My handwriting flows across the page, loops and slants exactly the way they should be. I study each letter as I form it, comparing today's "a" to yesterday's "a," confirming the muscle memory hasn't changed.
It's the same. It's always the same.
Until it isn't.
Chesca's voice echoes in my head—Does his brain hurt?—and my hand pauses mid-sentence.
I remember the first time Dad forgot my name. I was thirty. He called me Celeste, my mother's name. I laughed it off and made a joke about how we had the same hair. But his eyes went blank, confused, and for three seconds he looked at me like I was a stranger wearing his daughter's face.
I wrote about it that night. Every detail. His expression, the way his hands shook when he realized, the apology that came too late.
The journal is full of moments like that now. Proof that I remember what he's forgotten. Evidence that my brain still works the way it should.
You're not losing your mind. You're documenting it. There's a difference.
Is there?
I force the thought away and keep writing.
Patricia left. Someone was watching me from across the room, tall, dark suit that didn't fit right. Standing by the marble column. Familiar somehow, but couldn't place him. When I looked again, he was gone.
My pen hovers over the last sentence.
Did I imagine him? If I can't trust my own eyes, how do I trust anything?
I flip back three pages. Last week's entry. The handwriting matches. The details are clear. Chesca's parent-teacher conference, the Henderson case, what I ate for lunch.
I remember all of it.
See? You're fine. You're documenting, not disappearing.
I close the journal, running my thumb along the edge of the pages. Hundreds of entries. Thousands of details. Proof that I'm still here, still myself, still think, still remember.
The fact that you need proof should probably worry you.
The tightness in my chest doesn't ease. It never does. But for tonight, I've written it down. Contained it and made it manageable.
I set the journal aside and reach for the case file I brought home. It's tomorrow's motion hearing, nothing complicated, but the preparation soothes me. Routine and control. The comfortable language of precedent and procedure.
Ten minutes pass. Fifteen.
The back of my neck prickles.
I go still, pen frozen over a notation about discovery deadlines. The watching feeling is back, stronger now, pressing against the windows like something trying to get in.
You're in your own house. You're safe. Stop being paranoid.
But I'm already crossing to the window, pressing my forehead against the cool glass. The street below is quiet. Porch lights. Parked cars. My neighbor's tabby prowling the sidewalk with the confident swagger of a creature who's never had to count exits.
And a dark sedan I don't recognize, three houses down, with someone sitting in the driver's seat.
The glow of a phone screen illuminates a jaw. A shoulder. Nothing more.
I watch for ten seconds. Twenty. The figure doesn't move.
It's nothing. Someone waiting for a friend. Someone answering emails. You're seeing threats everywhere because that's what your broken brain does.
I pull back from the window. Check the locks. Check them again.