"Don't deflect. What happened last night?" She stands, pours me coffee without asking, and hands it over like she's administering medicine. "You said you were going to an art exhibition. You came home early and texted me exactly seven words. That's not fine. That's crisis management."
I sit in the chair across from her desk. Wrap both hands around the coffee mug even though it's too hot. The heat grounds me. "The exhibition was... intense. Art by a woman who survived an abusive marriage. Very raw. Very honest. I couldn't handle it."
"So you left."
"So I left."
"And then?" Solange leans forward. "Because there's something else. I can see it in your face. What happened?"
I could tell her about Elias Voss. About the photograph of the terrace. About Lucien's dinner invitation and the way I keep gravitating toward situations that make me uncomfortable because comfort feels like disappearing.
Instead I say, "I'm trying to figure out who I am without Gabriel. And it's harder than I expected."
"Of course it's hard. You spent five years becoming whoever he wanted. Unbecoming takes time." She pauses,choosing her next words carefully. "Are you safe? At these events Lucien Armitage is inviting you to?"
"Safe from what?"
"From him. From yourself. From whatever you're looking for in that club."
It's a fair question. One I've been avoiding asking myself. What am I looking for at The Dominion? Validation? Punishment? The familiar weight of male attention that tells me I exist?
"I don't know what I'm looking for," I admit. "But I know I can't find it here, in the apartment, in this limited life I've built. I have to go out. I have to be uncomfortable and test whether I can survive in the world without Gabriel defining the boundaries."
Solange nods slowly. "Okay. But Lana? If you're testing boundaries, make sure you know where your limits are. Men like Lucien Armitage—they're good at finding the edges and pushing."
"I know."
"Do you?" She holds my gaze. "Because I've seen this before. Women leaving abusive relationships who immediately find themselves in adjacent danger. Different package, same poison. You're vulnerable right now. That makes you a target."
"Or it makes me aware." I set down my coffee. "I know what manipulation looks like, Solange. I lived with it for five years. I'm not naive."
"I didn't say you were naive. I said you were vulnerable. There's a difference." She pulls out a file and changes the subject because pushing further would be counterproductive. "Daniel Torres confirmed the funding. Two full-time attorneys starting next month. We need to interview candidates."
We spend the next three hours reviewing applications, conducting phone interviews, building the infrastructure that will help other women leave marriages like mine. The work is necessary and exhausting. Every applicant's story is a variation on the same theme: control disguised as love, isolation presented as care, violence normalized through repetition.
By noon, I'm hollow again. A morning of competence has drained whatever reserves I had left.
Solange orders lunch—sandwiches from the deli downstairs—and we eat in companionable exhaustion. Finally, she asks, "When's your next therapy appointment?"
"Friday afternoon."
"Good. Tell Dr. Cross about the exhibition. About whatever happened that made you flee." She takes a bite of her sandwich and swallows. "And Lana? Consider telling her about The Dominion. About Lucien Armitage. About why you keep going back there."
"I'm not doing anything. I'm just... attending events."
"You texted me seven words last night after promising we'd talk. You look exhausted this morning. You're disappearing into yourself again." She says it gently, without accusation. "You're looking for something there. Figure out what it is before it costs you more than you can afford to pay."
I don't have an answer for her. We finish lunch in the kind of silence that comes from saying too much and not enough simultaneously. By 2 PM, I'm drained in ways that have nothing to do with the work and everything to do with the conversation I keep having with myself about why I accepted Lucien's dinner invitation.
I leave the office early. Take the subway home through the afternoon crowd—people returning from lunch breaks,students cutting class, the unemployed and underemployed filling space between obligations. I watch them all and wonder if any of them are going through their lives the way I'm going through mine, if we're all just agreeing to pretend we know what we're doing.
Back in my apartment, I do what I've been doing every afternoon for five months: nothing productive. I sit on my couch with a book I won't read. I stare at my phone and don't call anyone. I count the hours until I can take my sleeping pill and escape into unconsciousness.
Except today, I can't sit still.
I get up. Pace the small living room. Return to my bedroom and open the closet where Gabriel's aesthetic still dictates half my wardrobe. I pull out dresses I haven't worn since he died—the ones he chose for important dinners, calculated to project wealth and taste and appropriate femininity.
Wear whatever makes you feel powerful.
