Page 159 of Letters From A Stalker

“No fucking way.”

I look down.

“Julia.” Her voice has gone very quiet. “Please tell me Hot Doctor isn’t the fucking stalker.”

The stupid nickname hurts in a way I wasn’t prepared for.

I close my eyes. “He is.”

For a moment, there is absolute silence. Then Tessa launches herself off the couch so fast, the cushion rises behind her.

“What the actual fuck?”

I flinch even though I knew something like that was coming. She starts pacing between the coffee table and fireplace with one hand tangled in her hair, speaking more to the universe than to me now.

“No. No, because I need to understand this properly. Your psychiatrist, the actual licensed professional who has been sitting there listening to you talk about your trauma for months, is the same man who has been outside your house wearing a fucking ski mask?”

“Balaclava.”

She whips around. “If you correct the terminology one more time while I am having a breakdown on your behalf, Imma throw something at you.”

Despite everything, I snort.

Her eyes narrow. “This is not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

“What’s funny is a raccoon falling into a trash can. This is Dateline with commercials.”

The laugh fades when I pull my knees toward my chest, and Tessa sees the movement immediately. The feral outrage drains out of her face and she sits back down beside me, closer this time.

“How sure are you?” Her voice comes out softer.

“Completely.”

“He admitted it?”

“Yes.” I nod.

I tell her about the tattoo first, then about everything else I started remembering once suspicion was there. His eyes. The motorcycle. Kai telling me only the week before that he rides at night. His build I had never really allowed myself to think about in therapy because it was completely irrelevant, except now I know exactly what was under every one of those suits.

Then I tell her about the sentence. “Ghost told me once that I didn’t need to be saved, that I needed to be seen. It stuck with me, and once I saw the tattoo, I needed something stronger than the tattoo because I kept thinking there had to be another explanation.”

“So you tested him.” She murmurs.

“I baited him.”

Tessa’s eyebrows lift slightly.

“I told him about Ghost without telling him I suspected anything. I started talking about myself the way I used to, saying maybe there was something wrong with me for wanting a man who watched me, maybe I was broken or incapable of knowing what was good for me.” I swallow past the tightness returning to my throat. “I knew that would get to Kai because he has spent months trying to make me stop doing that to myself.”

A grim little spark of pride flashes through Tessa’s expression. “That’s actually pretty fucking clever.”

“It didn’t feel clever.”

“No. But it was.” She adds more wine in both of our glasses.

“I pushed until I told him maybe I needed somebody to save me from myself, and he lost his temper just enough to say it,” I continue quietly. “He said I didn’t need to be saved, that I needed to be seen.”