He pinches his lips together, lifting his chin high. “I don’t know. It just is.”
The timer on our session dings, and we sit for a few seconds before Nate gets up and storms out the door without another word.
“See you next week, Nate.”
I let him walk himself out sensing that he needs a little decompression. It isn’t quite how I like my sessions to end, but hopefully it’ll give him food for thought before next week.
I place my notes in my desk drawer, keeping these ones out of the pile that Mia normally types up. I don’t want her to know how frequently Nate asks about her, even though I know she could handle it. It doesn’t sit right with me to put her in that position. I’d never allow her to be in danger, so I convince myself I’m doing the right thing.
???
Twenty minutes later, I read through the notes Mia typed up about Mr. Sanders. As Nate said, he is another court-mandated patient, and he does seem to have some aspects of his personality which are quite worrisome. Nate, I believe, is redeemable. He has a lot of unlearning to do in terms of how to treat others, particularly women. He sees them as those who serve him. If I can get him to understand the root cause of that, and learn how to empathize, learn how to be a good partner, I believe Nate could improve.
Mr. Sanders, however, is different. He’s around forty years old. He’s moved around a lot by the sounds of it, jumping from job to job and woman to woman. He never seems to be satisfied with either, always finding a reason that wasn’t his fault as to why it didn’t work out. He’s what I like to call a hurricane patient. He whooshes in with the excitement of a storm but in reality, upends your house, your life, your family, everything. Then, not for long, he’s gone. Leaving you to deal with the permanent damage he’s caused.
“How are you, Sean?”
He inspects the empty waiting room, moving toward the side table to get a glass of water. The table is right next to Mia’s desk, and he runs his eyes over her desk. The air is still, his movements quiet. Unlike Nate, Sean is not a talker. He’s comfortable in the silence and, in my opinion, weaponizes it.
He picks up a half empty glass from her desk and runs his thumb along the rim. I wait, folding my arms over my chest. She’s not even here and I’m ready to bare my teeth and get this guy the fuck away from her things. This particular patient hasn’t even met her, I’m sure he must be curious as to why I don’t have someone working here whilst he’s in the building. It was purely coincidental of course, but it makes me wonder if he’s thought about it.
“Your girlfriend doesn’t seem to work much.” He points to the desk.
He must notice the small tic in my jaw before I can put my therapy face on.
“Relax, Dr. Adams. I watch daytime television.” He holds his hands up surrendering and I give a curt smile. He must have seen the show where I announced to the Pacific Northwest that Mia was my girlfriend and worked for me. In all this time since the show, it hadn’t occurred to me that patients might have watched it.
My father’s voice rings in my ears.The patients must come first. Always. You need to anticipate their needs. Everything else is a distraction.
“Shall we?”
“Sure thing.”
???
After everything that happened with Mia this weekend, my conversation with Austin in his backyard completely slipped my mind. So after my final patient left for the day, I take the initiative to search Mia’s desk for clues.
Her monitor is off, she’ll always close it down when she leaves on a Wednesday so there’s no risk of private information being found by other patients whilst she’s away from her desk. I search the drawers, but there’s nothing. As I pull out the bottom drawer, I spot a scrap of paper with a flower on top.
“Alfie?”
My head snaps up. Mia is standing in the doorway, a worrisome look on her face. What is she doing here?
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh…I was looking for something.”
“In my desk?” She frowns, her eyes dipping to the open drawers, her things out of order. She looks upset. She looksviolated. Like I’ve invaded her personal belongings.
“I—well, yes. Let me explain.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mia
“Let me explain.”
