Chapter Fifty-Five
Fox
It had taken three hours with the lawyers to get to grips with planning rules and appeals that I had absolutely no interest in ever hearing about again.
I’d signed whatever they’d asked me to sign.
And I was seriously hoping that Diana Morgan would consider this little legal stunt to be suitable revenge, and would now leave us alone.
I had a little time to spare before my train. I’d made a decision.
I was going to cut Sally loose. It wasn’t clear to me how much she was even helping, and her comments about Haze were making me feel uneasy.
I was going to stop seeing her, and I was going to stop taking the pills she’d given me. It was time to go it alone.
I might not be back to full fighting form, but I was heading in the right direction.
I walked into Sally’s office to find her receptionist was not at her desk. Sally’s door was ajar. I knocked.
“Sally?”
She flung the door open. Her hair was unkempt, her glasses perched on top of her head. She looked like she’d been having a nap.
“Nathaniel? We didn’t have an appointment scheduled.” She ran her fingers through her hair.
“We don’t. I just wanted to let you know that I’m feeling much better. I wanted to tell you in person that I won’t be coming in for a while.”
Sally stared at me, saying nothing.
A beat passed. And then another.
She finally spluttered. “Really? How is that possible? It sounds like things are messier than ever. Haze isn’t listening to you.
You’re still getting paranoia about people following you.
We still have a lot of work to do!” She shook her head.
“I think you’ve been making such good progress, it would be terrible to stop now. ”
“I’m not saying this is it. I’m just saying I think I can get by with less frequent sessions.”
“She put you up to this.” Sally leaned against the doorframe and folded her arms.
“I…You mean Haze? No. This is my decision.”
“I don’t believe you. I know you realize how important our time together has been.” Sally put a hand on my shoulder. “You need me, Fox.”
I took a step back, shrugging her hand off me, and stared at her. It wasn’t just the intensity with which she was burning right now that troubled me. She’d just called me Fox. I’d never offered up that this was the name I went by. How would she know that? How? Had she been watching me too?
I was realizing that Haze might have been right.
I’d trusted this woman. I’d told her things. I’d taken the pills she’d given me.
The pills.
Maybe the brain fog that kept hitting me wasn’t from the trauma of what I’d been through. Maybe the blackouts were actually down to her poisoning me.
Was I being paranoid again? Or was I seeing clearly for the first time?
Sally might have passed Jenny’s extensive background check. She might not be working for a criminal gang who had hired her to spy on me. But that didn’t mean she was completely normal, either.
“I don’t think this is working for me, Sally. You need to respect my decision.”
“You need to respect what I’ve done for you!”
This was insane. She was insane.
“Goodbye, Sally.” I walked to the door.
“Come back here! This can’t be over! You cannot do this!” she shouted after me. She was still going as the front door slammed behind me.
Was breaking up with a therapist always as difficult as this? I knew it was meant to be an intense relationship, but this was extreme. She was acting like a spurned lover.
How was this my fault? I had done the right thing for my mental health and sought out help. It was just seriously bad luck I’d managed to end up with a therapist who was more in need of help than I was.
I couldn’t tell Haze. She’d never let me hear the end of it.
I upped my pace toward the tube. I didn’t have time to dwell on Sally being unstable and clearly overly into me. I needed to head home and get back to working out what the hell we were going to do about Jenny.
I took out my phone to check in with Haze. Six missed calls. All from her. I steadied my shaking hand to call her back.
“Where the fuck have you been?”
“What’s happened? Are the kids—”
“Frank’s got cancer.”
I stopped walking and listened as Haze rattled off everything Jenny had said.