Page 47 of To Have and to Stalk
Lithie shot Eames and Olly a guarded look, and I felt like a child again, parents talking to doctors as if I wasn’t there. Talking about me, not to me, about things that would affect my life forever.
Lithie squeezed my knee, smiling, and changed the subject. “Have you matched with anyone new?”
“No.”
“Are you still hung up on Grave Boy?”
I’d tried not to think about him. Tried and fuckingfailed.It wasn’t that I wasn’t aware of all the red flags. A self-professed criminal. Astalker.He was more than a red flag—he was a fucking wanted poster.
Maybe he had bodies in his trunk.
And maybe I should have taken the out fate gave me. Wrote it off as an acceptable blip of insanity in a lifetime of sanity.
But like I’d told him, I didn’twantgood. I didn’t want to meet more people. I wanted Void.
Limerence.
“Yes,” I groaned. “Thisis why I don’t do relationships. I get too attached! And then they’re not who they say they are and history repeats.”
She held out her hand. “It’s time to get over him by getting under someone else.”
I stared at her hand. “Not happening.”
“You promised,” Olly said. “You said you would let us help.” When I hesitated, she continued. “You’re allowed to ask for help, Shay.” Lithie leaned forward, sounding more serious than she’d ever been. “You are not a burden.”
The first time Graham yelled at me, he said I was a worthless burden to everyone around me. Then he apologized on literal knees, with tears in his eyes. And then it happened again, and he apologized again, and that became our pattern.
Because, I don’t know, a part of me felt he was right. It was hardnotto feel like a burden when so much of my life I’d been dependent on others.
“You don’t need to make decisions alone, Shay,” Eames said, drawing me back to the present.
Olly wrung her hands against her chest. “Pick us. Chooseus.” She affected her voice like Meredith Grey, and I rolled my eyes.
“Look, we can make it fun,” Lithie said. “If not now, then we can make a whole night of it.”
“How about Thursday?” Eames asked.
“And remember we have access to your calendar when you make up a lie,” Olly added.
“If I agree, can we stop talking about this?” I asked. When they nodded, I sighed. “Thursday is great.”
chapter
fifteen
CALDER
I’d rented a home thirty minutes outside of Salt Lake City, in the mountain town of Park City. Below the mountains, the city twinkled like a glittering ocean. I gripped the steering wheel, taking the winding canyon roads up to my home a little too steeply.
Expectedly, I’d barely made a dent in the pile of boxes. The operation was built for a fucking supercomputer, and there was absolutely no way any human could do it. Which meant I was either a necessity or a liability.
My mind kept drifting back to Shay.
To the diagnosis I wasn’t supposed to know.
So as I got out of the car, even though it was all kinds of wrong, I opened her notes again and stuttered on a newer list.
My garage door closed automatically behind me, shutting me in darkness as I read the title of a new note labeledKinks?—
