Page 70 of Letters From A Stalker

The change in his face is immediate. “Fuck.”

“I was wondering when you’d get there.”

“Why didn’t you tell me fifteen minutes ago?”

“Personal development.” He stares at me.

I return my attention to the document on my screen. “You’re welcome.”

His muttered opinion of my character follows him down the hall, and I smile without looking up. This is the part of my life that rarely requires thought. Not because the work is easy, it’s not. Some days I go home with my brain feeling as if someone has scrubbed the inside of my skull with sandpaper, but there is something reassuring about problems with identifiable edges. A deadline can be moved or met. A document is either correct or it isn’t. If somebody asks me a question, there is usually information somewhere that will help me answer it. Nobody here asks me what I was feeling at twelve and waits while I try to excavate an answer from somewhere I buried it. Nobody expects me to explain why a single sentence from my mother can still make me feel like a disappointing daughter at thirty-four. At work, competence is enough. I know exactly how to be competent.

By lunchtime, the morning vanished without my noticing. I eat at my desk because leaving the building would require more time than I currently possess, and because apparently one reasonably productive therapy session has not magically transformed me into a woman who takes leisurely lunch breaks away from her computer. My phone vibrates beside the salad container.

Tessa:

How violent has Monday been?

I smile and type with one thumb.

Me:

Overslept. Coffee machine died. Nearly hit Mrs. Pritchard with my front door. Currently buried beneath legal documents. So, moderate.

Her reply arrives a moment later.

Tessa:

Thoughts and prayers.

Me:

Thank you in this difficult time.

Another message follows.

Tessa:

You still having the weird feeling at the house?

Of course I told her. My thumb pauses over the screen. For a moment, I’m back in my living room a few nights ago, staring through the dark windows toward the tree line with absolutely nothing to justify the certainty crawling over the back of my neck. Nobody had been there. At least I hadn’t seen anyone and the feeling hadn’t returned.

I type before I can give the memory more importance than it deserves.

Me:

No. Probably just spooked myself.

Tessa responds with a thumbs-up and a warning that if I am murdered she will be extremely inconvenienced by having to avenge me.

Before I can tell her how comforting that is, the phone on my desk rings and Monday swallows me again. The afternoon disappears beneath calls, emails and deadlines. By six, most of the office has emptied. By seven, I have taken off my heels beneath the desk and am drinking water from the same bottle I filled three hours earlier because apparently hydration is something I now do accidentally.

Michael appears near my desk sometime after seven-thirty, already wearing his coat. He pauses when he sees me still staring at the monitor.

“You know there are labor laws specifically intended to discourage this sort of behavior.”

I lean back enough to rub one hand over the back of my neck. “I’m salaried. I believe that means the firm purchased my soul in its entirety.”

“I’d need to check the contract, but I’m fairly sure we stopped including souls after Legal objected.”