Page 7 of Texting Dr. Stalker

At least I still had my two sisters—pain in my ass that they were. Sailor truly was an orphan, and that pulled on the part of me that was the ultimate sucker for the hurt and helpless.

Sailor pulled a face, stole the iPad back, then wrote furiously.

Lily read the screen and shook her head. “No, definitely not. We discussed this. You’re coming home with me. You can bunk in my room. My roommate won’t mind. I don’t think you should be alone right now. Especially in that house where he—”

Sailor threw up her bandaged wrist and winced in pain as she tried to speak. She gave up as her swollen throat prevented her vocal cords from making sound. With a huff, she wrote something and shoved the iPad at her friend.

Lily’s shoulders slouched as she read it. “I know it’s your safe place and it’s your home, but…he attacked you in it, Sails. You can’t seriously think you can go back and live there after this.” Lily shuddered. “You should sell it. Use the inheritance your nan left you and move somewhere else.”

Move somewhere else?

The thought pinched like a trapped nerve.

Ever since Melody passed away and left everything to Sailor, I’d expected this day to come. I’d hated the thought of Sailor moving away because whoever bought the quaint two-story home would upset the dynamics on our street. I’d have new neighbours. Strangers who might not be quiet on the days I needed to sleep for graveyard shifts. People with screaming kids or noisy teenagers or annoying pets.

But that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was hidden beneath a lifetime of gaslighting myself that I felt nothing for her.

However, when Sailor showed no signs of selling, she condemned me to live a life of constant torture seeing her everyday instead of just sporadic visits. Each time I saw her, I had fought the very real knowledge that my grandmother had cursed me, and I had an unbearable crush on my neighbour.

I’d even contemplated leaving. I had my own house a few suburbs away that I’d bought when I first moved out. I’d deliberately bought close by to change light bulbs, fix internet issues, and generally keep an eye on my grand folks as they grew older.

When they’d died, I’d found myself spending more and more time at their place until I decided to rent my house out and renovate theirs. I was supposed to do it up in my spare time—what spare time?—and then sell it.

But…time had a habit of going too fast, and years ticked by far too quickly.

And now I was hopelessly fucking addicted to spying on the girl who was supposed to be mine and each time I convinced myself I should move on…I couldn’t.

“We’ll discuss this when you’re feeling better.” Lily sniffed, passing back the iPad.

Sailor scrunched up her nose and scribbled. Tapping the screen with the stylus, she arched her eyebrows. The black eye that the bastard had left her with glowed even from here. Her sandy-blonde hair was knotted and tangled from fighting for her life.

My hands balled. I had a good mind to call the local police and ask for Milton’s location. He deserved to have his throat so bruised he could barely swallow. He deserved to have a lacerated wrist and contusions all over his body.

Sailor’s skin recorded every second of the abuse he’d delivered. Every time he’d hit her, thrown her, and kicked her now existed, right there, for anyone to read.

My temper steadily climbed.

How fucking dare he hurt her? Howdarehe steal her sense of safety by—

“Zander?”

My eyes snapped from Sailor and Lily. I struggled to focus on a fellow doctor slouching on the nurses’ station desk.

My heart rate picked up at the thought of Sailor catching me watching her. Clicking my fingers, I beckoned my colleague and friend to follow me farther down the hall.

Colin Marx—prosthetic genius and all-around amazing doctor—scowled but obeyed.

I didn’t stop until we were well out of earshot. Ignoring the nurses giving me a strange look, I crossed my arms and looked him up and down. “What are you doing here so late?”

He matched me, his biceps popping beneath his black scrubs. “Could ask the same about you.” Glancing over his shoulder, he frowned. “Spying on a patient, Zan?”

My initial reaction was to lie and deny, like I usually did when it came to Sailor, but he knew me too well, and it would only arouse his highly suspicious, annoyingly perceptive nature. “Just checking up on someone. She’s my neighbour. There’s a slight conflict of interest in me treating her, but I wanted to make sure she was recuperating alright.”

I had front-row seats to his brain whirring.

He hadn’t become the leader of the prosthetic department before his thirty-third birthday by being stupid. I swear he had an eidetic memory most days. It came in useful with patient cases yet downright irritating in everything else.

“Sailor’s here?” he asked.

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