"How do I do that?" Sienna asked. Her voice was quiet.
"You do what you're doing now. You talk about it. You let Elise in. You accept the compliments even when your brain tells you they're wrong. And you come back here and we keep working." Helen paused. "Can I give you one specific thing to try?"
"Please."
"Next time Elise tells you something kind about yourself, don't argue. Don't deflect. Don't make a joke. Just say thank you. Two words. Even if your whole body is screaming that she's wrong. Even if your father's silence is deafening inside your head. Just say thank you and let the words sit. You don't have to believe them yet. You just have to stop fighting them."
Sienna turned the idea over. Two words. It sounded simple. It sounded impossible.
"I'll try," she said.
Helen nodded once, slow and sure. "That's all I'm asking."
Sienna nodded. She pressed the tissue against her eyes one more time and then folded it carefully into a square, the corners neat and even, because some habits died harder than others.
"Same time next week?" Helen asked.
Sienna stood and smoothed the front of her blouse. "Yes. Please."
Helen smiled. It was the same smile she'd given Sienna on the first day they'd met, knowing and free of judgement.
Her body felt lighter. Not healed, not fixed, not transformed into someone who could accept love without flinching. But lighter. As if she'd been carrying a box she hadn't realised was heavy and someone had asked to hold it for a while.
She paused at the door. "Thank you, Helen."
"You don't need to thank me. You did the hard part. You showed up."
Sienna walked out into the narrow corridor. Her reflection caught in the glass panel of the stairwell door, and she paused. The woman looking back at her had red-rimmed eyes and blotchy cheeks and mascara that had survived the session by a miracle. She looked wrecked. She looked honest. She looked like someone who had just said the truest things she'd ever said out loud.
She pushed through the door and went down the stairs, past the physiotherapy clinic and the bookshop with its coffee smell, and out into the midday sun. The street was warm. Late morning had tipped into early afternoon and the light was golden and full, a coastal light that made even ordinary buildings look beautiful. The sweet olive along the building's front wall released its scent in the heat, apricot-sweet. A couple walked past on the far pavement, two women holding hands, and Sienna watched them without envy or longing for the first time she could remember. She stood on the pavement and breathed in and the air tasted like salt. Helen's words were still settling.
The real work isn't about professional ethics. It's about letting yourself be seen.
She let them sit. She didn't argue with them.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She pulled it out. A text from Elise.
Looking forward to seeing you in Medical tomorrow. My shoulder's been behaving but I think it needs your hands on it. Just for professional reasons obviously.
Sienna smiled. The smile spread through her face and into her chest and down to her hands and she stood on the sun-warmed pavement holding her phone and grinning like an idiot and she didn't care. She didn't care who saw. She didn't care if someone from the team walked past. She didn't care if her father's voice in her head told her to compose herself.
She was grinning on the pavement and couldn't stop, because Elise Moreno had texted her and the world was good and Helen Ward had seen her cry and not flinched and tomorrow she would put her hands on Elise's shoulder and call it professional and they would both know it was more than that.
She typed back:I'll be there. Purely professional hands only.
The reply came in seconds:Liar.
Sienna laughed. She put her phone in her pocket and walked toward the waterfront with the sun on her face and her shoulders lighter than they'd been in years.
16
ELISE
The alarm went at five-fifteen and Elise was already awake.
She'd been lying in the dark watching the ceiling lighten from black to deep blue to the first pale wash of pre-dawn grey, her body humming with the alertness that came from anticipation. Not game-day alertness, which was sharper, edged with adrenaline and the metallic taste of competition. This was warmer. Softer. An alertness that came from knowing she was about to see Sienna.
