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“You let me worry about that.”

“That’s not an answer.” The frustration was easy to hear in my reply.

“No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”

And something in me came loose at that, because I had been holding it in since that treatment room, and through every encounter after.

“Who are you?”

The corridor went very quiet and when he didn’t reply I carried on,

“You have men parked on my street,” I said. “You have put cameras in the room I sleep in. You had yourself committed to a maximum-security hospital and you crossed three states to find me, and you knew my schedule before you even got here. And I don’t know one God-damn thing about you. I don’t know where you are from. I don’t know what you did as a job before prison. I don’t even know your name, yet you have… have done…” I stopped myself but this wasn’t good enough for him.

“Finish that sentence, little bird,” he demanded softly and I closed my eyes before doing as he asked.

“…Have tasted me,” I whispered, making him groan.

“Yes, I have,” he agreed on a rumble. But this was when I realized my own flaws in this argument, making me admit,

“I have never once asked you your name.”

“No,” he said quietly. “You have not.”

“Why have I never asked you your name?” I asked and yeah, the irony of this question wasn’t lost on me.

“Because you were frightened of the answer.” He said it gently, and it went straight through me. Because it was true and I had only worked it out myself that very morning. “And because a man with no name is a great deal easier to think about at night than a man with one like mine.”

I didn’t ask what he meant by that because it held way too many hidden pieces to unravel. So, I decided to be brave enough to ask him another, one I should have voiced over two months ago.

“What is your name?” I asked eventually.

“Not today,” he replied on a sigh. As if he were genuinely sorry about denying me.

“Why not?”

“Because I am not going to give you my name in a place like this,” he said and there was something final in it, something I wanted to push against.

“You will have it. I promise you that. But not here, and not through a steel door with your supervisor’s chart on your knees.” I frowned at that, wondering what on earth that would have to do with it.

“That’s not fair.”

“No,” he agreed again, and sounded entirely untroubled by it. But before I could argue further, he shocked me by changing the subject and in a way I could never have predicted coming from a man like him.

“Tell me your favorite movie.”

I actually laughed.

“What?”

“Your favorite movie, what is it?” He said it as though we were two people sitting in a bar. “You have one. Everybody has one. So, tell me what it is.” I even shook my head a little before rubbing a hand to my forehead.

“I know exactly what you are doing,” I told him, because I wasn’t an idiot. I may not have known his name, but I knew enough about the type of man he was to know what this was… he was digging.

“I am asking about a movie.” I almost laughed at that.

“No, you’re trying to find out who I am.”

“Anna.” And there was my name again in that soft voice of his and this time I heard the smile in it. “Whatever else you may think of me, I don’t believe that knowing your taste in movies is going to lead me to your birth certificate.”