Page 34 of The Therapist

I always thought that with time, things would get clearer. But now, it feels like the longer I go, the harder it is to breathe. The world doesn’t seem big enough for the pain I carry.

My feelings are messy and get lost in the noise of everything else life threw at us. I know with clarity that of all my demons, he is the one I need the most.

I’m in love with his ghost. A shadow of him that haunts my dreams and steals the air from my lungs when I wake up. I still feel him—dangerous and dark, like a secret whispered in the hush of the night.

The way he kissed me like a lover, then stung me like a wasp. And still, I pine for him. I can feel it in my veins like a sickness. But I can’t stop myself. I’d walk straight into the flames of his inferno if it meant feeling something, anything, that might bring me closer to him again.

He’s pierced my spirit in ways I’ll never understand, and yet I can’t touch him. I can’t reach him, and that silence between us, the one I’ve perpetuated for so long, poisons me. It keeps me perpetually drowning.

I close my eyes and picture his face before me. If I could, I would launch an army to bring his heart back to mine. But the ground beneath me slips, and I now know what it’s like to be weakened—held captive by the idea of him.

Sixteen

Past

Ichecked out the following morning, completely and thoroughly mortified at my behavior the night before. I couldn’t bear to look at Cooper that morning. I couldn’t even speak.

What was I thinking?

The four days from check-out until our session are torturous.

I agonize over every detail. Every misstep that I made. Never in my life have I been so brazen or wanton. It was reckless and stupid. But my life has been so monotonous lately. So boring and lonely and banal. The night at the inn gave me such a thrill that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I am hooked on something I can’t have.

I know I can’t continue to treat him.

The air in my office is thick, charged. I take a sip of water.

He sits across from me, exuding the same quiet dominance that always sets me on edge. Legs spread, arms draped along the chair as if he owns this space. As if he ownsme. His dark eyes scan me, calculating, dissecting.

I clear my throat. “I can’t be your therapist anymore.”

His head tilts slightly, studying me like a puzzle he intends to solve. “No?”

I grip my pen tighter, nails pressing into the soft pad of my palm. “No.”

Silence stretches between us, thick and oppressive. He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t plead. He just watches, waiting for me to unravel myself in the space between my words.

“I’ve given this a lot of thought,” I continue, forcing the tremor from my voice. “This—our dynamic—it’s not…” I exhale sharply. “It’s not healthy.”

His lips curl at the edges, just enough to make my stomach flip. “Our dynamic?” he repeats, voice dripping with amusement. “Interesting choice of words.”

I hate the way my body reacts to his voice, the way it slithers down my spine and pools low in my womb.

I sit straighter, ignoring the heat creeping up my neck. “You know as well as I do that this—” I gesture between us, frustrated by how small my voice feels, “—is inappropriate.”

He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, closing the space between us. “Inappropriate,” he muses. “That’s one word for it.”

I swallow hard. “Cooper.”

“Robin.”

The sound of my name in his mouth is my undoing. It always has been. He sees it, too—the flicker of hesitation in my eyes, the way my breath stutters.

His gaze darkens. “Tell me something,” he murmurs, his voice slow and deliberate. “Do you regret it?”

My stomach clenches because I do, but also, I don’t. “That’s not relevant.”

“Oh, but it is.” His lips curve, wicked and knowing. “Because if you truly regretted it, you wouldn’t be sitting there, gripping that pen like it’s the only thing keeping you from touching me.”

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