Page 6 of Angel of Water & Shadow

Not the fiery reign of judgement I expected. But maybe that was her plan, to look at me and stoke more hope than stars in a twilit sky. Then snuff it out and treat me like the problem, not the person I was.

My nails flew between my teeth. “Are you really asking me about this right now?”

Her attention flickered briefly. “Yes.”

“Why?” I tore at a cuticle.

Her gaze was dark as midnight yet sparkling with possibility. “Because I want to get to know you.”

Shock jolted me still. After years of enduring the churn and burn with others who deemed themselves worthy of the teenage psychological persuasion, Dr. Fairmore totally caught me off guard. She was so…nice. Genuinely. None of it made sense, especially the thawing hatred in my gut.

“Why do you want to get to know me?” An arch-shaped brow rose in question as I asked, “Don’t you just want to punish me, diagnose me, and move on?”

“It’s not my job to discipline you. It’s my job to understand you and help you figure out the best way to manage your sensory episodes, so you can live your life.” Her words were sharp, no bullshit, lined with promise, no matter how hard my mind raced to distort them.

“I want to start with you feeling comfortable.” She sounded so sure of herself. Maybe she was sure of me, too. “I know it will take time. You’ve been through a lot—for a while now.”

A while didn’t even begin to cover it.

“Since I was eight.” Word vomit. It came out so fast I couldn’t stop it.

Dr. Fairmore leaned in. “Who taught you how to surf?”

“My dad.”

One side of her mouth kicked up in a smile. “What is it about surfing you like so much?”

I was already softening, but now I melted. No therapist had ever asked me that before—well, no one had ever asked me that with such interest. As if she…I swallowed a lump forming in my throat. As if she actually cared.

I closed my eyes and let the drab doctor’s office fall away, trading the springy cushions and hardwood floor for the infinite depth of the ocean and the rhythmic movement of the tide.

Even just imagining it, the sounds of everyday life seemed to dull, like a radio with the volume turned all the way down. I should probably be scared of the force that took my mother that clear June morning, but it only made me feel closer to her.

“When you’re out there, it’s you and the water.” I inhaled deeply, imagining the crisp, salted air filling my lungs. “You don’t hear anything but the pounding of waves. You don’t think about anything except paddling as hard as you can. And when you’re standing on your board, with the momentum behind you and the wind in your hair…the rest of the world seems to fall away. It’s the closest to flying you’ll ever be.”

“It must be nice to feel that kind of invincibility.”

“That’s just it—you’re anything but invincible.” My words tumbled out faster as I met her incisive stare. “Mother Nature can screw you over at any time. But regardless, you put your faith in the water, let her wash away your vulnerabilities, and go.”

Dr. Fairmore slightly tilted her head. “How does that make you feel?”

“Alone.” Powerful. Blissful. Quiet.

“Why do you like feeling alone, River?” She stared back at me evenly.

The question rippled off the silence, gaining momentum with every pounding heartbeat. And soon it echoed in the room, all around me. It hummed in the floor lamp’s flickering bulb, so blinding it dotted my vision even when I looked away. It rang in the water dispenser’s leaky tap, so loud that every drip drip made me cringe. It screeched in the chair as I burrowed further into it, a sound so similar to nails on a chalkboard—oh, those were mine clawing at the leather.

When my lips remained sealed, Dr. Fairmore bent forward and closed the space between us. “Do you feel safer alone? Because then no one can leave you?”

Sweat beaded my hairline, my palms, the back of my neck as I fought to get ahold of my senses. Then the first voice tunneled into my eardrums with the tick tock of the wall clock, surer of the situation than I’d ever been: “She knows, Watcher.”

Of course she knew I saw my mom die. It was all in my file. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

A strained sigh made it past my clenched jaw as the second voice carved her rebuttal into the grind of my teeth—an attempt to try and pad the brutal truth, but really it just stressed me the F out. “You say that like it’s a bad thing? Watcher, there is something buried under all that pain—face it and release your power.”

Right now, the only thing that needed release was the endless string of swear words I had for them. I bit my tongue, knowing how well that would go over with my therapist, watching her new patient curse the air.

Dr. Fairmore raised a speckled mug to her lips. The third voice billowed in the steam she blew off the liquid, seething with the heat. “How many times do we have to ask her to revisit the day Mira died?” My thoughts exactly. “Nothing ever changes, she sees what she wants—and she wants to live a lie.”

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