I walked toward the bathroom expecting to find a mess or maybe something he had accidentally left behind.
Instead, I found a folded piece of paper beside the sink.
It had my name on it.
Inside, the delivery guy had written only a few lines: “I’m sorry for lying. My mother didn’t die tonight. I needed an excuse to get inside. Someone has been following me for days. I saw the same car behind me again when I pulled onto your street. If anything happens, please call the police and give them this.”
Underneath was a license plate number.
My stomach dropped.
I rushed to the window and saw a dark sedan idling across the street. The second I stepped back from the curtain, its headlights turned on and it drove away.
I called the police immediately.
The next morning, an officer contacted me. The delivery driver had reported threats from a former coworker after witnessing something illegal at their old job. He had been terrified that the man was tracking his delivery route and did not want to involve a stranger until he had nowhere else to leave the information.
Thankfully, police located him safely later that night.
A week later, he returned to my house—not with pizza, but with flowers.
He apologized for frightening me and thanked me for taking the note seriously.
That was when his strange goodbye finally made sense.
“We’ll meet again” had not been a threat.
He simply hoped he would survive long enough to come back and explain.
