And Jesus fuck. I am. here. for. it.
Something about watching her crack, unravel, just a little, makes her seem more accessible to me, more corporeal, more… mine.
Who the real Katherine Pearson is, under her all black, perfectly curated exterior remains a bit of a mystery to me, and I would guess, to even those closest to her, given her tendency to hold others at arm’s length. But it is a mystery I am determined to solve. My goal for quite some time now has become getting close to her and staying close to her. I’m well on my way.
Katherine’s problematic proclivity for white wine wasn’t the same as my father’s had been. That I knew. A temporary crutch, coping mechanism for her. Not a curse.
I don’t really drink, and I hadn’t had more than the occasional few sips of scotch for years. It had been so long in fact, that I had almost forgotten what it was like to purchasealcohol and be asked to show my ID. Or rather, Joseph Dillon’s ID.Whoever the fuck that poor shmuck is.
And I mean, fuck it, if I am going to be sticking around Dr. Kat Pearson for any length of time and,boy, did I plan to, I might just want to invest in a couple cases of that Rombauer shit. You know. Just in case we happen to live happily ever after.
It had been a little over two weeks of trailing the distinguished Dr. Katherine Pearson, and I was mostly on to her schedule now. She had sessions all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She took Saturday through Monday off and did her shopping and various tasks and errands on those days. There seemed to be a lot of unnecessary house projects, like the painting, that she was creating for herself.
With the exception of the expansive back porch, Pearson House was in relatively good shape, both structurally and aesthetically. It really didn’t need much. I had seen to that in the years since she’d been gone. But Katherine seemed to have a bit of an obsession with fixing it up, making changes and freshening things that didn’t really need any fucking freshening.
I wonder if this all was due to the grief of losing her father the way she did. Grief did strange things to people, after all. And I should know. A few unbidden flashes of running and screaming and hiding pass through my brain. But I am used to the intrusions now. They no longer rule over and destabilize me like they once did.Although sometimes I wonder if I onlythinkI got better, but maybe I didn’t. After all, here I am now trailing Katherine every damn day. Thinking of her every waking moment.
While what I am doing is in fact what some might refer to as “stalking,” I like to think of it as a necessary evil. Dr. Pearson is steadily going downhill, or “decompensating,” as the psychiatrists that used to work with me would call it. Somewheremy brain has convinced me that she needs a guardian: someone to watch over her. Care for her. Anticipate her needs.
Trailing and watching her like this is… appropriate, critical even. This is aftercare for her, given the recent and traumatic death of her father. Who did she have? She showed up and tended to her patients’ needs day in and day out. Who looked after her?
Me, that’s who, I think roughly. It certainly wasn’t her sister, out of state and preoccupied with her little political career. And it wasn’t that psychologist friend of hers, who was equally as busy with her own patients. It sure as fuck wasn’t the little black cat she had brought home a few days ago as some sort of quasi guard dog.
No, if anyone is going to protect and tend to Dr. Katherine Pearson, it was going to be me. Her watcher in the woods.
And that is exactly what I’m doing,I think. I pocket the sleek black binoculars I was just holding up to my face and make my way back into the trees towards my black BMW.
I watch the green, rain-sodden landscape reveal itself to me through the mist as my black 3-Series winds its way through the forest road. At this point, I could probably make this drive with my eyes closed.Probably wouldn’t try it,though.But I bet Dr. Pearson would. I bet she’d at least entertained the idea of trying it over these past days and weeks.
I had witnessed her muttering to herself under breath while walking to and from her car. I saw her crying for a solid half hour and then zoning out on the back deck staring into nothing just yesterday evening.
Jesus, she was beautiful. Even in her grief. Especially in her grief.
Images of Kat’s solemn face pass through my mind as I drive. Her raven hair and eyes, flawless alabaster skin, and the rosiest, most sensual, full lips. The way her fat bottom lip quivered abit when she cried. The way she rolled her neck when she was stressed or tired, exposing the soft skin of her throat. The way she bit on the temple tip of her thick black rimmed glasses while she worked away on her laptop.Fuck. My cock twitches imagining her lips on me.
I had watched Kat breeze through the grocery store on Monday evening, obliviously clacking along in those sexy black stilettos of hers. Several men had actually turned their heads to watch her walk by. And Katherine didn’t even so much as notice. She clearly had no idea what she did to men—what she did to me.
I had been her watcher in the woods since she was a teenager staying here for months at a time over the summer and early fall months with her family. From the safety of the trees, I watched Kat grow and change. I had also seen her keep her distance from her sister and father, preferring instead to be alone with her books. She and I had that in common.
I only ever approached her once. The golden glow from that evening rushes back to me. Kat looking as though she had stumbled into a dream with her eyes fixed on me, as if watching a specter emerge from the forest.
Hell, I doubt that she will remember me now.
Yet ever undeterred, I persist. After Lachlan’s death, I stayed close by. Trimming his rosebushes that encircled the property in the exact way that he had requested. I had raised a glass with three fingers of Balvenie the day Katherine moved in. I had watched over her from afar, making sure she always got back home to Pearson House safe and sound in the evenings. And I would protect her if the situation ever called for it.
But I can’t protect her from her own grief, I think.I can only help her endure it.The rain clouds shift and a bright column of light breaks through the clouds, piercing the trees.
No, I can’t save her from the grief. But I could join her in it. After all,I knew grief.Had shaken hands with it, embraced it, befriended it in those long nights where my mother was left shrieking and cowering on the floor. I had weathered its whispers over the years. Wrestled with old fears resurfacing, and I had done so alone.
I downshift and fly around another turn in the road. I think of all the shit we inherit from our fathers. I think of the violence and rage that ripped through every corner of my childhood home—every facet of our family’s life.
And I think about how I killed him. I don’t even regret it. How could I when it brought us that tender, soft, and elusive thing—peace. After my father was gone, my mother could breathe for the first time in years. My brother and I were free to roam the woods.
That is until I was old enough to join the Marines.
Working in the tech branch of the Corps, MCEITS, for four years had left me with some masterfully advanced tech skills, and they had definitely come in handy in civilian life. During my time in service, I had also learned that I couldn’t handle everything alone. We simply weren’t meant to. Life was best conquered together, as a team. Katherine had not learned that lesson, however.Not yet anyway.
Once discharged from the Corps, I moved home to care for my mother in her final months. During those long evenings, listening to the rhythmic beeping of her many monitors, I worked. I installed cameras, motion sensors, and remote underground trip wires. I cleared the land all around Bronwin home and had several controlled burns to rid the property of the overgrown blackberry bushes and twisting vines that threatened to take over. And in the evenings, when it was too dark to work outside, I read to mom.
