“Yes.”

“No missus, Doc?”

There is a long pause. “No missus, Doc,” he finally responded.

“I’m lonely, Derek.” I closed my eyes and felt a tug in my throat, in my swallow that was thick and painful. I pressed my lips together and took a deep breath.

“I know.” The words were so soft. I let out the breath and opened my eyes. Looked out the window and stopped looking through it, seeing the reflection of me in the glass. A faint girl, wavy. Barely there. That was me. Barely here. If I disappeared entirely, no one would know. No one would care.

“I just want…”

“Everything?”

I laughed, the sound coming out as more of a sob. I sniffed in an inhale. “Yes.” And that was the problem. Ninety percent of what I wanted I would never again have. My family. My freedom. My normality. “Who do you have, Derek?”

“For what?” I love his voice. Deep and safe.

“For not feeling lonely.”

There is a moment when he says nothing. Breathes nothing. “My situation is very different from yours, Deanna. I have friends, I go to the office. I pull comfort and connections in everyday activities.”

I undid another button. “That doesn’t help at all.”

He chuckled. “The truth rarely does.”

“Then lie. Tell me what, right now, I need.” I shifted my gaze in the window and saw myself, saw the thumb of my fingers across the last button, my shirt falling open, a window of pale skin underneath. I pushed the material aside and stepped forward. Reached out a hand and drew along the glass, the cool apartment’s condensation providing an easy canvas beneath my index finger. I outlined the line of one breast as he sighed out a word. “Deanna…”

“Tell me about yourself. What does my doctor wear to sleep?” I lifted my finger and moved it right, stepped closer until I could see the detail of a pink nipple. Outlined its reflection in the glass.

He stayed silent, but I could hear his breath. Heavier. I smiled and lifted my finger off the damp glass. Brought it to my breast and dragged it across my chest, five fingers of contact smearing cool liquid, five tongues of Derek, across my skin, swirling down to one expectant breast, then the other.

“Good night, Deanna.”

I heard the click of his phone and sank forward against the window. Held the phone to my chest and felt the cool spread of empty throughout my limbs. I shouldn’t have pushed. But I needed, in that moment, more. I blinked hard and dug my nails into the unyielding cell.

It was a moment we never spoke of. A night that had, in the years since, faded like the aftermath of an orgasm, into a dream. Now, in the stark fluorescent light of the room, it felt like the slight break had never happened. Not with this perfectly put-together, disapproving psychiatrist.

“They may call me as a witness. In the trial.” He picks an invisible piece of something off his pants and drops it off to the side.

“There won’t be a trial. I’m pleading guilty.”

The statement earns me eye contact, his head lifting sharply. “That’s interesting. Have you spoken to an attorney?”

“No.” I won’t be speaking to an attorney. Another individual’s involvement is the last thing I need.

“The detectives told me that Jeremy is in an induced coma.”

I break the eye contact and look down. “Yes.”

“He might come out of it.”

I want to know so much more than I do, yet I’m terrified by the possibility of that information. Can I handle details of what I’ve done? I say nothing.

“I think you should talk to him. No matter what you did. You need that closure.”

No matter what you did. “I’m not pleading guilty because I think I did it, Derek.”

“But you do think you did it.”

“I don’t think he threw himself out the window.” My Spyderco. Yellow handle. Bloody evidence bag. My guilt pushes down my throat. I wouldn’t have. Yet, all the pieces are there, the only shortfall is that when I’ve stabbed in the past, my dead made it all the way to the finish line.

“I’m not understanding your logic.”

“I’m pleading guilty because I believe, regardless of what did happen to Jeremy, that I may no longer be able to control myself.” It’s your fault. You brought up him leaving me. You put the crack in the stronghold that I had emotionally built. The words never leave my lips, I swallow them and they die.

“So you think that jail can do it for you.”

There is an itch on my collarbone that badly needs scratching. No wonder individuals in straitjackets are insane. “I’m willing to give it a few years to find out.” Six hours. It’s been six hours and I am practicing breathing. I search the room for a mental distraction but only find Derek. I wonder if he finds me attractive. I wonder if, in the last four years, he has imagined me as often as I have imagined him.

“This is a drastic mode of self-policing, Deanna.” He leans forward, putting his forearms on his knees. If I could lean forward, I would. I try to pull my wrists apart and wince at the steel resistance. “I could have arranged a home, a facility that could have—”

“Drugged me.” I’m sweating against this seat, my back damp underneath the two layers. I should have taken this fucking sweatshirt off.

“Drugs have proven very effective with psychosis.”

“I don’t want drugs, I want to be fixed.” An old, tired argument we have had a hundred times before. I barely have the energy to say the words. I see the sigh in his shoulders, and he lifts a hand to his forehead and rubs the area there. “We…” He stops and I wait. “We were only four hours apart. This whole time. Four hours.”

“So?”

“So I thought you were in Utah!” The statement is an explosion from his mouth and he jerks to his feet, my eyes lifting to follow him, decisive, angry steps taking him away, the room too small, his strides hitting a wall, and he paces, back and forth before me, his body a tight coil of tension.

“It didn’t matter. Why would it matter if I was three hours away or thirty?” I wonder, as the words head in his direction, if he even hears them, his focus so absolute on the frustration he is experiencing. But I should know better. Derek is consistent in his unwavering love of listening, words his drug of choice. He stops and turns to me.

“It would have made a difference, Deanna.”

God, I wish I could stand. Wave my arms. Stomp my feet. Grab his shirt and assert force. “No,” I say strongly. “It wouldn’t have.” There is no us; don’t act like there was ever a chance of us. “Jeremy may die.” A reminder that shouldn’t be needed, and I suddenly hate him for it.

A softening of his face, the fall of his brow, relax of his mouth, a hundred tiny motions that should have occurred but don’t, the tension still there, greedy and selfish as he grips the top of his chair and leans on it, his forearms flexing as he stares at me as if he can force action from me. “You shouldn’t be here. You don’t deserve this. You are good, Deanna.”

I laugh, and the sound comes out cruel and mean. I yank at my cuffs and push with my feet. The laughter grows legs and runs a fucking marathon. My wrists complain and I fight harder. Tip hard right, then left, Derek’s face a blur as he reaches out but I buck away, my chair doing a mad dance of confusion as it skitters back before it tips too much and falls. He tries to catch me and gets there too late, my elbow catching the hard floor first, my laughter rolling out like an unending chorus that never ever stops.

You are good, Deanna.

I laugh harder and push the crazy out, to a place he can’t avoid seeing.

I hear him fling the door open, hear him call out for help. I hope, through the next peal of laughter, that he never comes back.

You are good, Deanna.