Page 66 of The Birthday Girl
Dr. Farrell folded his hands atop the notepad, his gaze steady, almost unnervingly so. “Clarity can be frightening,” he said, his tone smooth as polished wood. “But it can also be liberating. Sometimes the truth is less about what we admit to others and more about what we admit to ourselves.”
Tahlia tilted her head, narrowing her eyes. “You make it sound like you want me to handle her.”
Dr. Farrell shook his head once. “Not at all, but you came here tonight because you were searching for the reason you feel trapped. You’ve given it a name. Now the decision lies in what you do with that understanding.”
She laughed, loud and humorless, twisting in her chair. “There’s only one decision. My life can’t move forward until she’s gone. Danielle has always been the parasite, draining everything I touch. If I want peace, if I want control, she has to be—”
She stopped herself, catching the slip. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and her lips pressed tight.
Dr. Farrell tapped his pen against the edge of his notepad, as though marking the space where her silence was louder than words. The stillness unnerved her. Most people would recoil, try to scold her, tell her she was wrong. However, Dr. Farrell just sat there, calm, watching. It made her skin prickle.
“You’re not going to tell me I’ve lost my mind?” she questioned suspiciously.
“No, but I’m going to tell you that you’ve reached a crossroads, and when a person stands in that void, the choice they make defines not only their path but who they become.”
Tahlia nodded as she rose from the chair, her hands smoothing the wrinkles from her coat. “Then I suppose I’ve made my choice.”
She didn’t wait for dismissal. Instead, she stalked toward the door, her bloody slippers leaving stains on the carpet.
At the threshold, she paused, her hand on the frame, and without looking back, “Thank you, Doctor. You’ve helped more than you know.”
The door softly clicked shut behind her, leaving Dr. Farrell alone with his notepad and her words still vibrating in the air. He sat motionless for several seconds, listening to the echo of her footsteps fade down the hall.
His gaze shifted to the notepad, where he carefully transcribed every word of her confession. Once finished, he dated and initialed each page, then tucked them into a thin manila folder and secured it in the locked desk drawer.
Only then did he reach for the phone. His fingers hovered over the keypad, tapping out one number, erasing it, then dialing another. Finally, he pressed a contact he hadn’t called in months.
“Detective Morales.”
“Andrew, it’s Farrell. I need to make a report. One of my patients expressed homicidal intent toward her sister, DanielleBanks. Given her current mental instability and impaired judgment, action needs to be taken immediately.”
“Did she name the sister outright?”
“Yes. Her name is Danielle. I documented the session word-for-word. This isn’t paranoia or vague hostility. She articulated intent. I don’t say this lightly, but she’s dangerous.”
“You’re telling me she’s going to kill her?”
“She believes her life won’t move forward until Danielle is ‘cut off.’ Those were her words. She left here with her feet bleeding, agitated, and with a fixation that reads as an imminent risk.”
The detective exhaled hard through the line. “I’ll get this information into the right hands and put someone on the sister right away.”
Farrell pressed the bridge of his nose, relief only half-forming. “Good. Just don’t take too long. If you don’t move quickly, Danielle’s life could be in danger tonight.”
24- Payback For Your Mother
Moths battered themselves senseless against the porch lights of the sleeping houses, their wings clicking faintly against hot glass. Wind chimes swayed in the thin night air, their song too delicate for the heaviness pressing down on the block.
At the corner, Tahlia sat in her car, eyes fixed on Danielle’s house, her grip on the steering wheel so tight her palms started to ache. The house was a small, forgettable thing, just like its owner. Curtains sagged in the windows, and a child’s stroller lay abandoned on its side near the steps.
Tahlia shook her head at Danielle’s lack of ambition. Neither wealth nor power drove her sister. Deception did. Danielle was greedy, messy, and cheap at the core.
She didn’t care about loyalty or blood. If she wanted something, she pursued it with no hesitation. Men were her favorite prize, especially those who already belonged to someone else. Even her sister wasn’t off limits. Everything about her wasshady, from the way she smiled in your face to the way she slid into your bed the minute you turned your back.
And Tahlia despised her entire character.
She also hated the fact that her sister could vanish into her trap house peacefully, while her name bled across headlines, dragged through the muck of scandal.
Tahlia killed the headlights and let the vehicle glide to the curb. In the darkness, she listened to her pulse hammer like a war drum.
