Page 162 of Letters From A Stalker

“And now?”

“Now I know the things I liked about Ghost were probably the things Kai kept locked down the hardest, and the things I liked about Kai never disappeared when he put the mask on.” I swallow. “I somehow managed to lose the same asshole twice.”

That earns the smallest laugh from her. I reach toward the side table and pick up the letter.

“He sent this.”

Tessa’s expression hardens again. “Today?”

I nod, giving her the letter. “This morning.”

“I thought you told him no contact.”

“I told him not to come near my house, not to watch me, not to send Mara to check on me and not to turn up somewhere because he decided enough time had passed.” I grimace. “I apparently forgot to specifically say no letters.”

She takes the letter from my hand and gives me a questioning look as if asking if it’s okay to read it. I nod.

“He says it’s the last one.” I pull out the pages and give them to her.

Watching her read it is almost worse than reading it myself because I know exactly which lines are changing her expression. Her mouth tightens at the beginning, then softens slightly when she reaches the explanation about his mother. She pauses over the paragraph where he admits he didn’t want to lose Thursdays, and by the time she reaches the end, the rage hasn’t disappeared, but it has rearranged itself into something more complicated. She folds the pages carefully along the crease already there and puts them on the coffee table.

“Well. Fuck him.”

I look at her.

“That was a very good apology.” She sounds genuinely annoyed. “I resent him for writing a very good apology.”

A reluctant snort escapes me.

“I’m serious. It would’ve been much easier if he wrote three pages about being misunderstood and how his tragic childhood somehow forced him to stalk you.”

“He didn’t.”

“No. The bastard took responsibility, which is extremely inconvenient for my plan to hate him with every molecule in my body.”

I stare toward the kitchen drawer where I put every other letter.

“I keep wondering what it would take.” I say it so quietly that I’m not sure she even heard me.

“To forgive him?”

I nod.

“I’m not saying I’m going to. I don’t even know whether I want to. But the thought keeps showing up, and then I get angry at myself because I feel like even asking the question means I’m already making excuses for him.”

Tessa studies me for a moment, then shakes her head. “I wouldn’t say you’re making excuses for him. What it sounds like to me is that you’re processing a lot more than just feeling personally and professionally betrayed by him, and I’m sure it’ll take you a while to go through all of those emotions.”

I look toward the window, where the trees beyond the glass have disappeared almost completely into the night.

“Tomorrow you wake up and see how you feel.”

“That’s your entire plan?” I squint at her, praying to God I don’t fall apart right here and now.

“My original plan involved murder, but you were weirdly resistant.”

I laugh out loud at that, shake my head and lean into her again. For the first time since Thursday afternoon, the pressure beneath my ribs loosens enough that I can take a full breath without feeling as though I’m dragging it through something broken.

I’m not okay. I’m nowhere near forgiving him. I don’t even know whether I fucking want to. But sitting here with Tessa’s arm around me, Kai’s final letter folded on the table and the whole impossible truth finally existing somewhere outside my own head, I feel slightly less like I’m carrying two separate losses by myself.