Chapter Three Jenn
Chapter Three
Jenn
Wednesday evening
“So how did you leave it?” my husband asks, just before plowing the pointy end of a slice of pizza into his mouth.
“I said I’d think about it.”
“And are you? Thinking about it? Because I’m pretty sure you’ve said you’d never set foot in Miami again. Ever.”
I shrug, pushing an untouched slice around my plate. “Believe me, I hadn’t planned on it. But Braithwaite wasn’t wrong—there aren’t a lot of doctors who can relate to this woman the way I can.”
Gabe holds up a finger as he finishes chewing and swallows.
“Honey,” he begins, wiping his hands on a napkin, “just because you share an extremely tragic, incredibly random life event with this woman does not mean you’re the only doctor on the planet who can assess and treat her . . .”
He looks so damn steady sitting there across from me—tall and broad shouldered without ever seeming like he’s trying to be.
His blond hair has started to go silver at the temples, the kind of shift you’d only notice if you were close enough to count the individual strands, and his green-gray eyes—calm, relentless, unblinking—are locked on me with that mix of concern and certainty he deploys only when he’s really worried.
This is what happens when two psychiatrists get together.
The relationship becomes one long debate—an endless game of point/counterpoint with no clear winners, only concessions and agreements to disagree.
There are no hard-and-fast rules in psychiatry because there are no hard-and-fast personalities.
Every one is different because everyone is different.
“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” I inform him, but he knows me too well.
“Haven’t you? ’Cause from where I’m sitting, you’ve already got your to-pack list started up here.” He taps his temple with his right index finger.
I lean forward across the table, forearms straddling my paper plate as I move closer to him.
“You’re right, Gabe: Being a twin isn’t such a unique thing.
And I suppose losing one is fairly commonplace too.
But to have it all play out in the public eye—to have people standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, skimming through the magazine with your face on the cover?
I’d say we most definitely share something unique on that count. ”
He shakes his head slowly, reaching across the glass-topped table to put a hand on my arm. “Okay, yeah, I get that. But, Jenn, this girl might have killed her twin. It’s not the same thing as what happened to you. At all.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
Gabe pulls back and straightens up abruptly, shaking his head. “What? No! Not in the least! And the fact that you would even say that makes me think this would be a big mistake.”
I hold up my palms in a gesture meant to signal both a truce and a warning. “I know you mean well, and I know you’re worried about me—”
“Worried about you?” he echoes incredulously. “Do you hear yourself right now? I ‘mean well’? I’m your husband, not your colleague!”
“Well, you’re kind of both, aren’t you?” I point out calmly. “And really, Gabe, would this be your opinion if you weren’t a psychiatrist?”
A cloud crosses his face, and it’s clear that he is not happy with me right now—which wasn’t my intention. But it can’t be helped. Or can it? I’m not sure what my motivations are for anything at this point.
“Yes! It absolutely would be my opinion!” he declares, his eyes steely as they pin me to my chair. “Because—and make no mistake about this, Jenn—I’m your husband first. Your well-being supersedes any of the psychological bullshit. You’re a person, not a case number.”
I jump on his statement. “Exactly!” I shoot back, stabbing at the air with my finger.
“And what doctor is going to see Mary Langston as a person? Even the most well-meaning psychiatrist is going to have their interest piqued by her circumstances, her story. And the ones who maybe aren’t so well meaning?
They’ll have their interest piqued by her as a case study or worse—a chance to be a part of the media attention around her.
That’s why I have to be the one to help her, Gabe. Me.”
The corners of his mouth tighten, and he drops back against the chair cushion behind him, arms folded across his chest, considering me.
Because this is also what can happen when two psychiatrists get together: They consider, they weigh, they balance.
They reverse course if new information warrants it. They are reasonable.
When, at last, he sighs and his features soften, I know he gets it. “All right. I see your point.”
I let out my own sigh, shallow enough that he can’t see how relieved I am. I’m not sure what I planned to do if he’d objected to this idea as strenuously as he might have—as I might have, had the shoe been on the other foot.
“What’s your plan, then?” he asks. “You’ve got a decent patient load. Picking up and going won’t be the easiest thing right now.”
“Yeah, I’ve been giving that some thought, and the timing’s pretty good, actually—what with the Memorial Day weekend and all.
I thought I’d see my two clients in the morning, then catch a flight tomorrow afternoon.
That leaves me Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to spend some time with Mary and, hopefully, be back here in time for my first patient Tuesday. ”
He picks up the bottle of wine and holds it up, brows raised in a question. I nod and push my glass toward him for a refill.
“You really think you can get it done over a long weekend?” he asks without looking up as he pours first for me, then for himself.
“Depends on what you mean by ‘get it done.’ I’m not being brought in to treat her—just to evaluate her general mental fitness and her competency to stand trial, should it come to that.”
“And if it does come to that?”
“What do you mean?”
“If she’s tried, will you go back there to testify?”
I shrug as I take a sip, then reply. “I don’t know. I guess. I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”
“You should,” he cautions. “You know I’ve done a few of these, and it’s not always what you think it’s going to be, Jenn. It might not be a get-in, get-out kind of situation.”
“I’ll figure it out,” I assure him. “I’ll fly back here for sessions if I have to. Or do more virtual therapy—”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“What, then? Gabe, honey, please just spit it out because I don’t have the energy for any more of your loaded questions. What part of this is worrying you?”
“The ‘you’ part of it, Jenn. I don’t know Mary Langston, and quite frankly, she’s not my concern.
But you are. And I don’t like this one bit.
Not the part where you’re getting involved in a high-profile case.
Not the part where you’ll be doing a deep psychological dive into a woman whose issues are bound to stir up some difficult memories for you.
Not the part where you’re working with a man you trusted and adored right up until the moment he simultaneously threw you under the bus and to the wolves. ”
“How does that work, exactly?” I snark. “Does the bus get me first, then the wolves? Or does the bus run me over after the wolves are finished picking the flesh from my bones? Or does the bus take out me and the wolves at the same time . . . ?”
“It’s not funny,” my husband replies, not buying into my sarcasm.
“You’ve spent a lot of years trying to put that shit hospital and its shit doctors behind you.
Hell, Jenn, you were still having nightmares up until a couple of years ago!
Now you’ve finally made a good life for yourself, and you want to go back there?
Do you think anything will have changed in that time?
Do you think he’ll have changed in that time?
Because you know as well as I do, people like that don’t change.
So if you’re thinking you’ll go there for some closure or as part of some twisted sense of pride—to prove something to yourself or, worse, to someone else .
. . Just don’t. Okay? Don’t. Because I met the woman who barely survived that shit show ten years ago, and I like this version of you much better. ”
I take a long, slow sip to buy myself a few seconds, looking at him over the rim of the wineglass.
Everyone thinks my husband is this happy-go-lucky, fun-loving guy.
And he is. When he’s just . . . Gabe. But a lot of the time he’s not Gabe.
A lot of the time, he’s Dr. Gabriel Slater.
And that guy is a whole other kettle of fish.
He’s serious and intense. Dr. Slater isn’t listening to the stuff people say but don’t mean.
He’s listening for the stuff people mean but don’t say.
And he’s got excellent hearing. It’s because of this that I don’t even bother trying to hide things from him.
“I don’t know. Hearing Braithwaite’s voice after all these years—it was jarring, for sure. But . . .”
“But?”
“But I didn’t, you know . . . I stayed calm.”
“You mean you didn’t have a panic attack.”
“Yeah, sure, no doubt the sound of his voice took me back there—but just for, like, a second. Then I remembered what you used to tell me whenever I had one of those awful dreams: He can’t hurt me anymore.
None of them can. Not him, not any of those sons of bitches down there.
” I pause a second to consider what I’ve just admitted to him and to myself before drawing a conclusion.
He waits.
“So I guess there is some of that in there. Of course I’d like to show him that I survived—that I thrived—in spite of what he did to me.
I think it would be weird if there weren’t some of that, right?
Isn’t that human nature? But honestly, Gabe, I was ready to hang up on him until he told me about the patient and the case.
That’s what made me hear him out. And that’s what’s making me give this some serious thought. ”
His eyes scour my face, looking for any hint that I might be lying. Not to him, but to myself. Once he’s finally satisfied, his face relaxes, and he nods once. “Right. Okay, then, I’ve got your back.”
I scoff. “Please, you’d have had my back even if I told you I was headed down there with a suitcase full of dynamite and a match.”
My husband grins and shrugs. “Yeah, probably,” he agrees and nods in the direction of my plate. “Now hurry up and eat that. I seem to recall you wanted me to show you something in the bedroom after dinner.”
I put down the wine and stand up, grabbing the slice of pizza so I can tear a chunk out of it with my teeth. Then I toss it back down onto the plate and dust the crumbs from my hands.
“Done,” I declare with an impish smile as I turn around and go deeper into the apartment.
He’s right there behind me.
Just like always.
Sleep comes, but peace doesn’t.
I’m on the beach. The light is softer here, pink on the water, the horizon blurring into haze. Jess runs ahead of me, bare feet kicking up sand, her laughter carried off by the wind. She’s chasing something—a gull, a wave, a dare—something I can’t see but that she’s certain she’ll catch.
“Slow down!” I call.
She glances back, grinning, hair plastered to her temples, the strap of her swimsuit slipping off one shoulder. “You’re so slow, Jenny! You’ll never keep up if you don’t move.”
She’s the only one who calls me Jenny.
She spins, arms out, fearless as always, the sun flashing off her teeth. “Race you!”
“You always win,” I tell her, but I start running anyway.
My twin came into this world under a lucky star. By the time I arrived seven minutes later, there was nothing left but a restless sky.
She was the favorite without trying—teachers adored her, neighbors praised her, grown-ups whispered how mature she was “for her age.” Jess remembered birthdays, helped lost kids find their classrooms, collected praise the way other girls collected seashells.
Everything she touched turned gentle. Easy. Golden.
And I was the storm that trailed behind.
She was all sweetness and sunshine compared to my bitterness and shadows. Jess never once doubted that she could have anything, do anything, be anything.
The scene flickers. The sand darkens, the sound of the surf replaced by the faint buzz of electricity. When I look down again, I’m not running on sand anymore—it’s asphalt under my bare feet, painted with scuffed yellow lines.
The air is thicker here—hotter—and the breeze carries the smell of fried dough, powdered sugar, something burnt and sweet.
Jess is still in motion, darting ahead between shadowy shapes that shift too fast to identify. The world tilts around her. Neon smears across the sky, and a low mechanical hum vibrates through the soles of my feet.
“C’mon, scaredy-cat!” she calls, turning back, her ponytail swinging. “One more time. You’ll love it.”
“Every time you say that,” I mutter, “something terrible happens.”
She laughs—bright, careless, irresistible. “And every time, you survive. See? I’m good luck.”
That’s Jess: pure kinetic light. A little reckless. A lot fearless. The kind of girl who climbs rooftops to see fireworks and wades into storms just to feel the rain hit harder. She’s always first to jump, certain the ground will rise up to meet her.
I try to match her grin, but my stomach’s already tight. The blurred shapes around us begin to move faster, the hum swelling into a roar. Wind lashes my face, stinging my eyes with grit and sand.
“Jess?”
She’s still smiling, but her gaze flicks past me toward something unseen. She squeezes my hand. “Don’t look down,” she says lightly.
The words echo, stretching thin as the light bends and the ground drops away.
I wake with a sharp inhale, heart pounding, the sheets twisted tightly around my legs. Gabe is asleep beside me, his breathing slow and even.
The dream never plays the same way twice. Sometimes she’s laughing; sometimes she’s silent. Sometimes I see her fall; sometimes she just . . . disappears. But it always ends like this—with me awake and her gone.
I stare at the ceiling, willing my pulse to slow, grateful that Gabe’s a heavy sleeper. If he’d heard me cry out, he’d have asked what it was about, and I’d have had to tell him. And then he’d tell me not to go.
And maybe he’d be right. Maybe I should stay far away from my hometown and everything buried there.
But I won’t.
I reach for the band around my wrist—hers—and snap it once, just to feel something real.
Tomorrow, I’m going back to Miami.
To the place where she’s been waiting all along.