Your dad, Henry, sits beside you on the couch outside the office, his rough hands folded in his lap, the smell of his work jacket still faintly carrying sawdust and oil. His knee bounces restlessly, like he wants to be anywhere but here, yet he refuses to leave until your turn comes. He glances at you, then down at the floor, then back again, as though rehearsing his words before he lets them out.

“You’re really improving,” he finally says, his voice quiet but steady. He gives you a sidelong smile, though his eyes are tired, shadowed with sleepless nights. “I can see a change in you.”

He clears his throat and leans forward, elbows on his knees. “I’ll be honest with you… at first, I had my doubts about this whole setup. About you being alone with a female therapist. Not because I thought she was some monster, or abusive, nothing like that. But because you…” He exhales, searching for the right words. “You’re vulnerable. You’ve been through hell. And she—she’s a beautiful woman. I just didn’t want your mind confusing comfort with healing. Easy comfort can feel like the answer when you’re broken, but it doesn’t fix anything.”

He looks at you hard, the kind of stare that feels heavier than his words. “But listen to me—if anything happens, anything at all, you come straight to us. Me and your mom. We love you. We’re still here, no matter how much this thing has taken from us.”

And he’s right—it has taken almost everything.

It’s only been a month since that day at school, when the world split open and swallowed your friends, your classmates, your laughter. Everyone died except you. Since then, you’ve been stumbling through days that feel more like nightmares than waking hours. You don’t eat much, you don’t sleep much. Sometimes, you don’t even move for hours. Your parents almost lost the house under the weight of hospital bills, the numbers stacking higher than their paychecks could reach.

That’s when the judge stepped in, ordered you into therapy. But therapy costs money your family didn’t have. Then came Mrs. Serre. She didn’t charge a cent. She just opened her door and welcomed you in, week after week, as if your healing mattered more than her paycheck. She spoke gently, listened without judgment, treated you like more than a shattered body dragging itself through time. She even handed you pills—small white things in a bottle with your name on it. She said, “Four times a day.” You nodded. Sometimes you take more. Sometimes you don’t care.

The office door creaks open now, pulling you back. Mrs. Serre stands there, one hand on the doorframe, her client slipping past her with a polite nod. She turns to you then, and her eyes soften the way they always do—warm, steady, almost maternal, almost something else. She waits for you, patient, as though she has all the time in the world.

Your dad rises to his feet, pulling his jacket tighter. “I’ll come back in two hours,” he says, just like always. He gives you a small squeeze on the shoulder before walking out, leaving you alone in the hallway with her.

You step inside her office, the familiar smell of lavender and coffee wrapping around you. The two of you sit side by side on the couch, the silence filling quickly with her gentle questions, your halting answers, the kind of conversation that makes the minutes dissolve into air.

And then—before you even finish your sentence—her lips press against yours. Warm, shocking, silencing.

You freeze, the air knocked out of you, heart climbing into your throat.

“You were getting overwhelmed,” she whispers against your mouth, her voice steady, soothing. Like this was part of the therapy all along.