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If that’s even possible here, I thought.

I was wiping my sweaty hands on the thighs of my gray jeans when she spoke up. “I’m Emily.”

My eyes flicked up to meet hers briefly. “Hi.”

She smiled again, and the effect was soothing. I hoped that meant she’d be a good therapist for me. “Do you prefer Tristan?”

I nodded, sinking back into the couch, deliberately trying to relax the muscles in my back while glancing around the room. I felt undeniably tense. “That or Tris. Either is fine.”

She nodded, watching me again. I found her appraising gaze largely comforting, like she was giving me the space to relax, find mental safety. But I still looked away, struggling with eye contact.

“Aren’t you going to take notes or something?”

Her grin widened in my periphery. “Would that put you more at ease?”

I chuckled. “I suppose not.”

“Hmm.” Her body softened, and I felt it from across the room. “So, Tris, I reviewed your intake forms, which means I have a bit of your history already. Thank you for sharing all of that with me. But I’d love to hear it directly from you, if you’re comfortable sharing. What made you decide to come to therapy?”

She took a breath, and I just studied the rug between us, unsure where to start. I suspected she figured that out, because she continued as she leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs at the knee.

“No pressure here, Tristan. You can talk about whatever you’d like; this is your time. For as long as you’d like to talk—over the next hour, anyway—I’m here to listen.”

I chuckled again, feeling calmer at her words. I swiped my palms on my jeans again, staring at the blue ombre concentric circles that made up one of the art pieces on the wall behind her like they held the secrets of the universe. “I’ve been seeing someone, or starting to, and we had a little, ugh, fight, I guess, or something . . . and Ethan found me and gave me your name—” I cut myself off with a laugh. “That made no sense. I guess I should start at the beginning.”

She chuckled warmly, and I took a breath before launching into my sordid history.

“My parents have a lot of money, and they had me when they were older. It was weird having the oldest parents at school and stuff. I was their only child, and I always wondered why they had one. They didn’t seem to like having me around.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Emily frowning. “What do you mean by that?”

My forehead pinching, I considered her question, still avoiding her gaze. “Okay, so, for example, the holidays. Our house was always decorated beautifully, but it always felt cold. My mom hired a designer to decorate, and I wasn’t allowed to help, though it was my favorite holiday. I remember one year, we made these ornaments at school with yarn and popsicle sticks in the shape of a snowflake. I was so excited to show my mom—I would’ve wanted to show my dad, too, but he was always at work and not really there mentally even when he was in the house—and she gave me a placating smile when I showed her. But when I instantly walked over and put it on the tree, right in the middle where everyone could see it, she scolded me and told me to take it off. She said it didn’t match, that it wasn’t as pretty as the other décor.”

My therapist’s frown turned sad. My eyes flicked to her briefly before turning back to the ocean-colored circles.

“I took it back to my room and cried. I must’ve been, um, eight or nine, but even by then, I’d been yelled at enough times for crying—‘like a little girl,’ according to my dad—that I only did it in private. My mom didn’t really yell; she just gave me these looks that told me she wanted to say all these terrible things to and about me and acted like I was her biggest disappointment.”

I sniffed and swiped at my cheeks, rubbing away an itch. I was both shocked and unsurprised to find they were wet with tears.

“Another time, when I was eleven, I asked my dad to take me to a baseball game. He actually said yes, and I was so fucking—oh, sorry.”

Emily waved me off. “You’re fine.”

I sniffled again. “Thanks. So yeah, I was so fucking excited. I could only remember one ballgame my dad and I had gone to, when I was a lot younger, and it was one of the best days of my life.” I swallowed hard. “You can probably guess that we never made it to the game. He . . .”

I choked back a sob. I still hadn’t been able to meet her eye.

“When Saturday came, the day of the game, I was up early because I was so excited. I remember being so excited I could barely eat. My mom kept commenting about how annoying I was being at breakfast, told me to go to my room and ‘go act crazy there’—her words. But I was so keyed up, I took my ball glove and a baseball and went out in the backyard. I ended up throwing it against the brick on the side of our house for a long time, getting out some energy.” Drawing a shaky breath, I steeled myself to continue. “I knew we had to leave by noon to make it by the first pitch, so I kept my eye on my phone between throws. Noon came and went, and eventually, I went inside to find him. I hadn’t seen him all morning, but that was normal.

“I found my mom and asked her where my dad was. She said he went in to work or something, hours before, and waved it off like it was no big deal. When I started crying, she rolled her eyes at me, told me to grow up, and said I’d never get him to go with me to another game if I cried at everything.”

I swallowed hard, trying to keep my voice steady. “I ran up to my room, slammed the door, and didn’t come out for the rest of the day.”

Sobs broke through as I sat there on the brown leather couch, body wracked with grief. When I quieted enough to speak, I finally looked up and found Emily’s eyes.

“In high school, I dated a football player in secret for a couple of years. Turned out, he was cheating on me with the head cheerleader—probably the whole time, though I’m not sure of that. I didn’t hide my sexuality at school, but Chad sure did, so no one knew.” I took a breath. “My parents are really conservative and homophobic, and I knew they’d hate to discover their son was gay, so I kept quiet at home. I actually don’t know if my parents ever found that out; they disowned me for my job but never mentioned knowing I was gay.”

“What do you do for work, if you don’t mind me asking?”