A PR cleanup.
Lunch with Tristan.
Royal Oaks waiting for me like a battlefield.
I breathe out.
Fine.
If this is war?—
I’m ready to fight.
I park behind the bakery on Thames Street, in a slushy little staff lot that smells like burnt sugar and fryer oil. It's discreet enough. No one notices a dented Corolla tucked between a bakery van and a rusty old Subaru with Bernie stickers and a cracked rear windshield.
The sleet hits sideways as soon as I get out—ice like needles slapping my face. I pull my hood tighter and trudge past the back door of the bakery where the heat from inside steams the windows. It smells like cinnamon rolls and soup. Warmth and comfort I don’t feel entitled to today.
The therapy office is in an old brick building with iron window grates and a buzzer that doesn’t work the first three times. I jab the button harder. Finally, a low buzz and the door clicks open.
Third floor. No elevator. Of course.
By the time I get to the top, my hands are numb. My boots are soaked through and I can’t feel my toes. I sit on a fake pleather couch that squeaks every time I shift and watch a couple of sad fish swim in a bowl like they’re just waiting for someone to forget to feed them.
The room smells faintly like vanilla and old paper. Bookshelves full of psychology volumes and dog-eared novels line the walls. There are wads of crumpled paper in the wastebasket, like someone was trying to write a book or rewrite a life.
I glance everywhere but at the therapist.
She's maybe in her late forties. Fit in that no-nonsense, Pilates-at-6AM kind of way. Thin, angular face. Not wearing a wedding ring. Dressed in a black turtleneck and jeans like she could switch to berating a startup team or a teenage daughter with the same tone. If she wanted to be mean, I feel like she could do it with devastating precision.
She doesn’t talk first. Just watches me over the rim of her glasses, pen already moving over her yellow legal pad.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
That damn clock on the wall is the only sound in the room besides her pen scratching across the page.
“I have good days,” I say finally, shrugging like it doesn’t matter. “Some days I kind of feel... badass, I guess. I wake up and remember who I am. Or who I used to be.”
She scribbles.
I glance at her. “What are you writing?”
No answer. Just a tiny pursing of her lips. A head tilt. Keep talking, her body language says.
“I have bad days too,” I admit, voice quieter. “More of those, honestly. Some days I feel like I'm still in that damn bathroom stall, you know? Still covered in slime and everyone’s laughing.”
More writing. Her pen must be running out of ink.
“I hate that I let it get to me. That I letthemget to me. That I walked away from everything.”
Still nothing.
“I’m angry,” I snap. “I’mjaded. Isn’t that ironic? My actual name is the punchline.”
Silence. Except for the pen. And the clock.
I stare at her hands. Manicured. Strong. A silver bracelet, nothing flashy. No wedding ring. I wonder if she’s ever been in love. If she lost it. If she lost someone. If she burned down her own life once, or if she just makes a living analyzing the wreckage of other people’s.
And I realize I’m thinking more aboutherthan myself.
