He Watched Me Freeze Now He Begs For My Return Chapter 24
After the Denver cases ended, I thought everything would finally go quiet.
But one month before the no-contact order expired, I saw Caleb in a security still from my company’s conference room.
Not in person.
In a surveillance image sent by building security.
He was standing across the street, just within a thousand feet of the entrance, wearing a cap. He had no flowers, no breakfast.
Apparently, he thought that as long as he did nothing, it didn’t count as contact.
Security asked me, “Do you know this man?”
I looked at his thinner face in the screenshot.
Two years later, he still didn’t understand.
The no-contact order was not a cooling-off period.
It was not a promise that after two years of endurance, he would get to stand in line again.
I took out my phone and called my lawyer.
When the police arrived, Caleb was still there.
He didn’t run. He rushed to explain. “I just wanted to see her from a distance. The order is almost up. I didn’t speak to her.”
The police asked for his ID, then pointed to the sign by the entrance.
“The order states you are not to come within one thousand feet. The cameras show exactly where you stood and for how long.”
The color drained from Caleb’s face.
At last, he turned to look at the building, but all he could see was dark glass.
I didn’t go downstairs.
My lawyer submitted the company surveillance footage, the earlier harassment texts, the written warning, and the existing no-contact order to the court.
At the hearing, Caleb admitted he had looked up my work schedule and even measured the distance from across the street. He insisted he had no malicious intent, only that he hoped once the order expired, we might “accidentally” run into each other.
The judge asked him, “If you knew she did not want to see you, why would you arrange a chance encounter?”
Caleb was silent for a long time.
Then he said, “Because I thought if she saw I’d changed, maybe she’d change her mind.”
Even then, the only thing he was considering was what he wanted.
The court found that he had violated the order and extended the protective period.
When we left the courthouse, my lawyer told me Caleb had been ordered to leave Chicago and was not to come near my home or workplace again.
I nodded and put the documents away.
This time, I didn’t even look back.