Intrusion Read Online Free PDF

trick—and he’s giving me a lot more than one look.
    â€œYou’re much too hard on yourself. Cliff diving was the last thing on my mind.”
    â€œBut you’ve started eating your pie in pretty huge bites. And that thing you do—rubbing one thumb over your forefinger, back and forth. Obviously a nervous habit.”
    â€œThank you, Dr. Grant. Do you take checks?”
    â€œI told you I couldn’t turn it off. That was actually me reducing the urge down to the smallest possible thing, too.”
    â€œWhat would be the biggest possible thing?”
    â€œAre you sure you want me to say? I won’t hold back to be polite. I have trouble with artificial concepts like that, in all honesty.”
    â€œThat doesn’t sound like such a bad thing.”
    â€œIt is when you hate the thought of hurting somebody. I tend to go three feet deep into analysis, not realizing that I’m burying someone as I go. Then I come back out and feel so terrible I don’t know how to talk to the person again.”
    â€œTrust me, we’ll be talking again after you’re done.”
    He still hesitates after I speak. Though I can see the effect the word trust has on him. His shoulders straighten and go back the moment I say it, and that almost jittery look to his eyes and his mouth fades down into almost nothing. By the time he finally talks, he sounds near normal. More than near normal.
    His voice is like a hypnotist’s, dragging me down to the core of myself.
    â€œI would say you’ve suffered some kind of trauma—one that has made you both very and justifiably wary, and resentful of that wariness. You had to carry the Mace out into the garden, yet hated yourself for doing it at the same time. The thought of hurting me most likely caused you more pain than the idea of me hurting you. And it hurts you now to think that I was affected in any way by your assumptions about me—which were probably negative. Although, unlike most people in this neighborhood, you have a good reason to doubt me. I likely remind you of the person who injured you in some way, because every time I go against that grain I can see the relief all over your face. I can see the catharsis swelling through you.”
    To say that I’m speechless when he’s done would be more than an understatement. I don’t think I could make words if I had a string on my back and someone yanked on it. And though I try to hide this fact, I know he can tell. He straightens in this very odd manner—like someone suddenly becoming aware of an unwelcome presence in the room.
    Only the unwelcome presence is him .
    â€œI’ve frightened you,” he says in this slowly realizing sort of tone.
    And he has, in a way. But in another way he holds my attention so tightly I don’t know if I’m ever going to escape. His ability to be both completely clever about human behavior and insanely unable to understand is giving me the shakes. When I finally speak I sound like a gushing teenager.
    â€œI think this is mostly awe. Are you sure psychiatry is your profession, or is it more like telepathy?” I say, though I’m glad I do. He looks immediately relieved. He looks like he stands on firmer ground again, instead of the rolling ship of this crazy conversation.
    â€œAt a certain point, the disciplines I have PhDs in probably become indistinguishable from what people think of as being psychic.”
    â€œYou have more than one PhD?” I ask, even as I’m thinking of course he does . The note of incredulity in my voice is completely not necessary. Intelligence practically rolls off him in waves—but not in a bad way. In a fragile, secretive sort of way.
    â€œYes,” he says, and that’s it.
    No other information offered.
    â€œDo I have to press for what they’re in?”
    â€œYes.”
    Man, he invests a lot in that one word. There is a firmness to it, a steely sort of privacy.