2: 2
"Who's there?!"
At the sound of my footsteps, the man bolted.
I lunged after him a couple of steps, but he rounded the fire stairwell and was gone.
No mistake about it.
I braced a hand against the wall and caught my breath, my back gone tight.
It was the same man in dark clothes who'd been trailing her the night before.
I came to the neighbor's door, raised my hand twice, and each time forced it back down.
Should I knock?
Last night's cursing, the whole complex's slander, my photo with a red X slapped across it on the notice board, all of it came flooding back at once.
Hadn't I paid enough already for minding someone else's business?
But if that man hadn't gone far, if he was crouched somewhere waiting...
I gritted my teeth and knocked anyway.
The door yanked open with a rattle.
The moment the woman saw it was me, her eyes went round, and before I could get a word out she started screaming at me.
"You again?! What the hell do you want, haunting me like this?!"
She thrust her phone right up in my face. "Everybody look! This creep is back to corner me in the middle of the night!"
"Keep your voice down!" Frantic and furious, I said, "That man who was following you came back. Lock your door tonight—"
"Sure! Keep making it up!" She let out a scornful laugh. "Inventing some man just to trick me into opening the door? What's your game?!"
"I'm warning you, take one more step and I'm calling the police right now!"
The lights in the two units on either side flicked on at her words.
I looked at that arrogant, self-righteous face, and last night's swallowed anger came rising up again.
"I've said what I came to say. Believe it or don't!"
I slammed the door shut. The phone in my pocket buzzed like mad.
I opened the residents' group chat. She'd posted a thirty-second video. "The creep cornered me at my door a second time! I was scared out of my mind! Can any neighbors help me?!"
The group blew up instantly.
"He actually came to her door again? The nerve of this guy!"
"Just call the police! Keep a man like this around and something's going to happen sooner or later!"
"Tomorrow we all go to property management. He has to be thrown out of the complex!"
My fingertips went cold. I flung the phone onto the couch.
Pathetic.
I cursed myself out loud to the empty room and dropped onto the bed still dressed.
The next morning, barely light out, I was jolted awake by pounding on the door.
"Get out here, you sick creep!"
The second I turned the lock, the door was shoved hard open from outside.
At the front was the young guy in the tank top from yesterday, three or four men with sticks behind him.
The neighbor hid behind him, eyes red, looking like she'd been done the greatest wrong in the world.
"You don't know when to quit, huh?" The man in the tank top shoved me. "You think it's easy being that girl? Cornering her in the middle of the night, won't even let her live in peace?!"
"I didn't corner her." I steadied myself and repeated in a low, tight voice, "I was trying to warn her, out of concern!"
"Warn her?!" An older man beside him sneered. "Who're you kidding? What decent man harasses a girl at night? I say you've just got the nerve of a horny dog!"
"Exactly..." The neighbor was crying prettily. "Last night he knocked on my door and said all this filthy stuff. I couldn't sleep a wink all night!"
The stairwell filled up fast, fingers pointing, stares stabbing like needles, the cursing even uglier than yesterday's.
"He's really no kind of man! Scaring her like that!"
"Living in the same complex as him is the worst luck for eight generations!"
The man in the tank top got worked up and stepped closer. "You hear that?! Today you apologize to her, and properly, then write a statement promising to behave. Otherwise you're not getting off easy!"
I looked at him, all righteous fury, then at the woman behind him crying her heart out with that smug glint in her eyes, and suddenly the whole thing struck me as absurd.
Apologize?
Why the hell should I apologize?!
"I did nothing wrong." I swept a cold look over them. "You want the truth, go check the cameras. Whoever's lying, one look and it's clear!"
"Check the cameras? I bet you want to go delete the footage first!" The neighbor jumped in at once. "Don't think you can pull any tricks. Everyone's here as witnesses, and you still want to weasel out of it?!"
I gripped the door handle hard. Explaining to these people was useless.
In front of them all, I slammed the door shut.
The cursing and pounding went on for over half an hour before it slowly died away.
I leaned against the door, mouth full of bitterness.
I'd thought that after all that, things would quiet down for a couple of days.
But at three that afternoon, I got a sudden call from the hospital.
By the time I got there, my mother was in the hospital bed on oxygen, my father sitting at the bedside, his hands still shaking.
The two of them had carried in groceries and eggs, and the moment they walked through the complex gate, seven or eight women swarmed them.
Pointing in their faces, cursing them for raising a creep of a son.
My mother already had high blood pressure. She was so upset she fainted on the spot.
"Son." My father took my hand, his voice trembling. "What they said... what's really going on? Did you really, in the complex..."
"Dad, it's a misunderstanding!" My throat closed up. I crouched down and tucked the blanket up around him. "You two rest and get well first. I'll tell you everything later."
Once my parents were settled, I headed back to the complex, fists clenched.
I'd barely walked through the gate when I saw a banner hung across the entrance of the building, white letters on red:
DRIVE OUT THE CREEP RESIDENT, KEEP OUR COMPLEX SAFE!
Pasted in the middle of the banner was the photo of me taken last night.
Residents passing by pointed and muttered, their eyes full of scorn and disgust.
I stood under the banner in the blazing July sun, and yet I was cold all over.
Right then, my phone rang.
It was my girlfriend, the one I'd been with long-distance for two years.
I answered, and before I could say anything her cold voice came through. "Let's break up."
"A friend told me what's going on at your complex. The photo, the group chat, the banner, all of it."
"I never thought you were this kind of person. Don't contact me again."
I opened my mouth to explain.
But the words caught in my throat, and all at once I had no strength for it.
Explain what?
That I'd left men's shoes out of kindness to protect a neighbor? That I'd been wronged?
Even my parents had been driven into the hospital, and the whole complex had strung up a banner to run me out.
Who would believe me?
The line had already gone dead. I held the phone and listened to the busy tone.
Watching the residents come and go with their averted eyes, I suddenly laughed.
Laughed at my own stupidity, laughed at myself for meddling.
Fine.
Since you all think I'm a creep.
I'm never getting involved again!
