Page 115 of Stalkers Anonymous

“No. The police think he might have left town. Apparently he has a history of moving around.” I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “I guess I feel a little more secure now. I hate that I have to qualify it with ‘a little.’”

“You’ve had very good reasons to be alert for a long time. Your nervous system isn’t going to flip back to a relaxed setting just because a piece of paper exists. That’s going to take time.”

“Yeah. I’m trying to give it time.”

Dr. Martinez nods, making a few notes. Sometimes I start speaking so quickly I’m not sure she’ll be able to keep up, but she never asks me to slow down. I’ve convinced myself her notes must look like chicken scratch, given how vigorously she moves the pen.

“And what about the other situation?” she asks. “With Cole?”

My stomach tightens at his name. “Nothing. No calls, no texts, no unexpected appearances. He’s staying away like I asked.”

“How do you feel about that?”

It’s such a simple question, and the answer is anything but. “Relieved. Angry. Confused. Grateful. Heartbroken.” I pause, trying to organize my thoughts. “Sometimes all at the same time.”

“That’s a normal response to a situation this complicated,” Dr. Martinez says gently. “You’re grieving a lot of different things at once. The relationship. The future you were imagining. The person you thought you understood. It would be strange if that wasn’t messy.”

“I keep thinking about specific moments,” I admit, my voice getting quieter. “Like when he stayed with me the night I was scared. He was so gentle, so protective. It felt so real.”

“It probably was real, Hailey.”

“So how do I reconcile that with the rest of it?”

“You don’t, necessarily. You hold both. People are rarely one thing. That doesn’t excuse what he did. It just means that the story you’re carrying is more complicated than ‘he’s a villain’ or ‘he’s a good man.’ Both can be partially true at the same time. That’s often the hardest part of getting through something like this. Most of us are morally gray, whether we want to admit that or not.”

“It’s exhausting.”

“I know it is.”

I scrub my hands across my face. “The hardest part is that I miss him,” I whisper, the admission feeling like a betrayal of myself. “I know what he did was a lot. But I can’t just turn off my feelings.”

“Those feelings are valid, Hailey. Missing someone you cared about isn’t the same as endorsing what they did. The work is in being honest with yourself about both at the same time.”

“I keep wondering if I’m going to be angry about this forever, or if at some point it softens.”

“That varies for everyone. What I can tell you is that people often swing back and forth for a while. Some weeks, the anger is louder. Some weeks, the missing is louder. Neither is wrong. Pay attention to which one is running the show when you make important decisions. That’s the one that matters.”

We spend the rest of the session working on grounding techniques and strategies for managing the anxiety that tends to spike when I’m out in public. She gives me homework—journaling exercises, relaxation techniques for when I feel overwhelmed.

As I’m leaving, she hands me a pamphlet about support groups for stalking victims. “You might find it helpful to connect with others who’ve had similar experiences,” she says. “When you’re ready.”

I take the pamphlet but don’t commit to anything. Right now, twice a week with her feels like enough to handle.

…

At home, I go through my daily security routine: checking my windows—including the new one in my living room, arming the alarm system I had installed after I ripped out all the equipment Cole brought over, and making sure the curtains are closed. It’s a series of actions that helps me feel some measure of control over my environment.

Chewy greets me with his usual enthusiasm, scampering up to his favorite perch on my shoulder. His unwavering affection has contributed more to getting me through the last several weeks than I care to admit.

“How was your day?” I ask him, scratching under his chin. “No one broke into the apartment, I hope?”

It’s become a routine joke between us, but it reflects the nightmare I’m trying to leave behind.

After dinner, I settle on the couch with a book. But my mind keeps drifting back to Cole.

The truth is, I don’t want to hate him.

I want to be angry, to dismiss everything we were as manipulation, because that would be simpler. But the reality is more complicated. The way he listened when I talked about my work. The gentleness in his voice when he called me “beautiful.” Those moments felt real because they probably were real.