Nothing.
I set it back down and forced myself to step away from the counter.
She would call if she needed something.
Until then, the most respectful thing I could do was give her the space she had asked for.
Even if part of me still felt uneasy walking away from the phone.
Chapter 18
Zoey
Friday morning,I almost didn’t get out of the car.
The therapist’s office sat at the end of a narrow road that curved through tall trees and quiet houses spaced far enough apart that no one could hear their neighbors breathing wrong. The Southern Adirondacks had already trained my brain to expect silence. The small wooden building with a wide porch and two chairs that faced the mountains leaned into that expectation of silence.
I turned off the engine and stayed in the driver’s seat. I had already completed four tickets early this morning and planned to work an hour later than usual to accommodate this appointment. I hoped it was worth it.
My phone sat in the cup holder. The clock said 9:56.
Four minutes.
Plenty of time to drive away.
Therapy had seemed like a logical step when I scheduled the appointment three days ago while standing in my kitchen holding a container of Mei’s dumplings and thinking about Bobbi explaining emotional regulation exercises with the calm authority only an eleven-year-old could possess.
It felt less logical now that I was parked outside the building where someone was going to ask questions about my life.
I looked up from the dashboard.
The mountains sat behind the building, and pine trees filled the valley below. The morning was quiet, like this place often was. No traffic noise. No construction. No horns. Just wind moving through branches and the occasional bird that sounded extremely confident about its personal schedule.
I had been here for a few weeks, but my brain still hadn’t adjusted to the scale of it. Every time I looked up and saw so much open space, it reset something in my chest.
I liked it here.
That still surprised me.
My hands rested on the steering wheel.
Three minutes.
I could leave right now, and no one would know.
Dr. Ellie would assume I had forgotten or gotten busy or been eaten by a bear. All of those options were socially acceptable explanations for missing a therapy appointment.
Instead, I opened the car door.
The gravel crunched under my boots as I walked toward the porch. The building smelled faintly of cedar when I stepped inside. The waiting room held two chairs, a small table with magazines that looked intentionally non-threatening, and a window that framed the mountains in a way that felt almost unfair.
A woman sat behind the front desk. “Zoey?”
“That’s me.”
She smiled. “Dr. Ellie just finished up with someone. She’ll be right out.”
That was unfortunate. I had been hoping for a longer waiting period so I could build a convincing argument for leaving.
