Page 126 of Texting Dr. Stalker

Tears stung my eyes, and my fingers stroked the fading lacerations on my wrist, left behind from fighting for my life.

I didn’t notice Zander swinging his leg off his bike.

I didn’t function as a person as he came close, yanked off his gloves, then cupped my cheek with a gentle hand.

I shuddered at the contact.

I swayed backward to run.

But then his thumb swept through the tears tracking slowly, and with the softest smile, he stepped into me. “You’re safe. He’s not here.” His strong, lean arms wrapped around me, loose and open but providing a protective wall between me and the past.

Everything hit me all at once.

The urge to scream and hide.

The desire to sob and crumple.

The nonsensical homecoming and familiarity.

X had shattered me apart last night and given me back my sexuality. But as Zander stepped a little closer and his arms tightened a little harder, I shattered in my soul.

My head fell forward and landed on his chest.

His voice rumbled with words I couldn’t understand, and his boots collided with my paint-splattered sneakers. His embrace switched from tentative to smothering. He gathered me up and sheltered me with every bone in his body.

And I didn’t panic.

I sagged with relief and gratefulness.

I let him hold me all while silent tears swelled and spilled, purging my mind and heart from yet another layer of hell.

He never moved or spoke, giving me all the time I needed to break, reform, and find my feet again.

Finally, when I felt a little saner, and Milton no longer yelled obscenities in my mind, I pulled away.

He let me go instantly.

Taking a step back, he pushed his glasses higher up his nose and stuck both hands in his back pockets as if preventing himself from reaching for me.

He didn’t speak, but our eyes sought each other, and something happened.

A web of true friendship. A connection that’d always been there.

Zander had always been there in the background. A nuisance, a distraction, a crush.

I froze.

That’s right…I-I had a crush on him.

I’d been fourteen or so.

I’d overheard Nana and her best-friend Mary giggling that their dastardly plan to finally hear wedding bells between the Norths and the Roses was working.

I’d torn my eyes away from watching Zander in the garden and asked what they meant. Both women had broken into obnoxiously loud laughter, pointing at Zander where he pressure washed the bird bath, then at me blushing because I’d been spying.

With the sun hitting the water droplets and the mist dancing rainbows all around him, Zander transformed from the annoying boy next door into something far, far more interesting. He’d been twenty then and already on the path to becoming a doctor. I’d felt woefully young when we’d gone for that visit.

My heart had fluttered as he’d looked over his shoulder, almost as if he sensed me gawking at him. He’d waved just once and given me a crooked half-smile. With his glasses sliding down his nose and his shocking red hair, I’d blushed ten times worse and darted to my room.

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