I was just about to delete the message request when curiosity got the best of me. The name wasn’t familiar, but the profile picture was. She was the girl my ex, Jonah, had posted all over his social media right after we broke up.

“Hey, I know this is weird, but I really need to talk to you about Jonah.”

At first, I laughed. What could she possibly want from me? I almost ignored it, but something about it felt… off. So I replied.

“What’s up?”

She responded immediately. “I think he’s cheating on me. And I think you might know something about it.”

My stomach dropped. Jonah and I had a messy breakup—he swore up and down there was no one else, but two weeks later, she popped up. I assumed she had been the other woman all along. And now she thought he was doing the same thing to her?

“Why do you think that?” I asked, playing it cool.

She told me about the late nights, the sudden secrecy, how his phone was always flipped over, how he’d disappear for hours without explanation. It was the same pattern I had seen before.

Then she hit me with: “I found your name in his phone. Saved under a fake contact.”

I blinked at my screen. That made no sense—I hadn’t talked to Jonah since the breakup.

“Are you sure it’s me?” I asked.

“Yes. And I found something else.”

She sent a screenshot. It was an address. My address.

My heart pounded. Why the hell was Jonah still keeping tabs on me?

I didn’t know how to respond. A part of me wanted to block her, pretend I hadn’t seen any of it. But another part—the part that knew exactly what Jonah was capable of—knew I couldn’t ignore it.

“Have you asked him about this?” I finally typed.

“Not yet,” she admitted. “I wanted to see if you had any idea why.”

I didn’t. At least, not at first. But then something clicked. A few weeks ago, I had noticed someone watching me at the coffee shop I always go to. I brushed it off as paranoia, but now? Now, I wasn’t so sure.

I decided to take a different approach. “Let’s meet up.”

She agreed, and later that evening, we met at a diner near my apartment. Her name was Liana, and she looked as exhausted as I felt. She slid into the booth across from me and pulled out her phone.

“This is everything I found,” she said, scrolling through messages. “He’s been texting someone named ‘Mark’ a lot. But when I called the number, it was disconnected. And then I saw this.”

She handed me her phone. It was a message Jonah had sent just two days ago: “I’ll handle it. She won’t be a problem.”

A chill ran through me. “You think he’s talking about you?”

She shook her head. “I think he’s talking about you.”

I leaned back, trying to make sense of it. Jonah had never been violent, not physically, but he was manipulative. Controlling. And now it seemed like he wasn’t ready to let go.

“I don’t know what to do,” Liana admitted. “I thought about confronting him, but if he’s watching you… what if he knows we’re meeting right now?”

I glanced around, suddenly hyper-aware of my surroundings. Was he out there, watching? Waiting?

“We need proof,” I said, forcing myself to stay calm. “Something solid. If he’s keeping tabs on me, there’s got to be a reason. And if he’s cheating on you, there’s got to be more women.”

Liana nodded. “I can go through his laptop. He never logs out of anything.”

It was risky, but we didn’t have many options. We made a plan: Liana would find whatever she could, and I’d lay low. No routines, no patterns. If Jonah was watching, I wouldn’t make it easy for him.

Two days later, she called me, her voice shaking. “You were right. There are more women. A lot more. And it gets worse.”

She sent me a file. Dozens of screenshots. Conversations with different women, all at different stages of being deceived. Some thought they were exclusive. Some thought he was single. Some, like Liana, had started to suspect something was wrong.

And then there was a folder labeled “M.”

I opened it and my blood ran cold. It was full of photos of me. Some were old, from when we were together. But others? Others were recent. One was from last week, outside my apartment. Another from the coffee shop.

“He’s been following you,” Liana whispered. “And he’s been keeping notes.”

I felt sick. I knew Jonah had issues, but this? This was obsession. I took a shaky breath and made a decision.

“We’re going to the police.”

Liana hesitated. “Do you think they’ll take us seriously?”

“They will. We have proof.”

And they did. It turned out Jonah had a pattern—exes who had felt uneasy, but never had enough evidence to act. But with everything Liana and I collected, it was enough. Enough to get a restraining order. Enough to make sure he couldn’t do this to anyone else.

Looking back, I should have trusted my gut the moment things felt off. And Liana? She learned that sometimes, the person you think is your enemy turns out to be your greatest ally.

If you ever get a message like the one I did—don’t ignore it. Trust your instincts. And always, always look out for each other.

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