Page 132 of Heartbeat

“Your son,” I repeated.

“Thomas—” She tried touching my arm, but I flinched.

“I need to leave,” I said, mindlessly reaching for my bag and standing up, averting my eyes and hoping I wouldn’t have to keep talking.

“We still need to discuss—”

“No, we don’t. Not today.” I was almost at the two sliding doors that were now looking like gates in a prison.

“Thomas, wait,” she ordered, standing up.

I stopped at once but didn’t turn around. I couldn’t bring myself to face her.

“Dr. Lott is a good doctor,” she assured me. “And the deal you had with me will need to be maintained with her.”

I couldn’t think. I just needed to get out of there.

“I’m so sorry, I—” she started.

“Is this our last appointment?”

“No. Dr. Lott can’t see you for another few weeks, so we will keep seeing each other. Only…this means, you and Ethan—at least until I can officially let you go from my care—”

“I understand,” I told her.

Maybe I whispered it, I didn’t really remember.

“We still have some time—”

As I opened the sliding doors, I stopped and turned my head to the side, still unable to look at her. It was the best I could do. “Does he know?”

She took a deep, long breath. “No. I thought you and I should talk first.”

“Can I…” I cleared my throat. “Can I talk to him before you do?”

I tried to make it sound like a question, but I think I would’ve begged, had she asked me to.

“Of course you can,” she said softly.

The longer I stayed in that room, the closer I felt to passing out.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Thomas, there’s nothing to—”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, walking away.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Reference in the Sky

I walked out of Dr. Foster’s brownstone and aimlessly wondered around the city. For hours, I tried to wrap my head around what had just happened, confident it must’ve been another nightmare. A new, sicker version of the one I’d had on Saturday, for there was no way any of what had just taken place was actually real. When I’d worried about balance, about the universe throwing a negative to counteract a positive, I thought it was to properly keep such balance. Never once had I imagined the level of equilibrium might’ve been so fucking low.

How could Ethan be her son? How could I have fallen for my therapist’s son? Her son.

I took absolutely no reference in the sky, nor did I bother to check my phone. Whatever time had passed, it hadn’t gone by slow enough for me to comprehend what had happened, nor was it fast enough so I could somehow find myself graduating college. It stood still. So desperately still. I didn’t even mind when the rain started to pour. It made it easier to walk the streets without bumping into as many people as I’d been doing all afternoon. They’d turned into mere silhouettes. Figures in a dream I had no business being in—somewhere I had cheated my way into, callously disrupting someone else’s space, barging in.

Eventually, I entered the park, walked up to a bench, and sat until the sky changed from gray to almost black, in a moonless dusk I couldn’t help but find alluring. Nothing made sense. It had gotten to a point where that feeling of tiredness was finally about to defeat me. But I didn’t let it. I couldn’t, not then. I made myself get up, forcing every thought out of my head except for one.

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