Chapter 5: The Name

I’d been calling him 'him' in my head for weeks now.

No name. No label. Just a blur of a man across a balcony and behind a door, an idea as much as a person. It made the obsession feel safer somehow, like a story I was telling myself. But the thing about stories is that they change the moment you give someone a name.

It happened in the lobby, of all places.

I’d gone down to collect a package, hair still damp from the shower, hoping no one would see me like that. The building’s lobby was empty except for the receptionist scrolling on her phone and a few rows of mailboxes clinging to the wall. I signed the slip, took my box, and turned to leave.

Then the elevator doors opened with a soft ding.

He stepped out.

Even in the dull lighting of the lobby, he looked too good—jeans, a navy sweater, sleeves pushed up, a canvas bag slung over one shoulder. He was talking to someone on the phone, smiling that easy smile that made my stomach clench. I kept my eyes down, clutching my box like a shield.

Then I heard it.

“Yeah, tell them Mark will be there by six.”

Mark.

The name dropped into my chest like a stone into water, sending ripples out to the very edges of me.

Mark.

So simple. So ordinary. But hearing it attached to him felt like someone had whispered a spell. He was no longer just a shadow or a set of shoulders. He was Mark. He had a name that could be written down, whispered, traced across my tongue.

I almost said it out loud, just to test how it felt.

Mark.

He hung up, sliding his phone into his pocket. When his eyes flicked toward me, I nearly forgot how to breathe. I must have looked ridiculous—wide-eyed, clutching my box, lips parted around a name I wasn’t supposed to know yet.

“Hey,” he said. Casual. Polite. The way neighbors do.

“Hey,” I echoed, voice soft. My heart was pounding so hard it hurt.

He pressed the elevator button again, glancing at the lobby clock. “Late morning for you too?”

I nodded. “Package.” I lifted the box as if it explained everything.

He smiled, just a quick quirk of lips, but it sent heat through me anyway. “Have a good one,” he said as the doors opened. Then he stepped in and disappeared, just like that, leaving only the echo of his presence behind.

But I had it now.

A name.

The rest of the day, I whispered it under my breath like a secret prayer. Mark. Mark. Mark. I wrote it absent-mindedly in the margins of my notes. I scrawled it on a scrap of paper and folded it into my pocket. Each time, it felt different. He wasn’t just a neighbor anymore. He was Mark. He existed. He had a shape and a sound that belonged to him alone.

That night, lying in bed, I let my mind wander. All the fantasies I’d built before—him smiling at me, him sitting across from me, him laughing at something I’d said—suddenly had a new dimension. Now, in my head, I could call him by name.

Mark, you’re going to spill your coffee, I’d think as he moved around his kitchen.

Mark, come over for a minute.

Mark, stay.

Each whisper made my chest tighten, my body hum with a strange mixture of thrill and guilt. It was as if the act of naming him tethered him more firmly to me, as if I’d crossed some invisible line between watching and wanting.

I curled into my pillow, pressing my face into the fabric, and mouthed it one last time.

Mark.

And just like that, my obsession deepened. Because now, when I looked across the balcony, I wasn’t just staring at a stranger. I was staring at Mark.

And in my head, Mark was already mine.