Page 122 of Letters From A Stalker

“I’ll see what I can do about linear time.”

“Thank you. Finally, some initiative.”

I close the folder, and she reaches down for her bag.

As she stands, the sweater shifts over one shoulder before she adjusts it with an absent tug, and my eyes follow the movement for half a second longer than they should. Not enough for her to notice. Enough for me to. The reaction is immediate.

This is what I mean. In this room, she is Julia Hayes, my patient, and there are rules around the way I look at her because there need to be. At night, the same shoulder could appear through a window and I would spend twenty minutes imagining my mouth against it. Two lives — same woman, same man trying and failing to pretend he can keep them separate indefinitely.

“Same time next week?” I ask as she reaches the door.

Julia glances back at me, one hand already around the strap of her bag. “Unless I achieve total emotional wellness before Thursday.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

Her mouth drops open in mock offense before she laughs. “Rude.”

“I meant statistically.”

“That did not help.” Her cheeks are faintly flushed from laughing.

Not Ghost flushed but I’ll still take it.

“Have a good weekend, Julia.”

Her expression softens as she opens the door. “You too.”

Then she is gone. I sit there staring at the closed door for several seconds before Mara’s voice carries faintly through the wall and reminds me another patient will be here soon.

There are easier women. The thought has crossed my mind several times over the past few weeks, usually when I am doing something particularly pathetic, like standing in wet leaves waiting for Julia to finish washing dishes. I know women who would have dinner with me tomorrow if I called. Women who know my name, women I could touch without jeopardizing a medical license. None of them are Julia. That seems to be the end of the argument every time.

Hours later, I am standing beneath the trees behind her house with my hands tucked into my jacket pockets and the ridiculous awareness that I have been waiting for her to read one letter for almost forty minutes. I left it earlier in the evening, before she got home, then rode far enough away that the bike wouldn’t announce my presence before doubling back on foot.

Tonight, impatience wins. Julia found the envelope as soon as she came home. I watched her pick it up from the porch, glance toward the trees and carry it inside. Then she ignored it. At first I assumed she was changing clothes, then she started dinner. Apparently the man anonymously requesting access to her home ranks below pasta. I have never been more offended by garlic in my life. She moves around the kitchen wearing soft black pants and an oversized sweater that slips off one shoulder whenever she reaches for something. Music is playing because I catch the occasional movement of her head, and at one point she uses the wooden spoon as a microphone for about four seconds before realizing what she is doing and looking toward the window. I laugh out loud.

There she is. Not Julia in my office, sitting across from me while we discuss her mother and sleep patterns. Just Julia at home, believing she is alone enough to sing into kitchen utensils. The letter waits on the small table near the entrance. I wait with it. Eventually she carries dinner into the living room along with a glass of wine and, finally, the envelope.

My attention sharpens immediately.

“About fucking time.” She can’t hear me from here, but saying it makes me feel marginally better.

Julia settles onto the couch and tucks one leg beneath herself, then balances the plate on the coffee table before picking up the envelope. She turns it over once, running her thumb across the wax in the little habit she has developed over the last few letters, and something inside my chest tightens.

She breaks the wax. I know every line by memory because I rewrote the damn thing three times before I was satisfied. The first version sounded too much like Ghost had already decided what she was going to do. The second went too far in the opposite direction and somehow managed to sound like a liability waiver with sexual tension. Eventually I stopped trying to make it perfect and wrote what I actually wanted.

Little Ember,

I’m tired of the window.

Not of watching you. I could stand outside that house every night for the next year and still find something about you I haven’t seen before.

I’m tired of glass.

I want to hear you instead of guessing what the sounds look like on your mouth. I want to know whether you still get that same flush when I’m standing close enough for you to feel me watching. I want to find out if that smart mouth of yours survives when my instructions aren’t written on paper.

I’ve spent weeks telling you what I would do if I were inside. I don’t want to imagine it anymore. If you let me come closer, I won’t give you my face. Not yet. You’ll get the man you’ve been looking for in the dark, and nothing more than I’m ready to give you.

But you’ll get my hands. You’ll get my voice. And if you want it, Little Ember, you’ll finally get to find out whether everything I’ve written makes your body react the same way when I’m close enough to do something about it.