I’d offered to help her bag up cookies for a catering event. It would kill some time before the evening when Ledger got home from work. I knew I was becoming too dependent on seeing him, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d been thrown off by the revelation that he’d been in prison, but I found that my admiration for him and the way I felt when I was with him made it much easier to accept. It seemed he really was working toward changing. And if I was a catalyst for that, then all the better. I felt safe with Ledger, something, I realized, in retrospect, I’d never felt with James. I was young and inexperienced when I met James. I’d mistaken his possessiveness for being protective. I had convinced myself that there was a fine line of difference between the two, which was how I’d missed seeing it. But now I knew better. There wasn’t a thin line between being possessed and being protected. There was a huge, deep chasm. One was all about control, and one was about caring for someone so much that you would do anything to keep them safe.
