Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates — The Aftertaste of Short Stories

There are some stories you finish… and then there are stories that stay.

This one didn’t just stay—it lingered, like a shadow in the corner of the room that you keep checking, just in case it moved.

Arnold Friend.

I still can’t get him out of my head.

At first, he almost feels ridiculous. The way he talks, the way he looks—it’s slightly off, slightly strange. But then something shifts. The more he speaks, the more the air changes. It’s like watching something reveal itself slowly, and realizing too late that it was never harmless to begin with.

There’s this quiet dread that builds. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just… inevitable.

Connie feels so real. That in-between space—wanting to be seen, wanting attention, playing at being older than she is. And then suddenly she’s faced with something she doesn’t understand, can’t control, and can’t escape from.

That’s what made it so terrifying for me.

Not anything supernatural. Not anything graphic.

Just a girl, a house, a man outside—and the growing realization that something is very, very wrong.

And then something even more unsettling happens.

Her house—the place that should feel familiar, safe—starts to feel distant. Almost like it doesn’t belong to her anymore. Like it’s already slipping away from her. Nothing about it has changed, but the way she experiences it has. It’s as if she’s already been separated from it before she even steps outside.

That part stayed with me.

Because it doesn’t feel like a choice anymore.

It feels like something has already shifted inside her. Like the moment has already passed, and she’s just catching up to it.

And the worst part?

That feeling that he knows things he shouldn’t know.

That he has power in ways that don’t make sense.

That no matter what she does… it’s already decided.

By the end, it doesn’t even feel like a decision.

It feels like surrender.

I think what unsettled me the most is how real it feels. How easily something like this could happen—not in the exact way, maybe, but in the way fear works. The way manipulation works. The way someone can slowly take control of a situation without ever stepping inside.

I closed the story, but it didn’t close with me.

Arnold Friend is still there.

And I don’t think he’s leaving anytime soon.