"That's another."
"I want to stop shaking."
"That takes longer."
I look at the letter on the floor. The block letters. The 413 number. The careful sentences from the man who broke my ribs.
"I'm going to tell them," I say. "Cole and Dante. Everything. The letter. What it says."
"Good."
"And Richard."
"Also good."
"And then I'm going to stop carrying this alone."
Talia stands and crosses the small distance between the couch and where I'm kneeling. She does not touch me. Neither of us touches without permission.
But she stops close enough that I can hear her breathing.
"Put the letter away," she says.
"Why?"
"Because you've read it and the words are in your head and the paper doesn't need to be open anymore tonight."
The instruction is practical enough that my hands obey before my head catches up. Put it away. The physical object. The thing with mass and a dead name in block letters.
I pick up the letter and fold it. Put it back in the zippered compartment of my bag. The zipper closes over it.
"I should go," Talia says. "You should sleep."
"I should do a lot of things."
"Start with sleep."
She goes to the door. At the threshold:
"Maya."
"Yeah."
"The man in that letter thinks he's showing you someone new," she says. "But it's the same method. The calm, the patience, the 'I'll leave it up to you' that isn't actually leaving anything up to you. He got better at the performance."
"I know."
"You're a journalist. You read performances for a living. Read this one."
She leaves. I lock the door. All four locks. The chain, the bar, the two deadbolts.
I stand in my apartment. Alone. The bourbon sits warm in my stomach. Talia's words stay under my ribs. My bag waits on the floor with the letter zipped inside it.
The phone is on the couch where I left it. I pick it up and open the group chat. Three names. Mine, Cole's, Dante's. Created two weeks ago.
I type:
I opened the letter tonight. I need to tell you both what it says. Tomorrow. In person.
