Page 29 of Letters From A Stalker

Fifteen days. DNA. The funeral. My birthday. My hand.

I stopped typing. The bite mark has faded from angry purple into a yellowing crescent beneath my thumb. I run my finger over it and remember Kai noticing it almost immediately. Not just noticing, watching. There had been something in his expression before he tucked it away so quickly that I might have imagined it. His face had remained professional, but for a fraction of a second something colder moved behind his eyes. I assumed concern. Now I’m not sure.

I pull my sleeve over the mark even though I’m alone. Then I type: I bit myself because screaming felt worse.

My fingers remain over the keyboard.

I know what he would ask. “Why?”

The annoying thing about therapists is that eventually you start hearing them even when they aren’t there. The good thing about that is… I don’t have an answer. Not yet. So I close the note.

By Sunday, I’ve become painfully aware of how much of my life runs on rituals I never consciously created. Sunday morning means coffee before anything else because speaking to another human being without caffeine should qualify as an act of aggression. I open the curtains in the living room even when it’s cloudy because Nanna always said a closed house becomes a sad house, although I have never been entirely sure whether she meant emotionally or literally. I water the plants despite overwhelming evidence that living things should probably file restraining orders against me. Laundry goes in before breakfast while a toe fungus commercial plays on repeat from my TV before I curse out loud and change the channel. Groceries after ten because going earlier means encountering people who voluntarily wake up cheerful on weekends, and that just annoys me to no end. I call Nanna. I answer emails I could leave until Monday. I meal prep for several days because weekday Julia cannot be trusted to cook anything opening a microwave meal or tossing a frozen pizza in the oven.

None of those things are particularly strange. The strange part is how unsettled I become when I don’t do them. Routine keeps everything where I expect it. Work goes here. Family goes there. Grief has its place too, although that drawer is supposed to remain closed unless something decides to rip it open without my permission. I wonder whether Kai would call that a survival strategy. Probably. The man has terminology for everything.

My phone rings while I’m chopping vegetables, and Tessa’s face fills the screen. I put her on speaker.

“If this is another wellness check, I’m revoking your privileges.”

“Good morning to you too, sunshine.” The way she rolls her eyes at me debunks the chirp in her tone.

“It’s eleven-thirty.”

“Still morning.”

“Barely.”

“How’s the homework?”

I stop chopping. “I hate you.”

“So, productive?”

“I have discovered that apparently everything I do is a trauma response.”

She laughs. “Shit, I could’ve told you that for free.”

“Sometimes I pee because I need to pee. Jury’s still out on the psychological implications.”

“Have you written that down?”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Wait. Have you thought about Dr. Hotwood?”

My knife stops against the cutting board. I close my eyes to center myself before I strangle her over the screen.

“We agreed you weren’t calling him that.”

“You agreed. I made no such commitment.”

“His name is Blackwood.”

“Which honestly made this way too easy.”

“Tessa.” I warn with my right eyebrow bending into a reverse checkmark.

“What?”