After stalking me for weeks, my tormentor abandoned me after just one night.
It’s a good thing, of course. There are no more dinners, no more showers where I’m cared for like a child. No more dangerous killers wrapped around me at night, fucking with my mind and seducing my body. I go about my days as I’ve done for the past several months, only I feel stronger, less shattered inside. Confronting the source of my nightmares has done more for my mental wellbeing than months of therapy, and I can’t help but be grateful for that.
Even with shame gnawing at me whenever I think of the orgasms he gave me, I feel better, more like my old self.
“So, tell me how you’ve been, Sara,” Dr. Evans says when I finally go see him after his vacation. He’s bronzed from the sun, his thin face for once glowing with health. “How did the Open House go?”
“My realtor is fielding a couple of offers,” I reply, crossing my legs. For some reason, today I feel uncomfortable in this office, like I no longer belong here. Shaking the feeling away, I elaborate, “They’re both lower than I’d like, so we’re trying to play them off against one another.”
“Ah, good. So some progress on that front.” He tilts his head. “And maybe on other fronts as well?”
I nod, unsurprised by the therapist’s perceptiveness. “Yes, my paranoia is better, and so are my nightmares. I was even able to turn on the water in the kitchen sink on Saturday.”
“Really?” His eyebrows rise. “That’s wonderful to hear. Anything in particular bring it on?”
Oh, you know, just having the man who tortured me and killed my husband reappear in my life.
“I don’t know,” I say with a shrug. “Maybe it’s time. It’s been almost seven months.”
“Yes,” Dr. Evans says gently, “but you should know that’s nothing in the timeline of human grief and PTSD.”
“Right.” I look down at my hands and notice a rather ragged-looking hangnail on the left thumb. It might be time to get a manicure. “I guess I’m lucky then.”
“Indeed.”
When I look up, Dr. Evans is regarding me with that same thoughtful expression. “How is your social life?” he asks, and I feel a fiery blush creep across my face.
“I see,” Dr. Evans says when I don’t answer right away. “Anything you’d like to talk about?”
“No, it’s… it’s nothing.” My face burns even hotter when he gives me a disbelieving look. I can’t tell him about Peter, so I scramble for something plausible. “I mean, I did go out with some coworkers a couple of weeks back and had a good time…”
“Ah.” He seems to accept my answer at face value. “And how did it make you feel, having ‘a good time?’”
“It made me feel… great.” I think back to dancing at the club, letting the beat of the music thump through me. “It made me feel alive.”
“Excellent.” Dr. Evans scribbles down some notes. “And have you gone out again since?”
“No, I haven’t had the opportunity.” It’s a lie—I could’ve gone out with Marsha and the girls this past Saturday—but I can’t explain to the therapist that I’m trying to protect my friends by minimizing contact with them. Doctor-patient privilege has its limits, and disclosing that I’ve been in contact with a wanted criminal—and that I witnessed two murders last week—could prompt Dr. Evans to go to the police and endanger us both.
In general, coming here today was a bad idea. I can’t talk about the things I really need to discuss, and he won’t be able to help me work through my complicated feelings without understanding the full story. That’s why I’m feeling uncomfortable, I realize: I can’t let Dr. Evans in anymore.
My phone vibrates in my bag, and I eagerly pounce on the distraction. Fishing the phone out, I see it’s a text from the hospital.
“Please excuse me,” I say, getting up and dropping the phone back into my bag. “A patient has just gone into premature labor and needs my assistance.”
“Of course.” Unfolding his lanky frame, Dr. Evans rises to his feet and shakes my hand. “We’ll continue next week. As always, it’s been a pleasure.”
“Thank you. Same here,” I say and make a mental note to cancel my next week’s appointment. “Have a wonderful rest of the day.”
And leaving the therapist’s office, I rush to the hospital, for once grateful for the unpredictability of my work.
* * *
I don’t know if it’s the session with Dr. Evans or the better sleep in the last few days, but that night, I find myself tossing and turning, drifting off only to jerk awake, heart hammering from some undefined anxiety. The emptiness of my bed grates at me, my loneliness a painful hole in my chest. I want to believe that I’m missing George, that it’s his arms I’m longing for, but when the uneasy sleep claims me, it’s steel-gray eyes that invade my dreams, not soft brown ones.