A Thursday, A Psychological Thriller Short Story

A Thursday

A psychological suspense short story about a first date that takes a dark turn. Two strangers discover they have more in common than small talk over sweet and sour soup — and a woman across the street has no idea. A Thursday is a slow-burn thriller short story exploring loyalty, obsession, and the quiet violence of ordinary moments.

 

It was a Thursday. An odd time for a first date, but Traci kept odd hours. Clouds were massing over the skyline, small flickers of lightning barely visible. Thunder too far away yet to hear. She smelled the garlic and ginger even before she opened the door to the dingy Chinese restaurant.

Inside, she scanned the room, noting the couples in the dim corners, choosing privacy. Traci nodded to Mei, the waitress, and slid into the front booth, where the window framed her. Where anyone walking by could see her. Where she could reach the door. She'd been doing it for years. Mei knew the routine.

The September afternoon had gone grey. She watched the clouds roiling across the sky, automatically lining the condiments up with the edge of the table, her knife and fork beside her napkin, a habit that started after that summer.

She didn’t bother looking at her menu. She already knew what she wanted. She always knew what she wanted. Always the same booth, facing the door, the same food, the same restaurant. Change led to danger.

Unlike her father’s credo ‘if you’re not ten minutes early, you’re late,’ Traci didn’t know where that last came from.

People passed unnoticed in front of the window as she practiced her small talk. What do you do? How long have you lived in the city? Where are you from? No. Nothing that might lead to someone asking the same of her. She wouldn’t think about that place, much less speak of it to a stranger.

A police officer stopped to speak with a woman standing at the bus stop across the street. Subconsciously, Traci compared the man’s uniform to those in her hometown. She shut down those thoughts with a snap, glancing at the watch on her wrist. Too early, she thought. She adjusted the watch so the face sat between the bones of her wrist

The restaurant filled slowly around her. A couple took the corner booth, the woman sliding in first while the man helped her out of her coat with both hands. Traci had learned early that people revealed themselves in small gestures if you knew how to look. The man sat with his back to the room. That told Traci all she needed to know. He was trusting. Easy prey if that’s the sort of thing you were looking for.

Traci looked away.

She turned back to the window. The officer had gone. The woman at the bus stop was still there, arms crossed now, chin tucked. Whether against the wind or the officer, Traci couldn’t tell. Traci had been watching her for ten minutes without meaning to. There was something about the impatience in her stance, and how entirely unaware how visible she was, that kept drawing Traci’s eye back.

She looked at her watch again. Five minutes.

The apps had been her sister's idea. You need to meet people, Trace. Normal people. Go on a few dates. What's the worst that could happen? Unlike her sister, Traci knew what the worst that could happen looked like. She'd seen it up close, that summer, from behind. She'd watched the body fall, heard the scream fade, felt the distant thump, and had noticed, in the clinical part of her mind that was always running underneath everything else, that it happened faster than she would have expected. All through the questions from the police, the family, their friends, she’d waited to feel something.

She was still waiting.

She straightened the saltshaker. Checked her watch again.

The men she'd found on those apps rarely arrived on time at all, but Christian was different, arriving four minutes early. He stepped through the door, his blond hair the first thing she noticed. His blue eyes registered the room before they found her. Just a second, before his expression settled into something warm and appropriate, she saw the sweep.

The quick inventory. The way his hands fisted, as if he wanted to ask her to switch spots. She filed that away.

She stood, extended her hand. "Stephen —" She frowned and then smiled. "I'm sorry. Christian. I'm so sorry, I don't know why I said that."

A small furrow she couldn't quite read, and then it smoothed. He smiled. "You must be Traci." He sat across from her in the squeaky vinyl booth, and they looked at each other.

The moment stretched, full of stillness. Christian didn’t fill the silence with inane chatter, as other men did. Traci held her breath. Her fingers sought out the utensils. Who would break eye contact first?

Mei materialized. Christian glanced at the wine list as if they hadn’t just played their first round of ‘Chicken.’ "Shall we?" Traci didn't normally drink on a first date. The certainty in his tone, the way he'd already decided, made her nod.

"What do you do for a living?" Traci asked, when Mei had gone.

"Why not dispense with the small talk?" he asked.

Traci shrugged. “What else would you like to talk about?”

Something moved behind his eyes, but then he grinned. "I work for the government." He let that sit. "I'd tell you more, but." He made a small, theatrical gesture.

"A spy," she said, as if she believed him.

"And you?"

"Nothing so exciting." She smiled over her glass. "I'm a fixer for the mob."

He laughed. Genuinely, she thought, or something close to it. Outside, the first low rumble of thunder rolled in from the other end of the city. The light was changing. People on the sidewalk were starting to move with purpose.

Mei returned. She could have asked if Traci wanted the usual. Instead, she let Traci order her sweet and sour soup. Christian surprised her again.

“The same,” he said, handing back his menu.

Across the street, the woman still stood under the bus stop, hiding from the few rain drops starting to fall. Traci noticed the woman wore a long, fashionable raincoat, the collar turned up against the weather, but the front buttons were undone. Underneath, she wore a skirt that was too short, too leather. The shirt showed off too much midriff. Her calves were bare to the weather.

Traci imagined her running in her stilettos, twisting an ankle. Her cry as she fell, scraping her palms, a knee. Go, kneel beside her. Take her hand. Offer to take her to your place, clean her cuts. The woman would look at her with a knowing glimmer, but she would never expect—

From her purse, Traci’s phone buzzed, interrupting the daydream. She reached inside, declining the call.

“Was that your rescue caller?” Christian asked. “Have I passed the ten-minute test?”

“The ten-minute test?” Traci asked with a frown. “Oh! No. Mei,” Traci gestured at the waitress delivering drinks to another table. “She’s my escape contact. She took your picture when you arrived in case I go missing. She even caught the make of your car.”

Christian laughed. “I walked.”

Mei brought their sweet and sour soup. By the time she left, the storm had arrived in force. The window beside them became a curtain of running water. The lights flickered, settled into something dimmer and warmer, and the front booth was suddenly its own small world.

They played a game over the soup. She felt it even though neither of them ever named it aloud.

"What would you do," he asked, watching her, "if you saw something you weren't meant to see?"

Traci set down her spoon. "I'd mind my own business." She let the words settle. "I'm very clear about what's my business and what isn't."

A smile reached his eyes this time, even though it didn't touch his lips.

Traci lifted her spoon again. Outside, the rain was beginning in earnest, the first heavy drops darkening the pavement in spreading circles.

"What would you do," she asked, "if someone trusted you with something they shouldn't have?"

He considered this with the seriousness it deserved. "Trust is important. I believe in loyalty."

Something in her chest shifted. “You didn’t answer the question.”

“I meant, a person who trusts me earns it.”

She took a slow sip of her wine and watched his face. He had the same sort of quality she had learned early on. A way of keeping his expression neutral, blank. Calm. One didn’t find that kind of stillness easily. Traci knew from experience.

She wondered what put it there.

"Do you sleep well?" she asked.

She saw the slight pause before he answered. She’d surprised him. "Exceptionally," he said.

"Me too.”

They looked at each other across the soup bowls, and for the first time all evening, both of them were smiling.

She looked out the window. The rain was so heavy now she could barely make out the bus stop across the street, just the smear of a figure standing underneath its little plastic shelter. Not running. Not opening an umbrella. Just standing. Waiting.

"What would you do," she asked, turning back, "if you saw something and realized you didn't feel anything about it at all?"

That wasn’t the question she’d meant to ask. Christian went still and a worm of unease wriggled in her spine. She could feel his gaze on her neck as she swallowed convulsively against the tickle in her throat. She imagined him cupping her face with his hand, rubbing her cheek with his thumb. She wanted to lean into the embrace. There was something about the unease and the desire, working inside her at the same time.

"Feelings are overrated," he said. His lips tightened into a thin line.

She exhaled and the fantasy drained out of her.

A police car raced past the restaurant, the siren reminding Traci of a scream, falling away.

"I wonder what it's like," she said quietly. "To die."

She looked back at him. He wasn't frowning. He wasn't recalibrating, planning how to escape, as other dates had in the past. He was smiling. Her own smile responded unexpectedly.

Mei returned. “Coffee, tea or desert?” she asked.

Traci almost reached for the excuse. Order ice cream and Mei would manufacture an emergency. Traci’s reason to leave. She looked down at the table and saw that her hands were steady. Not fiddling with utensils or clutched in her lap and she realized, for once she wanted the date to continue. She turned her smile to Mei, whose answering smile was all the “yes” she needed.

“Coffee, please.”

Christian nodded. “And fortune cookies, of course.”

“Of course,” Mei replied. She gathered their empty bowls and cutlery.

At the bus stop, the woman turned. Even through the water and the distance, there was something about the way she stood, her back to Traci, as if looking out over the landscape. The water between them softened the figure into something unexpected.

From somewhere deeper in the restaurant there was a thud. Someone dropping something. A bag, a purse, it didn't matter. It was the kind of dull, domestic sound that in the right circumstances opens a door in the mind, and through that door came a memory Traci hadn't visited in years. She didn't look away from the window.

Another question danced on the end of her tongue; her lips pressed together against it escaping.

Thankfully, Mei returned with their coffee and cookies. Traci added cream and sugar to her cup while Christian tore into his treat.

“Shared opportunities arise with new relationships,” he read. He met Traci’s gaze and gave her a big wink.

Mei laughed and patted Traci’s shoulder before she moved on to another table.

Traci took a sip of her coffee, postponing her own cookie opening. Christian leaned one arm against the table and pointedly tapped his fingertips.

“’Release your inhibitions’.” Traci huffed. “That’s unhelpful.”

Christian smiled, his eyes reflecting the warm light. “Sounds helpful to me.”

Traci broke eye contact, brushing the cookie crumbs from the table and dropping them on her saucer. Christian’s smile didn’t fade as he crunched into his cookie.

Outside the rain was diminishing.

“That storm didn’t last long,” Traci noted.

“I miss the thunder and lightning. Did you ever just stand at the window and watch it?”

“We had a bay window. I loved the nights when I snuck downstairs with my blanket and pillow and felt the window buzz with the sounds of the storm.” Traci frowned. That was more than she’d meant to say about her home.

“Lucky you,” Christian replied. “We didn’t have a bay window, but there was a porch swing. Could get a little chilly, though.” He grinned.

They sat quietly for a moment, and Traci watched as the last of the raindrops trailed down the window.

The question popped out.

“Have you ever done something you knew was wrong but felt nothing.” She kept her eyes fixed on the figure across the street.

“I told you. Feelings are overrated.” He pitched his voice low, so only she could hear. She glanced back at him, her eyes finding his lips which moved slowly around the next words. “The only feeling that means anything is loyalty.” The curve of his smile brought her eyes to his once again. “Don’t you agree?”

Traci nodded slowly. “You have to respect boundaries.”

Something unsaid passed between them as they sat in silence once again.

“Have you ever stood over someone and made a choice?” he asked. His hand pressed into the tabletop.

Traci felt the question settle on her chest. It took a moment for her to be able to breathe. Finally, she met his eyes. There was a twinkle there. She felt her chest lighten in response.

“Behind someone, more like,” she responded. Her lips twitched up at one side.

He raised an eyebrow and she sensed a shift. They’d turned a corner. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Her mouth had gone dry. She nodded.

“I thought you were going to be next.”

Next. Like a key, the word opened a place that she had locked a long time ago.

“Oh?” Her voice squeaked. She cleared her throat. “And now?”

He gestured with his chin, out the window, toward the woman still waiting for the bus.

"Check?" she asked.

"Check," he agreed.

He wiped his mouth carefully, set the napkin beside the coffee cup. She gathered her purse. They stood, she waved to Mei, who nodded to her from behind the counter with eyes that held a question Traci wasn’t about to answer.

They walked outside into the clean, rain-washed air. The storm had passed, leaving the city bright and sharp and smelling of ozone.

The woman in the fashionable coat was still on the sidewalk. Walking now. Unhurried, with a swish of the hips. Her heels clicked with each step, audible even through the hum of the city.

She hadn't noticed them.

Traci glanced at Christian. His eyes were hard and bright as he watched the woman turn the corner in front of them.

"You saw her too," Traci said.

It wasn't a question.

"I've been watching her since our soup," he said. The emphasis he placed on the word our warmed Traci’s insides.

Inside, the door Traci had locked, braced, and intended never to open, swung wide and the darkness spilled out.

Without another word, they fell into step, turning the corner just a step behind the woman in the coat. The wet pavement reflected the streetlights in long gold ribbons. As always, the city moved around them, seeing nothing.