When I was 13 years old, my parents moved to the city and I started attending a new school. I was very shy at that age and I didn’t have any friends. It took me a while to fit in. The other girls seemed much more mature than I was. A lot of them seemed to have boyfriends and I had never even kissed a boy before.

I wasn’t really used to any kind of male attention at all. Whenever a guy smiled or winked at me, I was either extremely embarrassed or convinced that he was playing some kind of joke on me. I never thought of myself as beautiful and couldn’t believe that any guy would really find me attractive.

Then, one day, I found a note in my locker. It was a small, blue envelope, sealed with a little pink heart sticker. Inside, was a piece of paper.

It simply read: “I think you’re beautiful.”

I was genuinely touched. It was so sweet and innocent. I wondered who had sent it, but I didn’t really have any idea how to go about finding out. I stuck the love note between the pages of one of my schoolbooks and began to daydream about my new secret admirer.

Could it be the cute boy who let me borrow his pencil in maths class? Or was it my lab partner, who always made me blush bright red when he smiled at me. Perhaps it was the boy in my history class who shared his book with me when I forgot to bring mine. Or maybe it was the tall, brooding guy in the year above me who wrote poetry and spent most of his time riding motorcycles.

I was as excited as any other teenage girl, filled with dreams of puppy love, holding hands and maybe a first kiss. Whenever I was feeling sad, I took the note out and read it again. It always made me smile.

A few days later, I opened my locker and discovered another note. It was in a small purple envelope and was sealed with the same little pink heart. Trembling with excitement and anticipation, I carefully peeled it open and unfolded the paper inside. It read: “You’re so lovely.”

I held the note to my chest, and sighed with delight. For the rest of the day, I walked through the school hallways with a goofy grin plastered all over my face. Finally, someone really liked me. It made me feel so special, I wanted to scream it from the rooftops

Of course, I was too embarrassed to tell anyone and kept it all to myself, tucking the notes safely into my school journal. I spent the next few days trying to figure out who my secret admirer could be, but I didn’t have a clue. Obviously, I knew that it had to be someone in my school, but who? All I could do was hope it was someone I really did like.

A week later, there was another small envelope waiting in my locker. It was sealed with the same pink heart.

It read: “I am thinking about you always.”

As time went on, I couldn’t contain my curiosity. I started daydreaming in class and stopped paying attention. One day, during history class, I was so busy thinking about my secret admirer that I didn’t realise the teacher had asked me a question. When I snapped back to reality, the teacher turned to the rest of the class and said, “She’s not listening to a word I’m saying. She must be in love!” They all burst out laughing and I was so embarrassed, I went bright red.

When the next love note appeared in my locker, it read: “You smell like love itself.”

Huh? I didn’t know how to take that. I actually smelled like a combination of shampoo and deodorant. Is that what love smells like? I tucked the note away with the others and waited eagerly for the next one.

I didn’t have to wait long. The next morning, there was another envelope with the tell-tale pink heart.

It read: “I want to taste you.”

That was kind of creepy. The next note was even creepier.

It read: “I am watching you always.”

Suddenly, having a secret admirer didn’t seem like so much fun anymore. He was beginning to sound like a stalker. I didn’t know what to do. There was nobody I could talk to about it. As the days passed, my sense of uneasiness began to grow.

I started to see pink heart stickers everywhere. It was beginning to freak me out. In the morning, when my mother drove me to school, there was one stuck to the windscreen of our car. She didn’t know where it had come from.

Once, after I went to the toilet in school, I came back out and was washing my hands at the sink. In the mirror, I noticed a pink heart on the stall door. I was sure it hadn’t been there when I went inside and I hadn’t heard anyone come into the toilet while I was there.

It got to the point where I dreaded seeing one of those pink heart stickers. I was a nervous wreck, but I was afraid to confide in anyone. So, I did the only thing a painfully awkward and embarrassed teenage girl could do… I suffered in silence.

Then, things got really bad. One day, I came home from school and was horrified to see a plain white envelope had arrived in the mail. It was sealed with one of the dreaded pink hearts.

Now, he knew where I lived. With trembling hands, I peeled off the sticker and opened the envelope.

Inside, there was a picture. A picture of a grown man, naked from the waist up. In his right hand, he was holding a knife.

There was a note too. It read: “I bet your blood tastes like strawberries.”

I screamed. Then, I noticed something in the photo that filled me with horror. The man had taken a picture of his reflection in the mirror, but he had obscured his face. However, he had forgotten to cover his tracks. Reflected in the mirror was a framed picture, hanging on the wall behind him.

Worst of all, I recognized the man in the framed picture.

It was my history teacher.

© Lapillus@