AMELIA
Tuesday, August 19 | 4:36 p.m.
“And that’s our time for today,” Dr. Chen said in that unnervingly calm therapist tone as she closed her notebook on her side of the video feed. “I think you’re making really good progress, Dr. Hawthorne. It will take time to unpack all you’ve been through. The important thing is to unpack it as it comes. Don’t try to work through it all at once.”
That’s exactly what I wanted to do; talk it out in one session and then never speak of it again.
I didn’t want to repeatedly sit down with the best psychiatrist in Connecticut. I wanted to leave it all behind.
Really, I just wanted to sleep.
My ordeal with Jude—or Judah—had only lasted twenty-two days. And that was counting the nights where he simply watched me play at the Four Horsemen while I was none the wiser. Logically, it should only take twenty-two days to get over it.
But here I was, seventy-two days after the arrest and I still couldn’t sleep. Eating was the most insurmountable task.Thanks to delivery services and therapy through video calls, I hadn’t left my apartment since coming back to Connecticut.
The first time I vacated my apartment would be to go back to campus next week when the fall semester started at Alcott.
Hopefully, the vultures outside prying for a comment or sighting would be gone by then.
“Thanks, Dr. Chen. I’ll talk to you on Thursday.”
“Have a good day, Amelia.”
The screen went dark, silence fell, and I was alone.
I closed my laptop and tossed it to the neat side of my bed. When I first started my sessions with Dr. Chen, I tried to fake it. I brushed my hair. I’d dab on a little makeup. I put on a respectable blouse, even if I had pajama pants on. Now, I didn’t even bother getting out of bed to talk to her.
I burrowed into the covers and closed my eyes.What a summer . . .
My first summer not studying, taking classes, or teaching was supposed to be one for the record books.
. . . I suppose it was.
Unfortunately, that record book wasn’t a private ledger. My summer was all over the national news and the internet. Alcott University had put out a statement that they were glad I was “found safely by the FBI” and were supporting me in my recovery from the ordeal.
Every bit of it was bullshit.
The only time I had heard from them was when my department head emailed me to make sure I’d still be teaching my course load in August.
An unexpected knock at the door made my skin buzz as my heart stopped.
It’s just reporters. It’s just reporters.
Joel wasn’t here today. He’d been picked up by a handler and taken to the local FBI office to be deposed for the Valentine trial.
But me? The FBI steered clear of me. I had made one of their best undercover agents break his cover. I was a liability.
In any other instance, I would have been put into WITSEC as John Valentine and most of his organization awaited trial.
But the FBI hadn’t even helped me leave Las Vegas.Cole had.
And Jude?Judah.He disappeared into thin air like it had never happened. Like he was just a figment of my imagination. Like I had made it all up.
Whoever was on the other side of my apartment door knocked again.
At least I knew it wasn’t someone who worked for John Valentine. They were the blow-things-up-first-and-knock-later type.
I never answered the door. I didn’t even bother shouting “go away.” After a while, people just left.
