The next therapy appointment came faster than I expected.
A week blurred by in the strange, muffled way time moves when you’re trying not to think too hard. I took Lily to school, helped Dad with odd jobs around the house, pretended I slept more than a couple hours a night. Pretended I wasn’t unraveling in small, quiet ways.
Pretended Claire wasn’t somewhere in the back of my head every time the house went still.
Dad drove us again. Lily hummed to herself in the backseat, drawing shapes on the window with her finger. Her hair had been neatly braided by Claire that morning, something that I tried to ignore.
Something that I kept noticing.
When we pulled into the same small parking lot behind the library, the air felt colder. The sky was overcast, pale gray crowding out blue. A storm was coming. I could smell it.
Dad squeezed my shoulder before I went in, waiting for lily to come out from her session. “Take your time.”
It was the same thing he’d said last week, in the same tone, the same gentle certainty. It settled me, even if, only a little.
???
Dr. Nora’s office was exactly as I remembered it, warm, soft, and unnervingly calm.
She stepped out of her office wearing a cream sweater and dark jeans, hair in a messy knot. She looked tired but kind, must be hard listening to other people’s grief all morning, I didn’t envy her.
“Ethan,” she said. “Come on in.”
I followed her into the room, sat on the couch, and rubbed my palms on my jeans. She didn’t sit right away. She poured a cup of water, set a box of tissues on the table between us, and finally settled into her chair.
“So,” she began softly, “how was your week?”
I let out a breath through my nose. “Fine.”
Her eyebrows rose in the slightest, almost invisible way. “Fine?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s try again. How are you doing?”
I stared at the bookshelf behind her instead of her face. “I’m… trying.”
“Trying what?”
“To maintain… whatever this is.” I gestured vaguely around my chest, where the pressure lived.
She nodded like that wasn’t the vaguest answer in therapy history. “You mentioned last time you weren’t sleeping well.”
“Still not.”
“And the guilt?”
My jaw felt tight. “Still there.”
“Worse?”
I swallowed. “…yeah.”
“Why?”
There it was. The question I’d been dodging in my own head.
I shook my head. “If you know the answer, you tell me.”
