Page 122 of Breaking the Dark

The doctor gives her a selection of printouts from the scan, which Jessica slides inside her jacket pocket before heading out into the pale darkness of the November dusk.

FORTY-EIGHT

“JESSICA, HI, HOW are you?”

Jessica looks at Amber Randall on the screen of her phone. She’s moving through a busy street somewhere, her face framed by the fur of a raccoon-trim hood.

“I’m good. You’re back in town?”

“Yeah. We got back last night.”

“Me too.”

“You went away?”

“Yeah. Just a few days down by the sea.”

“Good,” says Amber. “That’s good. And listen. I wanted to check in with you. See how you’re doing?”

“I’m okay.” Jessica glances around her empty office as she says this, feels the rumble of hunger in her belly from her missed breakfast, sees the unzipped backpack she still hasn’t unpacked from her trip sitting in the doorway to her bedroom. “Yeah. I’m good. How are the twins?”

“Getting back to normal. I’m taking them to see a hypnotherapist, every day. It’s intense. But we’re getting there.”

“Great,” says Jessica. “That’s great.”

“So I have had a cancelation, for this afternoon. Three thirty. Would you be able to get over to my place? I’d love to do that session with you that I promised.”

“Oh.” Jessica sits up straight. This she has not been expecting. But yeah, she thinks. Yes. Only a few weeks ago, she was a hard no on the subject of therapy. Now she is a soft, tentative yes. “Right,” she says, “yeah. I guess. I’ll see you there. Do I need to bring anything?”

She sees Amber smile. “No, just your good self. And an open mind.”

Amber is wearing a sweater with a gigantic turtleneck that looks like it’s swallowing her whole, when she greets Jessica from the elevator. She peers at Jessica through oversized reading glasses and smiles warmly.

“Come through,” she says, leading her across the vast lobby and into a small office set into the corner of the apartment. It has a solid plate-glass window overlooking the back of the building, and a sliding door onto a tiny terrace filled with potted plants. The room is lined with wood paneling and lit with small halogens in the ceiling.

“Do sit.” She gestures at a leather sofa. “Coffee? Soda?”

“Water, thank you.”

Amber pours her water from a bottle in the fridge hidden inside the cabinetry and passes it to Jessica. There is a tiny, suspended silence as Amber observes Jessica and forms a smile. Then her expression cracks and she says, “I am so, so, so sorry.”

“What for?”

“For what happened to you over there. But, you know, it feels to me like there was something else, something triggering? The way you were on the phone, when you wanted me to get you back to the US. You sounded so desperate. So close to breaking. What was that, Jessica? What was it that you found so triggering about your experience over there?”

And then Jessica tells her. She has nothing left to lose now. Her mind has softened to the concept of sharing her darkest secret with people who care about her. She tells Amber about the man named Kilgrave who kept her prisoner in his apartment for six months, who exerted mind control over her and made her behave heinously, used her as a puppet to perform depraved acts of violence, brutality, and control against innocent people.

Amber shakes her head disbelievingly when she finishes. “After what you’ve already been through, for it to happen to you again…I feel so bad. And please tell me, this Kilgrave, this ‘Purple Man,’ he’s in prison, right?”

Bam.

It’s still there. Anytime Jessica hears that name, anytime she sees a flash of purple, anytime her travels take her to the neighborhood where she was imprisoned by him for all those months, her heart rate goes up, her breath catches, fight-or-flight instincts engage to a sickening degree.

“I’m sorry,” says Amber. “I can see that even the mention of his name is enough to retraumatize you. Is there a name you’d prefer me to use when I refer to him?”

“Yeah. How about it?”

Amber nods. “Okay. So, how long ago was it that you escaped it?”

---