Short Story: No Connection

She saw him everywhere. Or at least she thought she saw him everywhere. He was a constant presence in her thoughts even when she tried to banish him. He was a constant worry, constant preoccupation.
What if he came back? What if he tried to find her again?
So she imagined him lurking in corners, talking to her neighbors. She had moved 3 times to get away from him. And he had followed her. Somehow he'd found her each time. He had followed her. He thought he knew her better than she knew herself. He had told her so on more than one occassion.
Except she knew it wasn't true. She didn't want him nor love him. She was terrified. She didn't run so he would have to prove his love for her. No, she ran because he was a dangerously deluded man. She ran because she wasn't safe. Because she never knew what he would do. Because when he found her the first time he had hugged her, caressed her cheek while proclaiming his undying love. She had wanted to believe him but in the next moment he'd flown into a typical rage. "You make me do these things.  When will you learn?" he had twisted her arm up behind her back until she was sure it would snap. Her eyes had welled up as a cold sweat filmed over her forehead and her heart shuddered in terror.  She tried to stand on her tiptoes to relieve the pressure but he just pulled her arm up higher.  He had whispered gently in her ear then, in direct contrast to the physical force, "I will always love you. And I will always find you. You shouldn't forget that."
She had nodded through clouded vision.  If he let her go... She couldn't think. She just needed to convince him that she wouldn't run. She needed to convince him to trust her so she could run as far as humanly possible.
She had run in the morning. She'd learned already that going to the police was useless. He never left a mark, never showed anyone his real face, except her. She knew who he really was. They always thought she was exaggerating or menstrating or crazy.  And they couldn't stop him. The restraining order had never kept him away. It never did anything at all except make him angry.
"Why are you scared to love me?" he'd say in that sickeningly calm voice. "Why are you pretending? We belong together. You are mine." It was what he said the first and the second time he'd broken the order. He said it before knocking her down the stairs, before breaking her nose with the door.   He always made it look like an accident.
And although the cops took him away. She knew he would kill her one day. So the third time he was arrested, she packed her car at midnight, left her landlord a note "keep the deposit" and she ran as far as her car would take her.
In the morning she emptied her bank account, closed her credit cards. She wouldn't leave a paper trail.
So she didn't know how he kept finding her, couldn't figure out how in a matter of weeks, just as she was settling in somewhere, just as she was making herself a home he would appear on her doorstep.
Or roses and chocolates would appear on her doorstep marking his appearance.
Sometimes there was a note carefully designed and written.
He had better handwriting than most women she knew. The letters were all precise, the same size... the letters always written with the exact same strokes.
She knew when he'd been in the house. She could always tell even if no one else could see the signs.
Little things would be out of place, a magnet that she'd left upside down would be right side up, a pillow would be fluffed, the magazines suddenly straightened.
He would appear as she threw clothes at a suitcase and he appeared thrilled.  "I knew this time you'd come to your senses and come home with me." Her body quivered in panic, painfully making her teeth clatter as he put his hands on her.
She couldn't stand his cold touch but she couldn't move. She knew that if she jerked or tried to run he would hit her sooner. His violence would escalate that much faster.
The last time he found her, she had run before seeing his face. She saw the flowers and didn't bother to go inside. She got right back into her car. The trunk had two duffle bags, one with clothes, one with her savings.
But now she thought she saw him everywhere.
Even if he never found her again, his presence was constant. In the supermarket she saw him in flashes around angles of shelves. She saw him in reflections of mirrors. He was every blonde that had that same lanky build.
She was an agitated mess. She knew it and everyone she met knew it as well. They knew there was something wrong.
They asked but she wouldn't tell. She couldn't trust them. She wouldn't get close to them, not when she knew that one day he'd show up again and then she'd have to run and leave them all behind...