CHAPTER 23
ALESSIA
Carter's office had a window that faced the courtyard, and I spent the first four minutes of Tuesday's session looking out of it instead of at him, because looking at Carter directly, after the day I'd had, felt like something that might c***k the wrong thing open.
"You can look at the window," he said. "But I'd rather you talked."
"I'm talking."
"You've said eleven words in four minutes. I counted."
I looked at him then. Same steady dark eyes, same unhurried posture, the counselor's cardigan he wore over his teaching clothes like a costume change between two versions of the same restraint. Three o'clock on a Tuesday, and this was the one hour of the week where I was allowed to stop being Alex George without anyone outside these four walls knowing the difference.
