Jenna.

“Set up a meeting for me with your company’s security guy.”

“You want a bodyguard?”

“No. I want to understand the legal and practical ways to make someone not want to come near me, without escalating things.”

Jenna was quiet for two seconds. “Emily, who exactly did you piss off?”

“A blind date who can’t take no for an answer.”

She sucked in a breath. “Give me half an hour.”

That afternoon, I met with Mike Sullivan, a security consultant in his late forties, former military, stocky, and direct.

I told him the situation.

He listened, then tapped the table.

“You have video. Good. Back it up in three places, one for your lawyer, one for the police, one for yourself.”

“Then live your life. Go to work. Come home. Don’t hide. Don’t panic. Guys like that, the more you hide, the more they push.”

I nodded.

He added, “If he shows up at your door again, call the police immediately. Don’t hesitate.”

“It doesn’t matter if he hasn’t done anything yet. He’s at your door. You’re a single woman living alone. They’ll take it seriously.”

That afternoon, I went to the local police station and filed a report.

The officer on duty watched my video, asked questions, took notes.

“This doesn’t yet rise to the level of a credible threat. But we’ll keep it on file. If anything else happens, come back.”

I said thank you and walked out.

Standing outside the station, the sun was bright and warm on my skin.

People walked by, a woman pushing a stroller, a man buying a hot dog from a cart.

An ordinary afternoon.

So ordinary that everything that had happened—the blind date, the dream, the figure standing in the dark outside my door—felt unreal.

But it was real, every bit of it.

I was walking toward the subway when my phone rang, it was Julie.

“Emily, the court date is set. The twelfth of next month.”

“Good.”

“Clara said it would help if we had direct evidence that he lied about having a child during dating.”

I thought for a moment. “I have it.”

The text message, he said no children, clear as day, timestamped.

I had backed it up in three copies.

The weekend before the trial, Julie came to my city and we met at a small diner.

She looked thinner, but there was something new in her eyes, something sharp.

Like a freshly honed blade.

She sat down and pulled an envelope from her bag. “Leo drew this.”

She slid it across the table. I opened the envelope and found a crayon drawing inside.

A woman and a little boy holding hands. A house beside them. Smoke rising from the chimney.

At the bottom, in wobbly letters: Mom and me.

My nose stung. “Does he know about the court case?”

“No. But he knows I’ve been trying to find a way.”

Julie looked down at the drawing, her fingers tracing the outline of the little figure.

“His grandmother takes decent care of him. He’s fed and warm. But she’s old. She can’t keep up.”

“Derek almost never visits. When Leo calls me, he always says he misses me. Once he said Dad was going to find him a new mom.”

Her voice broke for a moment. “He said, ‘Will the new mom like me?'”

I closed my eyes. The dream surfaced again, Leo standing in the doorway, tilting his head, old coat, red cheeks.

He hadn’t called me Mom. He called me Emily.

A child. Used as leverage. As a condition. Tossed onto the scale of a blind date. Weightless. Worthless.

“Win this case,” I said.

Julie looked at me.

“I’m not doing this for you. Or to get back at Derek,” I said, looking her in the eye. “I’m doing this for Leo. Every child should be with someone who wants him.”

She nodded, bit her lower lip, and nodded several times.

The twelfth, court date. I didn’t attend.

But Clara called me the minute it was over. “We won.”

Two words, and Clara’s voice carried a restrained excitement.

“The evidence was solid, the text message where he hid the child, the documentation of his absence, the grandmother’s health assessment. Even the anonymized article helped. The judge saw it all.”

“His lawyer tried to delay twice. Both times denied. Final ruling:

custody transferred to the mother.”

I stood in the hallway at work, hand on the windowsill.

Outside, the afternoon sun was bright.

“What was his reaction?”

“He didn’t say much in court. But his face was dark. After we walked out, he slammed a door.”

Clara paused. “Watch yourself with him.”

“I know.”

That night, Julie sent me a video, short, maybe fifteen seconds.

Leo jumped out of a car and ran toward Julie, throwing himself into her arms.

“Mom!” His voice was bright. That particular joy that only children have.

Julie crouched on the ground, holding him, her shoulders shaking as she laughed and cried at the same time.

In the background, a small town intersection, the sunset painting the sky orange.

I watched it three times, and every time, tears fell.

Not from sentiment, but from the shock of confirmation.

That dream had been my future.

If I hadn’t blocked him at three in the morning, if I had listened to my

mom and given him another chance, softened at every display of his warm mask, that would have been my life.

But I wouldn’t have been crying in that fourth-floor rental unit. I would be standing here, in my own life, solid, steady.

Before bed, I took out the piece of paper I kept under my pillow.

It read: [When you have an exit, run.]

I looked at it. Then I added a line below: [And once you’re out, stand your ground.]

I folded it, put it back, and turned off the light.

No dreams that night.