Page 67 of You Can't Hurt Me

“Alright, yes. It was her self-reflection journal, the one she used for work,” I say, so quietly I can barely hear myself. “I found it jammed in a space behind one of the drawers.”

“You really were thorough, weren’t you, turning over my wife’s bedroom?” He lets out a bitter laugh. “Fucking hell, Anna, you’re a piece of work.”

“I’m—”

He holds his arm up. “I don’t want to hear it. Just tell me where her journal is.” There’s a tremor in his voice, a wariness that is new to me.

“So you’ve read it then? I need to tell you something before I do. About my brother, Tony.”

There’s a pause as I let his name permeate.

“My half brother. You know exactly who I’m talking about. I know you know about the affair...their affair.”

His features harden, his mannerisms brittle as glass. He has reason to be explosive but how much will he take it out on me?

The moment stretches. Outside there is the familiar London sound of suitcase wheels on pavement, the flinty sound of transience and escape. I wish I could be anywhere but here. Nate taps his foot on the floorboards.

“Eva was also Tony’s psychotherapist,” I say, emotionless. There’s no way to soften those words and so I don’t bother trying. “That’s it. That’s all I know. After my telephone interview with her, I remember I enthused about her to Tony, and I suppose it was enough to make him think of her when he wanted to see a therapist.”

“Your brother,” he echoes, incredulous, more to himself than to me. His voice falls to a low snarl. “Go and get it. Now.”

He stands up, moves toward the desk, squints at the photos there of Tony and myself that hang above it. Black dots pepper my vision as I walk across the room and open the drawer.

Nate strides toward me, rips it from my hand, leafs through her entries and reads one. I imagine Eva’s smoky tones resonating, curling closer around us as he scans her words with new eyes. He needles his temples with his fingers, looks up at me with a granite stare devoid of emotion.

“My brother was Patient X, not me,” I say, evenly. “But, Nate. I didn’t know. I only discovered it myself when I read the journal. We got on well and she offered me one session with her. That’s all it was. I agreed I could write an interesting piece on it.”

“Of course you did,” he sneers.

“Listen, I went along and...it didn’t work out. As you can imagine, I hated talking about myself, digging up the past. I was there for around forty minutes and I left, never saw her again. I swear it’s the truth.”

Nate ignores my protestations, begins to read.

“Patient X: I wasn’t very—I mean, I struggle to be open, to talk about myself, what I’ve really been through. That’s what people tell me.”He lets out a deep sigh. “It just sounds an awful lot like you, Anna. Almost as if that first therapy session she offered you may have led to many others?”

“If you keep reading that journal, it’s obvious. She even writes that Patient X had a younger sister.”

“Is it?” he cuts in. “If it’s Tony, have you told him about it?”

“God, no. I was too scared to tell him.” I laugh, a little unhinged, as the words hang between us. “I swear it’s not me in that journal. I was never Eva’s patient, and I didn’t go into her room looking for it. It’s unforgivable that I went behind your back. I wanted to find out more about her, to get closer to you, find out if I stood a chance, I suppose. If I could ever measure up.”

“Working with me gave you the perfect opportunity to dig around for any dirty secrets you could find to sell to the papers, didn’t it? The way you lit up that day when I said you’d have the afternoon to yourself,” he muses. “You probably cased her bedroom then, didn’t you? That night, everything before that, was a means to an end.”

“You’re not listening, Nate. What do you want me to say? You meant nothing to me?”

“At least it would be more honest.”

“You really think I could have spent all this time with you as part of some bizarre plan to expose your past for the sake of my career? The evening you drove me home, at the Rosen? The other night?” I glare at him, blood rushes in my ears. “You think I’m that person?”

He shrugs. “Nothing would surprise me. You’ve spent the last few weeks insisting that honesty is everything, no more self-deception, open up on the page. All the time you’ve been a liar.”

“It was so wrong of me, I’m sorry. Really I am. But I couldn’t help feeling there were answers in her room, answers you weren’t telling me. I think Tony went to see Eva after I did because maybe he was worried about something I’d tell her. If he started seeing her himself, there was a chance he could find her notes from my session, or rewrite the narrative to protect himself? I don’t know, Nate. It’s a theory but—”

“A theory,” he mimics. “And what terrible thing could you have told Eva about that he’d fear so much?”

“It’s beside the point. You’re such a hypocrite. While we’re talking about lies, what about you? If you’re so innocent, why didn’t you tell me you were with Eva on the day she died? Why didn’t you tell the inquest?”

I watch as confusion clouds his expression. “You know I wasn’t with her that day—I was in Manchester.”

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