Page 27 of The Therapist

Her eyes snap to mine, wary. “You say his name like he’s just some guy.”

I nod. “To you, he wasn’t just some guy.”

Tessa swallows, her throat bobbing. She’s testing the waters, waiting to see if I’ll judge her, if I’ll flinch.

I don’t. I hold her gaze, steady and calm.

“He protected me,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. “From the others. From worse things. He… he made me feel safe.” She scoffs, running a hand through her dark hair. “God, how messed up is that? I was locked in a goddamn house. I couldn’t leave, couldn’t talk to my family, but at least I hadhim. So tell me—am I insane?”

“No.” The answer is immediate, firm. “You survived. And when people survive trauma, their minds adapt to protect them. Bonding with him, feeling something for him, that was your mind’s way of making the unlivable… livable.”

Tessa snorts, but her eyes glisten. “Stockholm Syndrome. That’s what they call it, right?”

I hesitate. “That’s one way of looking at it. But labels can be limiting. What you felt, what youfeel—it’s real. And it’s complicated. You don’t have to force it into a neat little box.”

She exhales, her posture sagging. “Everyone wants me to be angry. To hate him. But I don’t.”

I nod. “And that scares you.”

“Yeah.” A humorless chuckle. “Because if I don’t hate him, what does that make me?”

“Human.”

Tessa studies me, searching for cracks in my calm. She won’t find any. I’ve spent years navigating the labyrinth of trauma, walking people through their darkest corners without recoiling.

“I think about him all the time,” she admits, voice raw. “I wonder if he’s okay. If he misses me. And Iknowhow fucked up that is, but it doesn’t change anything.”

I let the words settle before responding. “You spent months with him. Your brain was wired to see him as your protector, your lifeline. That doesn’t just disappear because you were rescued.”

Her laugh is shaky. “Rescued. That’s another funny word. I don’t feel rescued. I feel… uprooted. Like someone yanked me out of a world I had adjusted to, and now I don’t fit anywhere.”

The honesty in her voice tugs at something deep in my chest. I lean back, giving her space to breathe. “That’s the thing about survival. It doesn’t end when you escape. You’re still surviving, just in a different way.”

Tessa shifts again, her gaze flickering to the window. “I don’t talk to anyone about this. Not my caseworker, not my parents. They’d never understand.”

I keep my voice gentle. “What would happen if you told them?”

She scoffs. “They’d think I was sick. Broken.”

“Doyouthink you’re broken?”

Her lips press into a thin line. “I don’t know.”

I watch her for a long moment before speaking. “You survived something unimaginable, Tessa. And you did what you had to do to make it through. That’s not broken—that’s resilience.”

Tessa’s eyes well up, and she looks away quickly, blinking hard. I don’t press. The silence between us stretches, not empty, but full of everything she isn’t ready to say.

After a moment, she clears her throat. “I had a dream about him last night.”

I nod, waiting.

“We were sitting in that house, just talking. Like nothing bad ever happened. And when I woke up, I wanted to go back.” Her voice breaks on the last word, and she squeezes her eyes shut. “How do I stop missing him?”

I inhale slowly. “Maybe the question isn’t how to stop, but how tounderstandit. How to accept that you can feel relief and grief at the same time. That you can be free and still mourn what you lost.”

Tessa looks at me, something fragile in her expression. “What did I lose?”

I meet her gaze. “Certainty. The version of yourself that made sense in that world. And now, you have to rebuild. Piece by piece.”

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