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PATRICK
The hearts and thorns tattoo on her ribs.
The references to swimming.
The Fiona Apple lyrics.
Has it been obvious all this time?
I scan old entries. The excitement about a possible tattoo a week before she contacted me. The desire for sex the night she booty called me. The excitement after our first attempt at exhibitionism.
And that's only what she's written since I've known her as Imogen.
All the other hints, the pieces of her I collected?
I should have seen it.
How the hell did I miss it?
The woman I've been following all year, the woman who makes me laugh and cry and understand, is the woman who wants to screw me senseless.
Imogen is Hearts and Thorns.
I don't put my phone away. I don't text her with a confession.
No, I do something much worse.
I read her entire online journal, cover to cover.
I pore over every word.
I fall in love with her.
ChapterTwenty-Nine
IMOGEN
Usually, my thoughts are the safest place to be Sunday evenings.
Today, they're dangerous.
Today, instead of trying to stay out of the fray, I try to enter it. But I can't latch on to a single word. There's too much swirling inside me.
Patrick's sister died by suicide. She overdosed.
With a more lethal medication (obviously).
She lived alone. She didn't need to work out careful timing or think up some place no one would find her.
She was lucky. Unlucky, I guess.
I am grateful to the rent-a-cop who tried to kick me out of the strip mall parking lot. He saved my life.
I should be more grateful, probably, but I'm not. It's too messy. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad I'm here. But I wish it was different, easier.
There's something odd about knowing I had the guts to go through with it, knowing I could now correct my mistakes. It's terrifying and comforting in equal measure. It's different now. I know how hard it is to come back. I don't want to go through that again.
I work—hard—at treatment so I don't have to go through that again.
