Page 3 of The Therapist

Just me.

Singular.

I am not a beautiful woman, nor an ugly woman who looks pretty. They are two different things. I am average. Just an average woman who ended up in a non-average situation. Looking back, I can’t exactly pinpoint when life started snowballing. It was gradual. A slow and tedious plunge into a dark pool. My heart aches, an erratic lumpy thudding against my ribs.

Habit is a difficult thing to break and my mind wanders to thoughts I’ve pushed into the cobwebs during the day. My eyes wander to the windows, and the open back door. The thrill of being watched, however, never comes, and that deviant venom seeps into my bones a little more.

I know gray areas. Lines that should not be crossed, right and wrong, but I ignored them all—for him. I became no better than the patients I counsel with our blurred lines and aberrant proclivities. I take a sip of wine silently praying it brings the relaxation I crave.

The stack of mail on the side table and I are in a familiar staring match. Under today’s mail, there is a wildly thick letter.

It arrived five days ago.

It remains unopened.

It wants to consume me, kill me, tear me apart.

It wants to thrill me.

I fear that thrill, the fire burning low in my belly. It’s something I’ve been able to control—for now. I look away, knowing whatever the envelope contains more than likely has the ability to chew me up and spit me out. But even just knowing it’s there lets something dark into the cracks of my heart.

Flash comes in, right to me, and rubs against my shins with vigor before heading to his empty food bowl, picking it up in his teeth and tossing it on the floor to alert me that he’s hungry.

I barely hear the clatter because I’m lost in memories of the last time I saw him. Of the way his eyes gave away his panic. Of the immense pressure on my chest that made it near impossible to catch a breath.

To watch something you value implode before your eyes is painful. You can’t outrun wicked. You can only stand still and pray.

Guilt gnaws at my gut. It’s not an unfamiliar feeling.

We all have secrets, me included. I am a pro at burying it. I’m ruthless in ignoring it and my deepest emotions. In a way, my profession trained me to be able to do just that, alongside the most disturbed.

The timer rings, loud and shrill. Flash’s bowl crashes against the floor again.

I lit the fuse, then tried to run and hide, I think. Hissing out a small snort, the sound of Flash’s food bowl between his teeth forces me to get up off the couch. He tosses his bowl toward the dog food cabinet. I turn off the oven and pull out my dinner before filling his bowl. At least I have Flash.

He has no one anymore.

People aren’t mirrors, they don’t reflect how you see yourself. Which is a shame, because sometimes we, as humans, need to see ourselves in the light others cast us in. It’s an overlooked idea in my book.

The problem is that sometimes the light people cast you in, versus the light you see yourself in, can make you feel like an imposter. People never truly share themselves with others fully. There’s always a piece of themselves they hold onto for just them.

Something sacred.

Something no one else can touch or take away. But that was what he loved so much—witnessing those minuscule tidbits of people. I shake the runaway thoughts from my head.

After dinner, I check my emails before spending thirty minutes in the bathroom applying every face and anti-aging cream known to man on my face, neck, decolletage, and the backs of my hands. People forget about the backs of their hands, but they’re a dead giveaway as far as age is concerned.

New paperback tucked under my armpit, I pass through the hall and back downstairs to make sure the lights are off and thedoors are locked. The spindly, tile-topped table with the letter is an affront as I pass it.

Pausing, I look back at it. Curiosity, months in the making, seizes me.

All the missed calls.

The plethora of voicemails.

And now, the damned, thick, letter.

I let my forefinger run across it.

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