I didn’t respond. My gaze dropped to the clock behind her, ticking way too loudly for someone allegedly trained in mental stability. Her office had that sterile kind of warmth people tried to manufacture—books arranged by color, some framed print of a forest trail that was supposed to inspire peace, a Himalayan salt lamp that hadn’t been turned on since I started coming here. It was cluttered with plants she talked to like coworkers. One of them was named Diane. I’d made the mistake of asking once.

I ran a hand over my chin, feeling the roughness of the stubble that had begun to grow thicker over the past few days. I needed a decent shave. “It’s fine,” I repeated, dragging my gaze back to her. “Stanford, I mean. Big campus. Ridiculously smart people. Everyone’s acting like they’ve got something to prove. And I’m passing my classes, so there’s that.”

“That is something,” she said. “Give yourself some credit.”

“I’d rather give myself a lobotomy.”

She didn’t laugh at that. She never did.

That was one of the things I liked about her.

“And you? Do you feel like you have something to prove?”

I didn’t answer right away. My jaw clenched involuntarily as I searched for the right words. Sweat began to bead along my temple; the June heat spilled through the cracked window, thick and heavy, clinging to the room like a second skin.

“It’s not so much about proving something to others,” I said eventually, “but to myself. Subconsciously, I’m constantly trying to prove to myself that I’m not him. My father,” I clarified.

“Do you still dream about him?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted. “Less than before. More about the house and the…the blood.” I swallowed. “My mom.”

“And Beverly?”

My throat tightened.

There it was.

The name I’d been trying not to say for months.

“She shows up in dreams I don’t want to wake up from,” I said quietly. “Sometimes she’s thirteen, sometimes she’s seventeen. She’s always angry, or crying, or walking away.”

Dr. Lemkin didn’t say anything.

I hated that she let silence be a mirror.

“She wore my sweatshirt the last time I caught a glimpse of her,” I added after an awkward pause. “I think about that more than anything. Not the cuffs. Not the cops. Just…that. Her, hiding in my clothes, probably crying. Probably hating me.”

“I don’t think she hated you, Blake.”

“She didn’t run after me either,” I muttered under my breath. I leaned back, my spine touching the couch for the first time in the hour. “You think she was scared of me?”

She looked at me for a long moment. Then she shook her head, her gaze softening. “I think she was scared of what it meant to love you that much.”