Page 97 of Letters From A Stalker

“Good.” She smiles slightly. “She steals blankets and drinks wine I specifically tell her we don’t need, but otherwise she’s tolerable.”

There is affection beneath every complaint. I’ve seen it. I’ve watched Tessa occupy Julia’s kitchen like an invasive species while Julia pretended not to cringe as her friend brutalized pizza dough that had done nothing to deserve it.

The memory nearly makes me smile.

“She asked about therapy,” Julia continues.

My attention sharpens. “What did you tell her?”

“That you’re still annoying, obviously.”

The corner of my mouth moves despite myself. “Professionally devastating.”

“She’ll recover.” Julia’s fingers slide around the water bottle again before her expression changes. “I told her what we talked about last week.”

The humor disappears from me immediately. “The assault?”

She nods. “Tessa already knows everything. She’s known for years. I just told her I finally gave you the details.”

“And how did that conversation feel?”

“Better than I expected.”

She looks down for a moment, considering her answer rather than searching for an escape from it.

“I think you were right about one thing.” She hums.

“One?” I feel my eyebrow arch.

“Don’t get greedy.”

I wait, and this time she doesn’t make me ask.

“When you told me there was nothing to forgive, I realized I had been doing exactly that. Forgiving myself. For not screaming, not fighting, getting into his car, walking into the house. I knew none of those things made what happened my fault, but apparently there was still this little corner of my brain keeping score.” Her mouth pulls faintly at one side. “I think it finally shut up.”

The words land somewhere deeper than professional satisfaction should. “I’m glad.”

She looks at me, and for a second there is no sarcasm between us. “So am I.”

I let the silence remain for a moment because nothing useful needs to be inserted into it.

Then Julia shifts slightly in the chair. “There was something else Tessa and I talked about.”

The change in her tone is small but I notice it anyway.

“What?”

She gives me a look that immediately tells me whatever comes next makes her uncomfortable for reasons entirely different from the subject we covered last week.

“I’m trying to figure out how to ask this without making the next forty minutes unbelievably awkward.” That is not a sentence a psychiatrist wants to hear from a woman he secretly watched masturbate four nights earlier.

My entire body goes alert beneath the suit. Professionally, I remain still. Privately, Ghost lifts his fucking head.

“You can start wherever it makes sense to you.”

“That sounds dangerously reasonable.”

“It’s occasionally part of the job.”