Silence stretches between us, thick as fog.
Then she hits me with another bullet. She declares, "I don't need you to want me. I don't need you to blur lines or get close or do anything inappropriate if you don't want to. I'm tired of men not wanting me."
"It's not that I don't want you," I blurt out.
Fuck. Why did I say that?
She swallows hard. Instead of replying to my inappropriate comments, she holds my gaze with haunting steadiness. "The only thing I need is for you to not to give up on me. The rest is just semantics and excuses."
My voice leaves me on an exhale. "Blue?—"
"I'm willing to change. I'm willing to admit what I did was wrong. We can rebuild trust and boundaries. But I can't do that with someone new. It's you or no one, Dr. Mercer. I refuse to see anyone else."
The room feels too small and emotionally charged. It's dangerous in a new way.
She finally leans back in her seat, hands folded neatly in her lap, and says, "I'm not asking you to break rules to keep me. I'm asking you not to punish both of us because you're scared of last night."
The words gut me. She's right. I am scared, but not of her. I'm afraid of myself, what she does to me, and who she makes me want to be. And that person is a man who needs to desecrate every virginous cell in her body and then again in a hundred different ways.
She pins her hurt gaze on me. "You didn't hurt me last night, Red. But leaving? That would destroy me."
Her statement hangs in the air, pulsing quietly, steadily, and unmistakably alive.
Leaving would hurt her.
It shouldn't hit as hard as it does. I'm the clinician and supposed to be objective. My role is to weigh her statements against her history, her patterns, her attachment wounds. Using that information, I should protect her from dependency. I shouldn't allow her to be dependent on me.
Something about the way she said it rings true. It slices clean through every defense I tried to build this morning. I inhaleslowly, keeping my voice even. "You're asking me to ignore what happened last night."
She shakes her head gently. "I'm asking you not to erase everything else because of one night."
"We crossed a line," I remind her.
"An invisible one that stopped me from harming myself," she claims.
"It was wrong," I state.
"Would cutting myself have made it right?" she questions.
I sigh. "No."
"Am I unfixable?" she asks.
My heart stutters. "Absolutely not."
"Okay. Then I had a bad episode, you helped me address it, and you're not allowed to abandon me," she declares.
My jaw tightens. I fight my internal demons.
She leans forward slightly, not enough to invade my space, just enough to make sure I hear her. She pins her blues on me, murmuring, "You think being my therapist means being perfect. But that's not what I need. I'm not perfect. I'll never respond to someone who is, so I need you to show up and be imperfect at times, even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard." She drills her gaze into mine.
A burn spreads across my chest. It lands too deep. I can't form a sentence to analyze whether she's right or wrong.
She rises. "I'm trusting you, but I can't make you do anything. You're a man with his own choices. But please don't make the mistake of thinking replacing yourself is the same as helping me."
I sit there, frozen between guilt and responsibility, ethics and emotional truth, what I should do and what might actually help her. I run a hand along my jaw. "I need time to think."
She nods immediately, as if she expected this. A haunted expression appears on her face. "I know. Text me tonight with an appointment time, or text me goodbye. I promise I won't bother you ever again if you toss me aside."
