16
Zander
Stalking is Bad, But Friends Make it Better
“I’M ONE HUNDRED PERCENT GOING TO JAIL.” Throwing myself into the patient chair on the opposite side of Colin’s desk, I snatched my glasses off and tossed them onto his paperwork. Digging my thumbs into my eyes, I groaned. “Do you think they’d let me practice medicine in prison? I mean…I’d be able to provide a better service in whatever hospital they have rather than being a laundry bitch or burning shit in the kitchen.”
Colin laughed from where he stood by his filing cabinet. The folder in his hands was thick with paper, no doubt full of case notes for a specially designed prosthetic. “Should I say my goodbyes now, or are you just being dramatic?” Cutting across the room, he slapped the file on his desk and sat down.
His office had a prime position in the corner of the thirteenth floor. With two banks of windows, the sunlight streaming in bounced over three skeletons dangling from their racks, various diagrams on the wall on how tendons and ligaments operated, along with multiple drawers full of prosthetic pieces, ready to help his patients come to terms with what he called an upgrade in whatever limb or joint they’d lost.
To him, trading a blood-and-bone leg for a top-of-the-line titanium running blade was an upgrade. In all the years I’d worked with him, I’d never seen a patient leave his office in tears. Even the children came out bouncing with excitement at the thought of being part robot.
“You’re a good man, Col.” I grabbed my glasses and put them back on.
He smirked. “Wow, you truly are going to prison. You wouldn’t give me random compliments if you weren’t.”
“I mean it. You’re great at what you do. You say I’m addicted to helping, but you’re just as bad.” I pointed at the black metal chest on his desk. “How many lives have you saved with that toolbox?”
He frowned a little. Opening the lid, he pulled out a micro screwdriver for tiny fixings on fingers and knees. “About as many lives as you’ve saved in surgery I reckon.”
“Think you can save mine?” I chuckled with black humour.
His blue eyes darkened. “You’re legit starting to scare me.” Tossing the screwdriver away, he headed to the door, closed it, locked it, then sat back down. “Talk to me, Zan. Tell me everything.”
Tossing my head back, I glanced at the ceiling. He even had posters of animals up there with prosthetics. A giraffe with a bionic neck. An elephant with a metal trunk.
“Zander,” he growled. “Spill or I’ll steal your phone again and see for myself.”
“She finally opened up to me. To X, I mean.”
“I thought that was the whole point of this?”
“It was. It is. I just didn’t expect it to hurt this bad.”
“Hurt?”
I sighed and rubbed my chest. The same crush of agony from last night vised around my ribcage. The tightening of my heart had almost suffocated me when Sailor told me what Milton had done and why. Why she couldn’t bear to be around me as Zander. Why she’d chosen to close herself off to all those she knew.
The second I’d read her message, I’d staggered from my house in a daze. My pulse pounded until it roared in my ears. Milton had almost raped and murdered her because of me.
By the time I’d looked up from reading her message a thousand times, I was standing in her garden.
“Alright, hand it over.” Colin snapped his fingers. “Give me the phone. Right now.”
Tipping my chin down, I gripped the armrests and confessed, “Apparently, Milton caught her looking into my bedroom. I was in a towel. He thought she was perving on me. He beat her black and blue, then attempted to rape her, all while strangling her to death.”
Silence screeched between us.
Colin didn’t speak.
Rubbing my mouth, I added, “It’s why she doesn’t say two words to me these days when at least before we’d share pleasantries. I found myself in her garden before I realised I was even walking over there.” My voice thickened into a growl. “Every atom inside me wanted to grab her in a hug and hold her. To promise that he’d never lay another finger on her, but…I can’t. I’m the link to all her nightmares. Not only is she living in a house where she was hurt but every time she sees me, she remembers why. No wonder she seems to be getting worse. I’m the one making it worse. It’s my fault and—”
“Stop right there,” Colin snapped. “None of this is your fault, and to say so is egotistical and robbing her of her justified trauma. Stop making this about you.”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “I know that. I told her that. I ran before I could make things worse. But…I need to stop this, right? I need to never message her again because if she keeps sharing things with X only to find out it’s me? I could truly do some damage.”
I looked up, silently begging him for a solution even though I’d sat up most of the night trying to figure out a way to stop her from feeling this way and somehow find a way to help her as myself and not some faceless stalker.
I exhaled hard as Colin sat down, chewing the inside of his cheek, deep in contemplation.
I whispered, “I gave her the phone to help, but I think I’m making shit worse.”
His eyes shot to mine. For a second, I thought he’d rat me out, but then he swooped from his chair and marched to a cabinet full of drawers.
Opening a few, he rummaged inside. Grabbing some boxes and bottles, he returned to his chair, then dumped the supplies on the table before me.
I scowled. “What’s all this?”
“Tricks of the trade so she’ll never know it’s you.” Crossing his arms, he shrugged. “I agree that she can never know. Not with her associating you with what happened. You’re her trigger, Zan. And if she ever suspects she’s sharing her darkest secrets with you, you’re right, you could make shit a lot worse.”
I groaned and raked my fingers through my hair. “Then I’ll stop. Right now.”
Almost as if she’d felt my decision on whatever strings linked us, my phone chirped in my pocket. The same chirp I’d assigned to her.
I stiffened.
Colin raised an eyebrow. “I’m guessing that’s her by the way you’ve frozen.” Arching his chin at me, he ordered, “Read it. What does it say?”
With jittery fingers, I shifted on the chair and fished my phone from my pocket. Swiping on the screen, I pursed my lips as her text appeared.
Lori: I don’t know what it says about me, but…I’m not mad at you for appearing in my garden. I can’t believe I’m going to admit this, but…I actually slept better than I have in a while, all because you were the last man I saw before going to sleep instead of the memories of what happened.
Groaning, I couldn’t make eye contact with Colin as I read it aloud. By the time I repeated it to him, another chimed into my inbox.
Lori: I’m sick of feeling like this. This depression isn’t me, and I refuse to let him take away my happiness. I haven’t been outside in weeks because I’m afraid. I can’t relax inside because I’m afraid. I need to start living again. If you’re still offering to watch over me, I want to tell you everything. But in order to do that, I need your word that you won’t judge me or pity me. No matter how honest I get.
Colin sucked in a breath as I relayed the second part of her message. I felt like I betrayed her all over again for sharing something so personal.
My shoulders slouched as exhaustion cloaked me.
Neither of us spoke.
Nodding once, accepting what he’d tell me—to refuse her request and cut all ties—I pressed my thumbs against the screen to tell her I couldn’t do this anymore.
“Wait.” He held up his hand and shook his head. “You can’t.”
I scowled. “Can’t what?”
“Turn your back on her the moment she’s agreed to accept your help.”
“Are you forgetting the shitstorm this could cause?”
“I’m aware.”
“If she finds out it’s me—”
“We’ll make sure she doesn’t.” Tossing me a box, he went cold as if preparing me to go into battle. “Black hair dye, a fake eyebrow piercing, and prescription-coloured contacts.”
“Wait, what?” I wrinkled my nose. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I have plenty of cosmetics and stage-wear prosthetics. You’re forgetting that’s how I got into this field in the first place. Not only do I provide my patients with new mobility but also a new look if need be. Sometimes a new hair colour or eye colour is just the armour someone needs to wear while they adapt to their new normal. The different appearance tricks the brain into accepting the change far quicker than remembering who they used to be.”
Standing, he came over to me and perched on the desk. “The dye lasts a single wash—it’ll rinse out easily for your shifts at the hospital. I’m pretty sure I remember your eye prescription last time I broke your glasses by accident and you made me buy you a new pair, but if I got it wrong, help yourself. I have plenty more. I figure dark brown will hide your bright green. It would help if you see her with some stubble on your face and not clean-shaven, and you should probably walk differently. Wear clothes she’d never see you wear as Zander and—”
“Whoa, whoa, hold on.” Swooping to my feet, I glowered at the box of hair dye. “You can’t be serious? You’re saying I shouldn’t just keep messaging her but actually see her in person ? Have you lost your damn mind? She’ll see right through me!”
He smirked and crossed his arms. “Have you ever heard of the Clark Kent effect?”
I frowned. “What the hell is that?”
“The scientific description is: a disruption of facial recognition via the use of a disguise such as makeup, a beard, and/or glasses. Tweaking these markers is enough to hinder being recognised. It gives the person changing their appearance the ability to hide in plain sight.”
“I’m not goddamn Superman.”
“No, you’re not. That’s the point.” He chuckled, enjoying my demise far too much. “You’re about to become him.” Waving a hand at me, he smirked. “Right now, you’re Clark Kent. Slightly nerdy, slightly bashful. You even have his glasses, and your twitch of always touching them or pulling them off to rub your eyes is the epitome of you as Zander North.”
“Did you just call me a nerd with a twitch?”
“It’s a proven fact that humans only see what they wanna see. Soldiers in combat sometimes wear full-face hoods with no eyes or facial features because there’s overwhelming evidence that shows people cannot spot fellow humans if they don’t have eyes or a mouth to lock onto.”
“I’m not going to war, Col. This is ridiculous.” Pushing back the chair, I shifted to leave. “I’m done.”
“You started this, man.” He threw a small box of brown contacts at me. “You can’t be done until she doesn’t need your help anymore.”
“I’m telling you, she’ll know it’s me the moment I’m stupid enough to go near her.”
“Did she recognise you last night?”
My back tensed. “Well, no, but only because I wore a mask and a hat.”
“Alright, keep wearing those but also rinse your hair and put the contacts in. I’m telling you, Zan, the one thing that comes to mind when I go to describe you to others is your stupidly green eyes and glasses. That and your carrot colouring.”
I groaned. “You did not just call me a carrot. What are we? Back in freaking kindergarten?”
Grabbing all the boxes, he shoved them into my arms. “Not my fault you decided to help the very woman you shouldn’t be around. You’re in this now. You wanted to help? So help. And when she’s smiling again, you can have X die a mysterious death and attempt to mend your relationship with her as Zander.”
“We don’t have a relationship.”
“But I happen to know you want one.”
I scoffed and strode toward the door. “You’re sounding like Melody. She drove me nuts thinking I’d marry her granddaughter. She even confessed she and Gran put aside money for our wedding!”
He burst out laughing. “God, this just gets more and more idiotic the more you talk. Now, shoo. I have a patient coming in.” He waved me out the door. “Remember, do the opposite of what you do as Zander. If you can do accents, it wouldn’t hurt to put one on. And if she looks like she’s starting to suspect, abort. It’s best she’s left wondering rather than finds evidence to prove that her lovesick neighbour has been pretending to be Superman.” He chuckled. “You should start calling her Lois Lane.”
I stumbled over the threshold.
Fuck, that was too close.
Lori and Lois?
Why did their damn names have to be so similar?
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
“Oh, you almost forgot your phone.” Colin chucked my cell at me. I caught it, juggling a few of the boxes. “Better text her back before she thinks you’re avoiding her. Who knows? Maybe she’ll want you to come over tonight.”
“I’m not going anywhere near her.”
“Lying to me or yourself?” Sitting back at his desk, he opened the file he’d been working on when I first arrived with my troubles. “I won’t say I told you so when you come to me and say you’ve met her face to face. It’s inevitable with her willing to trust you and you needing to protect her.” He caught my eyes, seriousness carving brackets around his mouth. “But mark my words, Zan, this will escalate before it gets better, so I hope you’re ready. Now go away. I look forward to your next episode of A Day in the Lives of Zander North and Sailor Rose.”
“You’re a jackass.” I closed the door on his laughter.