“So.” Dr. Sheila Harris’s pause is heavy, full of all sorts of unspoken questions. She’s watching me, her iPad resting on her lap, her expression expectant. I’d come to this appointment reluctantly, exhausted from having to constantly analyze my behavior, how I feel. It never stops, that how are you feeling question. How are you doing? Blah, blah, blah.

I’m over it.

“So?” I raise a brow.

Sheila’s lips twitch. So happy I can amuse her. “How are you doing?”

There it is, right on time. Do I tell her the truth or lie? I’m supposed to be completely open with Sheila. She’s the only one I can trust to give me an objective opinion. Mom and Brenna are on my side. They’ll defend me no matter what. Forget Ethan, Will, whatever the hell his name is. He wronged me. He tricked me. Therefore, he’s the bad guy. Never to be given another chance again.

It’s so easy to think along those terms, especially when I don’t have to see his face, hear his voice. If he were here, right now, standing in front of me, how would I react? Throw myself at him and pray his arms would wrap me up tight?

Or show him exactly how angry I am by saying horrible, awful things?

This is my daily struggle. I thought it would be so easy, to forget him, to move on, to be so unbelievably angry at what he’s done to me. Most of the time I feel exactly that. His betrayal cuts deep.

But there’s a secret, soft, dark spot hidden inside me that wants to forgive him. Wants to draw him back into my life. This is what happens when your heart is so thoroughly involved.

Lately, I wish I didn’t have one. That way it could never be broken.

“I’m . . .” Awful. Horrible. Devastated. Alone. “Okay.” I take a deep breath, holding it in before I slowly let it out. Trying to cleanse my mind, my heart, my soul.

It doesn’t help. The ugly, crippling blackness creeps back in, wraps itself around my mind, my heart, my soul. I’m . . . angry.

No one wants to hear that, though. Not anymore. I should be getting over it by now. That’s what my sister wants, and my mother.

Easy for them to say. They weren’t the ones who’d been so thoroughly lied to.

“Just okay? Last we talked, you were very down.” Sheila keeps her expression completely neutral. Something she’s extremely good at. How I wish I had her poker face.

More like I was depressed. I’ve moved past that. I’ve focused on my anger about what happened and it’s fueled me. Pushed me forward, encouraged me to do what I want for a change, even be a little defiant.

And I haven’t been defiant since I was twelve.

“I got sick of crying.” I shrug. I’ve shed enough tears to last fifty lifetimes.

Sheila smiles. “You’re acting rather unusual.”

“How do you mean?”

“I want to say rebellious, but I don’t know if that’s the right word.” She taps her finger against her lips, contemplating me. I sit in the chair, my arms crossed, my expression stony. I can feel how still I am as I watch her, wait for her to continue. I’m thinking rebellious is the perfect word. “Stubborn? Nonchalant? Like what Ethan did to you was no big deal.”

She brings him up. Of course. My heart freaking skips a beat every time I hear his name. Tingles sweep over me. The whole romance-novel thing happens all over again and I despise it. Even though I also miss him.

It’s infuriating, missing someone you’re angry with. The conflicting emotions seem to be in a constant battle.

“It was a huge deal,” I say quietly, unwrapping my arms so I can clutch my cold hands together.

“Have you spoken to him? Face-to-face?”

I shake my head. I received a text a week ago. That was the first and last one. Seeing his name appear on my phone screen made my heart leap into my throat. I didn’t know how to react, how to respond. What could I say to him?

In the end, I didn’t. I didn’t reply. How can I? He lied to me. Lied. Over and over again, all while pretending he had my best interests at heart. More like he was concerned with his own interests.

Afterward, once I calmed down and could think clearly, I realized so many things. Like I’m a fool. An idiot. I fell for him and he knew all along that he was tricking me. Playing me.

I remember watching the old Superman movie with Dad when I was a kid. Before all the bad stuff, when we used to spend time together and he didn’t look at me like I was tainted. Damaged. As we watched the movie he loved as a child, I couldn’t help but think Lois was a total idiot for not realizing Clark Kent was really Superman.

I’ve become Lois Lane. Ethan is my Clark Kent. Will was my Superman.

Frowning, I blink hard and return my gaze to Sheila.

“Has he tried to contact you at all?”

The text from Ethan came after my last weekly appointment with Sheila, so she doesn’t know about it. “He texted me.”

“Did you respond?”

I shake my head again. Don’t say a word. I remember the sound of his voice instead. Warm and deep and steady and true, my name falling from his lips. I can hear him now.

Katie.

No one else calls me that—I don’t allow them to. After everything happened, Katie was dead and gone. When I returned home I became Katherine. Until Ethan came along and started calling me Katie again and I found I didn’t mind it. Now I understand why he called me that from the start.

To Will, Katie is my name.

It hurts so much to think of him, to imagine his handsome face. The way his eyes would crinkle at the corners when he smiled. The words he said, the promises he made. How he would touch me, almost reverently, as if I were fragile and could possibly break.

He was right. I feel like I might shatter at any moment.

“How about Lisa Swanson? Has she reached out to you again?” Sheila asks gently.

“Yes. She really wants me to participate in another interview. A sort of counterpoint to Aar—” My voice hitches and I can’t . . . I can’t say his name. Having that problem to this very day says a lot I’m sure. “To his first interview from prison.”

“His only interview,” Sheila interjects.

“Right.” I take another deep breath and release it slowly. “He’s never spoken to the media until now.”

“Are you curious to hear what he has to say?”

“No. Not really.” A tiny part of me is curious, but mostly I’m repulsed that he’d think now is the appropriate time to talk. Is it because of my earlier interview with Lisa? It has to be.

What does Ethan think about this? I shouldn’t care, but I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that Ethan is in fact the son of Aaron Monroe. Spending time with Ethan, I never caught even a glimpse of violence or hatred within him. He wasn’t mean. He was always kind, always sweet and respectful.

The brief, harrowing time I spent with Will, and during our contact afterward, when we would write and call and text each other, he was always sweet to me then, too. Though with an almost resentful edge, as if he needed the contact with me yet hated it all the same.

It’s hard to remember the Will I knew before, without letting the Ethan I know today shadow my memories—to the point of changing them completely. I know what happened between us when we were kids. There’s no forgetting it. My tortured mind won’t let me.

But Ethan, my current history with him, invades the past, meshes everything together. Confuses things, which makes me angry—and my anger blinds me to everything.

No tears threaten and I’m proud. Sadness leaves me feeling useless. I’d rather clutch hold of the anger. It makes my thoughts, my intentions, clearer.

“It must be very difficult to know that people are so eager to listen to whatever he has to say,” Sheila says.

“It is.” I huff out an irritated sigh. “Why people are fascinated with him . . .” I hesitate, breathe in deep as my anger threatens to permeate my every pore. “I don’t ever want to hear him, see him, to . . .”

“Remember?”

I press my lips together, my eyes watering. I refuse to cry. I refuse.

“Is that why Ethan’s betrayal hurts so much? It makes you remember?”

I nod before I can catch myself, swallowing back the lump that’s formed in my throat. I wipe at the corners of my eyes, blinking away any moisture. “I felt used. For the first time, there was hope that I could start over and be normal, you know? But I hadn’t realized I was starting over with . . .” I catch myself before I say “Will.” Ethan.

They’re the same person. Interchangeable.

Mind blowing.

I had a nightmare last night. I was back in that room, the chains heavy on my wrists and ankle, trapped with the smelly mattress, the hot, stifling air. I was alone. No scared boy to come and save me. Will never appeared, but I knew he was there. Somewhere. I cried and cried, my fate clear. I was going to die.

Thankfully, I woke up before that happened.

I change the subject and talk about my sister and my mother, avoiding Sheila’s probing gaze, playing along like a good little patient would. I don’t want to talk about Ethan and Will and Aaron Monroe and Lisa Swanson and interviews. I’m so tired of that. That isn’t all I am.

I read somewhere recently that your life is your choice. If I choose to be sad and miserable, I will be. If I choose to be happy and strong, then that’s what I am. I’ve been choosing wrong for the last eight years. Yet I finally catch a glimpse of happy, of something real and solid and tender and . . . loving, and it ends up ruined. Ripped from my hands and thrown away.

Lies. Deception. All of it.

As I leave Sheila’s office forty-five minutes later, I blink against the light drops of rain that fall from the gloomy sky. My car is parked close by and I dash toward it, unlocking the door quickly and sinking into the driver’s-side seat, the familiar scent of my own perfume and body lotion lingering in the air.

Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath, searching for calm. For strength. I need to remember that I get to choose. Only I have the power to find inner fulfillment. That sounds like a crock of crap, but it’s true. If I choose to be unhappy, I’m unhappy.

If I choose to be angry and let my anger push me, then that’s my choice, too.

For once in my life . . .

I choose me.