Rachel is safe and that should be enough.
But I open back the browser on my phone and see Rachel’s smile, and it doesn’t feel like it’s enough.
Because safety isn’t the same thing as peace, and peace isn’t the same thing as healing, and healing…that’s something I’m not sure I know how to do.
We’ll fly to Chicago tomorrow.
We’ll sit rows apart.
We’ll keep our distance.
We’ll finish this tour.
And then I’ll go back to writing stories about a man who knows exactly what to do next while I try not to think about the woman who makes me wish I was brave enough to write myself a better one.
Before I can think better of it, I click over to my text messages.
Evan
Can you get me one of Rachel’s manuscripts?
Lily
WHY?
Evan
Just get me a manuscript,please.
Lily
On it.
Chapter 23
Rachel
Iwasinmyhotel room the night before we flew to Chicago, a new mint facial mask that Lily had delivered to my room plastered on my face, when I got the phone call.
They caught him.
Dylan Voss. My stalker.
Forty-six. Divorced. No kids. Works nights stocking shelves at a 24-hour hardware store. No previous charges. Never been a suspect. Never even turned in a library book late. He is the kind of person you’d trust to water your plants when you were gone.
And I know he’s my stalker, but I feel a little sad for him, like maybe if someone would have offered him kindness, he wouldn’t have had to look so hard for it in my words.
It reminds me of the man on the subway weeks ago. Down on his luck when he’d said,“Thanks for seeing me.”
Dylan Voss may have said similar words in a much more creepy and threatening way, but I think he’s just someone that’s had a difficult time, wishing someone saw him for him and not just the kind of man that fades in the background, wondering if his life even matters.
Because really, I think we all wonder about that at some point. We just want to know that the words we say, the things we do, the person we are, is needed.
I’m still glad he’s caught, but I hope he gets the help he needs.
Not from me. I have a restraining order. But from someone with a therapy license or with better knowledge of self-defense.
And I want to hate Evan, but he’s the one that’s taken it upon himself to ensure I’m safe with every resource he can buy.
