Brick

Apprehension lodged in her chest like a brick as she rode the crowded train past backyards exposed grotesquely like she felt.
He watched, she sensed, from a seat behind her, vague.
“He watches me,” she’d told her boyfriend.
“I’d watch you too. You’re a fox.”
But she felt more like a rabbit in the open meadow too long.
Her car, her front door awaited, worlds away like shrubs and burrow, without guarantee.
The train exhaled sharply as she dashed off, her keys biting back at her death grip.
Then a hand on her shoulder told her the chase was over.