Page 145 of Letters From A Stalker

He knows exactly what I’m looking at. The realization seems to reach both of us at the same time. His expression settles before I can read anything more from it, smooth and composed in the practiced way I have watched him become whenever something in a session catches him off guard, but his movements are different now. Deliberate. Too deliberate. He pulls the rolled sleeve down over his forearm. The black geometric pattern disappears beneath white cotton one section at a time while he works the cuff back into place, fingers steady as he fastens the button.

My heart gives one violent beat beneath my ribs. There must be thousands of tattoos like that. Black geometric work is hardly rare, and I have only ever seen Ghost’s tattoos in poor light, while my body was flooded with enough adrenaline and lust to make remembering fine details questionable at best. Except I don’t remember the tattoo only with my eyes. My fingertips know that fucking pattern, I traced those lines. I followed one of the darker bands around his forearm while he stood in my bedroom wearing a balaclava, and I remember the way the muscle shifted beneath my hand when I touched him.

No.

Kai finishes fastening the cuff, then lowers the other sleeve even though I never looked at that arm long enough to see what was underneath it. That bothers me more.

“You’re early,” he says, and his tone is so convincingly ordinary that something cold moves beneath my skin.

I force my attention away from his wrists and back to his face. Glasses sit exactly where they always do. His hair is controlled, his tie still neat despite the jacket hanging over the chair behind him, and his eyes look lighter in daylight than they ever did through the opening of a mask. Amber-brown — warm in this room, darker in my bedroom.

My stomach tightens.

“Mara said you weren’t with anyone and that I could come in,” I manage, though my voice sounds wrong to my own ears.

“That’s fine.” Kai glances briefly toward the clock before looking back at me, and I can almost see the decision he makes not to comment on the fact that I’m standing several feet inside his office staring at him like I’ve never seen him before. “I was just cleaning up before your appointment.”

He reaches for his jacket and slips it on, hiding the shape of his shoulders along with the rest of the evidence I suddenly cannot stop imagining beneath his clothes. The familiar version of him returns one layer at the time — sleeves buttoned, jacket on, ink gone. The transformation should reassure me. Instead, I feel sick. I sit because my knees have started to feel unreliable and because standing here, staring at his hands is only going to make this worse. Kai takes his usual chair across from me, but for the first time since I began therapy, the distance between us feels completely different.

There is a man sitting there whom I know intimately. There is another man sitting there whom I apparently don’t know at all, and I have no idea yet whether they are the same person.

Kai rests the notebook across one knee but doesn’t immediately write anything. His attention stays on me longer than usual, careful without being obvious about it, and I recognize the look because I’ve seen it dozens of times before. He is assessing. Only this time I don’t know whether he is assessing his patient or whether the man beneath the suit is wondering how much I saw.

“You seem unsettled,” he says eventually, his voice gentler now. “Did something happen before you came in?”

There is something almost absurd about the question. I want to laugh, but nothing about this feels funny enough for the sound to come.

“No. I’m fine.” The phrase should trigger him immediately. It always does.

His gaze changes slightly behind the glasses, but he doesn’t call me on it. That lands like another stone in the growing pile inside my stomach. Normally, I’m fine earns at least a look, sometimes a dry reminder that we agreed the phrase doesn’t count as an answer. Today he lets it pass as though both of us are suddenly pretending not to notice things I settle farther into the chair and try to make my body behave like nothing has changed.

The session begins almost normally. Almost. Kai asks about work, and I tell him enough about the week to keep the conversation moving. We touch briefly on Mom, then Nanna, and I manage to answer the questions without completely losing track of what I’m saying, but part of me remains fixed on the cuffs buttoned at his wrists. Every time his hand moves, another image overlaps it. A gloved hand wrapped around my waist. Bare fingers sliding over my skin. The same long fingers curled around a pen now that had been inside me days ago. I look away before my face betrays me.

This is insane, a tattoo proves nothing. Men have tattoos. Men have hands. Men have amber eyes. Men ride motorcycles. By the time I’m done listing similarities, I feel like I’m going to be sick.

Night rides.

My stomach drops. The conversation from last week returns with awful clarity. Gym most mornings. Work. Motorcycle. Night rides when he needs to clear his head. I remember sitting in this exact chair and liking the fact that I knew something about him outside the office. Now every ordinary detail feels like something I should have noticed.

No.

Kai adjusts the notebook slightly on his knee, and my attention catches on his fingers again.

“Where did you go?” he asks quietly.

I look up. His brows have drawn together faintly, genuine concern softening the expression that had become almost impossible for me to read since I walked through the door.

“What?”

“You’ve been answering me, but you haven’t really been here for the last few minutes.” His voice remains calm, though there is something more cautious beneath it now. “What are you thinking about?”

My pulse jumps. There is only one way to find out. I inhale slowly, then let the breath out through my nose.

“I started seeing someone.” Kai’s pen stops against the page.

It isn’t dramatic enough that I would have noticed months ago. Now I see everything. The pause lasts less than a heartbeat before he continues as though nothing happened, lifting his gaze to mine while the rest of his posture remains perfectly composed.

“Okay.” His tone stays neutral, but there is a subtle shift in the way his fingers hold the pen, the grip tightening before he seems to notice and relaxes it again. “Tell me about that.”