Page 4 of Letters From A Stalker

“I’m sorry.” I manage.

“Don’t.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“I made everyone stop.”

“Nooo,” she drags it out. “That would be me. You had a panic attack.”

“On a bus.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve always been a little bit extra.”

A laugh comes out of me, thin and painful and I finally straighten to my almost full height, my shoulders still slouching.

“There she is,” Tessa murmurs, but her voice shakes on the last word.

Her eyes are wet and that is somehow worse than everything else.

“Tess.”

“Nope.” She wipes it off with her fingers, annoyed at herself. “I’m allowed one tear. Maybe two. You scared the shit out of me.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I know you didn’t. That’s not the point.”

I shiver a little because my hand throbs where I bit it. I look down, the skin is already swollen into a crescent mark that looks as painful as it feels.

Tessa follows my gaze and takes my wrist before I have the chance to hide it.

“Jesus, Jules.”

“It’s fine.”

“How is this fine?”

“It didn’t bleed.”

“Oh, when you put it like that…” she plays it casually but then her voice hardens. “That is not the bar.”

I pull my hand back gently. Not because she’s not right but because her tenderness keeps trying to find places to land and I have nowhere to put it.

I avoid her stare, focusing on the bus waiting near the curb, hazard lights blinking yellow through the rain.

“I need you to go back,” she says.

I don’t look at her but I know what she means.

Therapy.

2

Kai

Daniel Morris has spent the last thirty-eight minutes explaining why none of this is really his fault.