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“Fine,” Zoe said reluctantly. She really wanted to settle in and watch a movie, but she’d promised herself she’d make friends in Redwater, and to do that she needed to leave the house.
Jonathan clapped excitedly. “Get your handbag and let’s go!”
Zoe wished she shared his enthusiasm but she didn’t have an ounce of it.
However, she couldn’t live as a grieving recluse anymore either. She knew if she was going to heal she had to put herself in situations where she was uncomfortable—she had to stop isolating herself.
She grabbed her handbag and keys and locked the door behind her before climbing into the passenger seat of Jonathon’s car.
“So, are you planning to return to your work as a psychologist?” Jonathan asked as they drove down Zoe’s driveway toward the road.
“At some point I’d like to,” she said. “Maybe I should start now. Do you want a free session?” she joked.
He gave a strained laugh. “Please, no. Trust me, you don’t want to get inside my head. Can I ask you something, though? Can people change—like really change?” he asked seriously, with none of the playfulness she’d heard a moment ago.
“Depends on the person and what the issues are. People with personality disorders like narcissistic personality disorder usually don’t change. But some behavioral conditions can certainly be improved or treated with medications and therapy. A lot of it comes down to the person and how much work they’re willing to do,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
“Just interested,” he said casually. He rubbed his jaw like Mitch did and Zoe was yet again surprised at how alike they were. Jonathan was a little more playful, but they both had the good-guy-with-good-morals vibe going on. “I was watching a documentary, a Netflix documentary, on serial killers last night—that one with Ava Montgomery as she works through the cold case. Have you seen it?”
“I have. It’s a good one,” she said.
“Do you think someone like that can be rehabilitated? Can you fix them?” he asked.
“Again, it depends on the diagnosis,” she said as she searched through her bag for her phone before she realized she’d left it on the kitchen counter.
“Oh shoot, can we go back? I left my phone at home,” she said, annoyed at herself.
“You’ll be gone an hour, you don’t need your phone,” he said with a nod.
Her eyebrows wove together. They weren’t far from her house. Why didn’t he want to turn around? It wasn’t like her phone rang all day with people trying to contact her, but with Mitch in St. Louis searching for Peter Benjamin, she might receive a call.
She sighed, internally wrestling with her instinct to turn around.
But it wasonehour. She hadn’t received a call all afternoon, she rationalized, so she squashed her instincts and didn’t tell Jonathan to turn around.
“Where are we going?” she asked as they turned right at the end of her road. She’d expected them to turn left, toward Redwater.
“My friend’s house. He’s hosting—it’s a small, intimate gathering,” Jonathan said.
“Are they friends from work?” Zoe asked.
He nodded. “A few of them. Some are people you won’t have met before, but you’ll like them.”
“How did you meet them?” Zoe asked, looking in the side mirror—though for what exactly she wasn’t sure.
“Through my older brother,” Jonathan said.
“You have a brother?” Zoe asked. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. You’ve never mentioned him.”
Jonathan shrugged. “I don’t talk about myself a lot. I’m sick of myself. Other people are much more interesting.”
Zoe raised an eyebrow but smiled. “You’re deflecting.”
He playfully rolled his eyes, but she sensed a tension that wasn’t there a few minutes ago.
“I grew up in St. Louis,” he continued. “I have one older brother. My mom is dead; my father left years ago when we were young. I was six years old. We have no idea where he is...” Jonathan said as he turned into a driveway.
Zoe realized she was only a few houses from her own, but the blocks of land around this area were huge, so it was still probably a mile away.
