Page 88 of Letters From A Stalker

“That one.” She points with her glass in the general direction of my face.

“There is no face.”

“There was absolutely a face.”

“I am not attracted to my psychiatrist.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“You heavily implied it.”

“I said your face did something when I mentioned him.”

“My face is autonomous. I can’t be held responsible for all of its decisions.”

Tessa laughs harder, and I throw one of the decorative pillows at her. She catches it against her chest.

“For the record,” I add, “I am aware he’s attractive because I have eyes. That is not the same as wanting to sleep with him.”

“Fine.”

By midnight, both bottles of wine are empty enough that opening the third feels irresponsible, which has never stopped us before but apparently age has finally provided one functioning survival instinct. We change into pajamas, wash our faces and end up back on the couch under separate blankets while some terrible dating show plays in the background. Tessa falls asleep first. She always does. One minute she is explaining in great detail why a woman on television should absolutely not marry a man named Bryce after knowing him for nine days, and the next her sentence disappears somewhere around emotionally unavailable motherfucker and her breathing changes.

I look over. Her mouth is slightly open.

“Beautiful.”

She doesn’t respond. I take a picture because friendship requires documentation of weakness, then I lower the television volume and sit there for a while. The house feels different when somebody else is in it. Not better exactly, just fuller. Tessa’s overnight bag is abandoned near the stairs, her phone charging from my outlet and her shoes sitting beside mine near the door. There are two wine glasses on the coffee table, plates stacked badly in the kitchen and enough evidence of another person everywhere I look that, for once, the large windows don’t make me think about what might exist beyond them.

My eyes drift toward the console table anyway. The drawer remains closed. I could still wake her. Show her, tell her everything but I don’t. Instead, I cover her properly with the blanket she has managed to kick halfway onto the floor and turn off the television before heading upstairs. For the first time since the letter appeared, I fell asleep without wondering whether someone was outside.

Tessa doesn’t leave until almost four Sunday afternoon. Girls’ night becomes girls’ breakfast, which becomes coffee on the porch despite the cold, and then somehow becomes ordering lunch because neither of us wants to cook after the previous night’s culinary triumph. When she finally stands in the hallway wearing yesterday’s jeans and carrying her overnight bag, she points two fingers at me.

“Do something fun this week.”

“I have a job.”

“That isn’t fun.” She says, pulling out the car key from her bag.

“I have therapy.”

“That definitely isn’t fun, despite the visual benefits.”

I gave her a look.

She smiles and pulls me into a hug. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

“And seriously, consider getting laid.”

“I regret telling you anything.”

“No, you don’t.” Unfortunately, she’s right.

I watch from the porch while she gets into her car, wave when she backs out and remain there until her taillights disappear at the end of the street. Then I go inside. The silence that greets me is immediate. Not unpleasant. I like being alone. I always have. Still, after nearly twenty-four hours of Tessa filling every room she enters, the house seems larger than it did yesterday.

I spent the next few hours returning it to normal. The wine glasses go into the dishwasher, the blankets get folded, the pizza gets put away and Tessa’s forgotten hair tie goes into the drawer in the guest bathroom where approximately forty percent of her belongings eventually migrate.