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Hi listeners, I'm Ashley Flowers and I have a story I want to tell you.

A story about a secret stalker and a red rose bouquet.

So gather around and listen close.

Josie Bennett is someone I've known my entire life.

We grew up going to elementary school together and even lived on the same block.

We weren't best best friends but we were friendly enough walking to and from school together at least a few days a week, playing basketball at the park on occasion and going to each other's birthday parties.

As we got older though things changed, we grew apart.

I wasn't exactly sure what had prompted the change but sometime around middle school, Josie became distant.

And it wasn't just me who thought so.

Others were saying it too that Josie wasn't going out anywhere except for school and that she'd say no whenever invited out to lunch or the movies.

Apparently she stopped going to her dance classes too even though the family had paid through the year.

And soon she even stopped going to school, opting to home school instead.

My parents were friends with Mr. and Mrs. Bennett and knew the full scoop but they wanted to respect Josie's privacy so they never told me what the deal was.

They just encouraged me to keep reaching out without pressure just to let Josie know I was there if she ever needed me which is exactly what I did.

I made a point to send her a text or leave a quick phone message at least once a week and by high school we'd established a steady rhythm of texting back and forth every couple of days which seemed to be her preferred form of communication.

Sometime around our junior year she told me she suffered from social anxiety disorder, a case so severe that it made it hard to leave the house.

But eventually she had to leave. Her parents were splitting up the house was being sold and her younger sister Paula was going off to college.

Around that time Josie got an offer to move into her aunt's one bedroom cottage.

The tenant who'd been living at the cottage had recently moved out. The place was empty and surrounded by acres of land.

It sounded perfect except for one thing. It was a two hour drive from home.

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