Framed for Saving Her Life

1: 1

After I noticed my female neighbor being followed home in the female neighbor middle of the night, I meant well when I set my own leather shoes outside her door.

I was just straightening up when her door flew open.

"You sick creep, what are you doing outside my door in the middle of the night?"

I rushed to explain. "There was a guy following you just now. I was trying to help—"

Before I could finish, she cut me off, her voice sharp. "Save your excuses. I think you're the guy."

She snapped a photo of me right there and posted it in the residents' group chat.

"This guy's a sick creep. He's been harassing me, and now he's standing outside my door at night holding a pair of shoes."

Three minutes. The chat exploded.

"Disgusting! Scum! Looks decent enough, and turns out he's an animal!"

Looking at this woman who couldn't tell good from bad, I slowly bent down and picked my shoes back up.

I try to warn you and you won't take it, so if someone knocks on your door at night, that's none of my business.

1

I turned to go back to my own place.

"Stop right there!" Her voice went shrill as she called after me. "Hit a nerve, didn't I? Guilty conscience?"

My steps halted. I took a deep breath and turned around.

"I don't have a guilty conscience. A man in black followed you into the complex just now. I left a pair of men's shoes at your door because you live alone and I was worried about your safety."

"Oh, you make it sound so convincing." She sneered, her voice suddenly rising. "I think you've just got a filthy mind, and you cooked up some thug as a cover story."

"Squatting outside someone's door in the middle of the night. If that's not a creep, what is it?"

The lights snapped on in the units to either side. A few neighbors cracked their doors, sweeping me with looks full of contempt.

"Don't smear me!" I said, holding down my anger, and pointed toward the stairwell. "He just came from over there. Let's go to the office right now and pull the security footage."

"Pull the footage? I think you want to figure out the blind spots so next time you'll know where to hide."

She planted her hands on her hips and stepped closer, spit flying onto my face. "Don't try that with me. The whole complex is watching. No matter how you talk your way around it, you'll never wash yourself clean."

I pulled out my phone and opened the group chat. The messages were still pouring in.

A moment ago it was just insults. Now people had started making things up.

"I saw him hanging around downstairs a few days ago, staring right at the young girls!"

"Maybe those break-ins in the other units were him too! People like this should be reported. A few days locked up would set him straight."

My fingers tightened, and I quickly typed a line:

I meant well. I wasn't harassing anyone.

The message went up and was buried in an instant.

"Meant well? What decent person squats outside someone's door at night!"

"Hilarious. That's exactly what every creep says."

"Don't waste your breath on him. Just get the office to throw him out."

I stared at the screen, my throat closing up.

"Well? Nobody believes you, do they?" The woman's expression was mocking. "Take my advice and move out on your own, or I'll expose you every single day until you can't show your face in this complex."

I opened my mouth, then swallowed the words.

What good would it do to say more? They'd already convicted me.

Cold-faced, I dug out my key and opened the door.

Behind me came the heavy slam of her door.

"You sick creep, come back again and I'm calling the cops!"

I leaned against my own door, closed my eyes, and took a long while to steady myself.

A chest full of goodwill, smashed to pieces just like that.

The next day, the moment I stepped out of the stairwell—

"That's him! He's the sick creep!"

I followed the voice, and there on the complex notice board was last night's photo of me.

Plain as day on the sheet of paper, written in red marker:

Pervert and harasser in our complex. Everyone stay on guard.

Blood shot straight to my head.

I strode over and reached out to tear it down.

"Hey, hey, hey! What do you think you're doing?"

A middle-aged woman rushed over and slapped my hand away hard. "Did the shameless thing, and now you want to destroy the evidence!"

"Ma'am, you can't just say whatever you want." I clenched my fist and repeated it, holding down the anger. "This is a misunderstanding."

"A misunderstanding?" She rolled her eyes. "The girl caught you red-handed. What misunderstanding could there be?"

"Exactly!" A crowd of people swarmed in around me.

A young guy in a tank top jabbed a finger in my face. "You think it's easy for that girl, living on her own? Harass her again and I won't go easy on you!"

Once someone took the lead, everyone chimed in.

"Looks respectable, mind's this filthy!"

"Scum! Creep! And you've still got the nerve to argue?"

"Get out of here! We don't want trash in this complex!"

They talked over each other, one voice after another.

Someone pulled out a phone and shoved it in my face to film me. Someone spat at my feet.

I kept trying to explain, but the second I opened my mouth I was shoved to the ground.

Nobody listening, nobody believing me. So this was what that felt like.

I gave a bitter laugh and forced my way out through the crowd.

That day at work, I dragged my feet until past ten before heading back, afraid of running into anyone again.

The complex was dead quiet. I'd just turned into my building when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a figure by the wall.

Tall and thin. A baseball cap.

My steps froze on the spot.

It was him.

The man who'd been following her.

He was back.