The Perfect Gentleman

The Perfect Gentleman

I. The Watcher

New York City was an ocean, vast and chaotic. People drifted through its streets like waves, faceless, unnoticed. I had always been one of them—until I saw her.

She was different.

Not just because she was beautiful, though she was. It was something else—something untouched. The city hadn’t hardened her yet.

The first time I saw her, she was struggling to read the subway map, chewing on the tip of her thumb, brow furrowed. She didn’t know how to move through this world, not yet.

I knew then.

I needed to protect her.

I needed to make sure she wasn’t swallowed whole.

I followed her, carefully at first. Not out of malice, but out of curiosity. She carried herself like a girl raised on front porches and summer fields, someone who had spent her life trusting people. I watched her move through the city—hesitant but hopeful. A girl like her wouldn’t last long here.

She was too soft. Too kind.

Too easy to break.


---

She worked at Holloway Books, a dying little shop nestled between a café and a dry cleaner. The kind of place that only tourists and hopeless romantics still visited.

I made a habit of browsing. Not every day—that would be too obvious—but often enough for her to remember me.

She smiled at me the second time I walked in.

That’s when I knew I had her.


---

Her name was Lena Whitmore.

From Greenfield, Tennessee. Population: 3,600.

She had moved to the city with a suitcase full of dreams and just enough money to rent a shoebox apartment. She wanted to be a writer—how poetic.

She spoke to her mother every Sunday, always ending the call with “Love you, Mama.”

She left her apartment every morning at exactly 7:45 a.m., stopping for a caramel latte at Charlie’s Coffeehouse.

She liked to read in the park. Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson. She was a cliché wrapped in something delicate.

I knew everything about her.

And yet, she knew nothing about me.


---

II. The Gentleman

The first time we spoke, I made sure it was perfect.

She was at Charlie’s Coffeehouse, fumbling for exact change, cheeks flushed.

"Let me." I handed the cashier a twenty before she could protest.

She blinked up at me, surprised.

"Oh—I can’t let you do that."

"You can, and you will," I said smoothly. "Consider it a welcome to the city."

She hesitated but smiled. “Thank you. That’s really kind.”

That was all it took.

I made sure she saw me more often after that—at the bookstore, the café, the park. I played it slow, careful.

When I finally asked her out, she blushed and said yes.


---

I took her to Le Jardin, a restaurant that overlooked the skyline. She had never been anywhere so expensive. I watched her run her fingers over the edge of the menu, hesitant.

"Order anything you like," I assured her. "Tonight is about you."

She smiled, tucking a stray curl behind her ear.

I asked her about her childhood, and she painted me pictures of warm summers, fireflies, and the scent of fresh peaches.

She laughed at my jokes, her eyes bright with admiration.

She was falling.

And I was letting her.


---

III. The Possession

It was supposed to be a love story.

Then she changed.

She started pulling away.

She stopped answering my calls. The texts became short, impersonal.

At first, I thought it was a game—a test. She wanted to see if I cared enough to chase her.

I did.

And that’s when I saw him.

Some nobody. Some insignificant man.

He was touching her arm, making her laugh.

She wasn’t laughing like that with me anymore.

I clenched my fists so hard my nails cut into my palm.

She was forgetting.

Forgetting that she was mine.


---

The messages became more insistent.

"I miss you."

"Talk to me."

"Don’t do this, Lena. You know we’re meant to be."

She ignored them.

So I sent flowers.

Then letters.

Then I waited outside her work.

She never even looked at me.

That was when I realized—

She was trying to run.


---

IV. The Breaking Point

She thought she could leave me.

She was wrong.

It was raining the night I let myself into her apartment.

I didn’t break in—she was careless. I had watched her punch in the code a dozen times.

She was curled up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket. When she saw me, she froze.

"What are you doing here?" Her voice was small.

"We need to talk."

"No, we don’t." She stood, backing away. "You need to leave."

I reached for her. She slapped me.

The world tilted.

Something inside me cracked wide open.

The next moments were a blur.

Her struggling, my grip tightening.

Her lip split, her breath ragged.

"Stop screaming," I told her. But she didn’t listen.

Then—sirens.

Neighbors.

The police.

I barely remember them dragging me away.

Only her face.

Terror-stricken.

Like I was a monster.


---

V. The Trial

I sit in the courtroom, composed. Hands folded. Face carefully arranged.

I am a perfect defendant.

The jury sees a Harvard-educated businessman. Son of a judge and a lawyer.

I am clean-cut. Handsome. Wealthy.

Men like me do not go to prison.


---

I speak first.

I tell them I loved her.

I tell them it was a misunderstanding.

"She was confused. The city was overwhelming for her. She mistook my concern for something sinister."

Some of them believe me.

Some of them pity me.

It’s working.

Until she speaks.


---

Lena takes the stand.

She is different now.

Thinner. Paler. Dark circles rim her eyes.

But she does not look at me.

She speaks of fear.

Of waking up at night, certain I was outside her window.

Of locking her doors twice.

Of changing her routes, never feeling safe.

She tells them about the night in her apartment.

The night she thought she was going to die.

Her voice trembles, but it does not break.

The jury watches her.

And then they watch me.

And suddenly, I am no longer the handsome gentleman.

I am a predator.


---

The verdict is swift.

“Guilty.”

Gasps ripple through the courtroom.

My mother’s hand flies to her mouth.

My father stares, silent.

I sit still, my pulse a dull roar.

This isn’t how it was supposed to go.

She was mine.

She was supposed to be mine.

But now, she is free.

And I am the one locked away.