Page 135 of Kylie

“Intimacy has been on your mind lately,” she noted. “You’ve been worried they didn’t see you that way anymore. How do you feel now?”

“Like I’m alive again. Like the blinds have been raised and the sun is shining inside me.” As I said the words, I realized how true they were. I did feel different. Had for the past week. As though a piece of me was finally back in place, no longer wandering in the wrong direction, desperately seeking the compass that would get it home.

“Tell me about Travis and Gage. Are the three of you talking?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “But not about what happened. I thought they would ask after I shared it with them, but they haven’t.”

“Why do you think that is?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.” And I honestly didn’t.

“Have you brought up the subject again? In the light of day?”

She was referring to the fact I’d shared the details in the middle of the night, after waking from a nightmare. “No.”

“Is there a reason?”

I shook my head. “There’s nothin’ else to tell them.”

“When you told me about the conversation, after your nightmare, you said you laid it out for them.”

I had said that. Probably using those words.

“Have you talked about how it made you feel?”

My gaze lifted, meeting hers. “No.”

“Do you not want them to know?”

“Part of me doesn’t want to burden them with that.” I fidgeted with my hands in my lap. “They now know what happened. They don’t need to know all the gory details.”

“You said ‘part of me’. Is there more than one part?”

“Yeah.” I took a deep breath. “The other part’s worried Travis might go after Martin himself.”

Dr. Briggs continued to watch me. “You told me back when you first came here that you wanted to find Martin yourself. Is that not the case anymore?”

“Brantley’s still workin’ the case.”

“Is he making any progress?”

I looked down again, flicking my thumbnail.

“Kylie?”

“No,” I finally said. “They’re not makin’ progress. They haven’t found Cicily Rose.”

“Brantley’s told you this?”

Looking up again, I tried to swallow the shame I felt. “Not Brantley. Archer.”

“That friendship is still growing?”

“Yes. He’s been comin’ by once or twice a week. We have coffee and talk. I text him every day.”

“About the case?”

“Not usually, no.” For whatever reason, I felt guilty about that.