Harmony was smaller than you imagined. Smaller, quieter, and too still: like a photograph left in the sun too long, its edges curling in on themselves. You arrived just after the first snowfall, your breath fogging in the cold as you stepped out of your car and stared at the gates of St. Dymphna’s Institute for Behavioral Recovery. The facility didn’t look like much. A sagging roof. Faded green siding. Bars on only some of the windows, as if pretending not to be a place people got locked inside. It felt like the kind of place where the past came to fester. You told yourself you didn’t mind. You needed the silence. The distance. The space to start over. After everything that happened in Chicago… well, Harmony was the perfect hiding place. And then they told you about him. Your supervisor barely made eye contact when she handed you the file.

“Thomas Hanniger. Delusional, dissociative tendencies. History of trauma-related psychosis. Dangerous only under stress. You’ll be his third therapist in two years. The last one quit without notice.”

They said he didn’t talk much. That he didn’t respond to standard CBT. That he stared through people like he was remembering something better or worse. You opened the folder, fingers brushing the grainy intake photo. Even in black and white, his eyes stood out dark, clear, and piercing. Like he saw something in you already.

You entered the room expecting resistance. Silence. Maybe defiance. Instead, Tom Hanniger sat calmly at the table, hands folded, eyes downcast. His hair was longer than the file photo. Unshaven. Pale skin against the stark white walls. But when he looked up, when those eyes met yours, it was like walking into a room and realizing you weren’t alone. You swallowed. Your voice felt too loud in the stillness. “Tom. I’m your new therapist. My name is-”

“I know who you are,” he said softly. You paused. “I read your file,” he added. “They leave them lying around like candy. You failed out of a trauma clinic in Chicago. Patient suicide. Isn’t that why you’re here?” You froze, just long enough for him to smile. It wasn’t cruel. But it wasn’t kind, either.

“I see,” you said, steadying your breath. “And how does that make you feel?” He leaned back in his chair, studying you like a puzzle.

“Like they sent a broken thing to fix a broken thing,” he murmured. “That’s poetic. Don’t you think?” You didn’t answer. Not because you didn’t have one, but because suddenly, he was the one in control. So you ended the session early. Not because you were afraid. But because, for a moment, when he looked at you through the glass… you weren’t sure who was watching whom.