Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Paul
The Vaughn mansion rises out of the trees as I turn onto the driveway. I coast to the entrance and dismount easily, but the moment my boots hit gravel, and I pull off my helmet, I sense something is different.
Unexpected. New.
A scent, something sweet and warm, almost like the lemon-and-honey tea Mrs. Vaughn always offers for my sessions with Tessa—the only drink I genuinely enjoy besides espresso and water—lingers in the air.
I inhale deeply, and my muscles tighten, coiling as if bracing for impact. Anxiety swells fast enough that I stand frozen for several seconds beside my bike, my helmet dangling from my fingers.
The wet road flashes across my vision, headlights smearing into rain, the steady rhythm of the wipers, a pale shape at the edge of the beam.
Hands locked on ten and two.
Foot slamming uselessly on the brake.
The impact waiting one heartbeat ahead of me.
Fuck.
My fingers clench around the helmet straps hard enough that the buckle bites into my palm.
No.
There is no rain, no windshield, and no steering wheel under my hands. Gravel presses solidly beneath my boots, and still my pulse lurches into that same erratic rhythm, the one that comes right before I wake up paralyzed and choking on apology.
Lemon.
Honey.
But sweeter.
The scent curls through me again when I’m finally able to take another breath.
With ARFID, the relationship between safe food and its context is everything.
The tea is safe because of its precise combination of the brand, the temperature at which it’s brewed, and even the mug.
If any variable shifts, the association can collapse, and what was safe becomes suspect, and what is suspect becomes impossible.
There is no rational argument that overrides the body’s refusal. I know this about myself.
The knowing doesn’t help.
What is that scent? It’s close, but it isn’t quite right. The lemon is there, but something underneath is different. Softer, sweeter, something that makes my anxiety spike, not in the way of wrongness but in the way of… I don’t have a clinical word for this.
What is even happening?
I glance down at my watch.
9:27 a.m.
I look up at the mansion’s front steps, then back at my watch.
9:27 a.m.
Waking life.
Before I can make sense of the change, familiar voices cut through the quiet morning and the thick front door.
“I don’t see how that’s fair—”
“I’m not discussing fairness,” Mrs. Vaughn snaps, interrupting Simon. “I’m discussing my daughter.”
My stomach drops at her tone, and I move without thinking, hanging my helmet on my bike before heading toward the front steps just as the door swings open hard enough to hit its stop with a dull thud.
Simon steps out, shoulders hunched and jaw set as if he’s biting back words. “Dr. Bennett,” he mutters as he passes, not quite looking at me.
“Good morning, Simon.”
He scoffs hard, and I frown as I look at Mrs. Vaughn in the entryway. Her posture is pristine as always, but her eyes are different today.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, glancing at Simon’s retreating back.
“Good morning, Dr. Bennett.” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “We had to part ways with Simon, so you’ll have to settle for me opening the door for a while. I’m going to take my time to find a replacement whose values align with our own.”
“Having you open the door for me is anything but settling, Mrs. Vaughn,” I reply easily with a smile as I step inside. “Thank you.”
If that isn’t an unexpected but genuinely pleasant surprise.
Simon has been working for the Vaughns for at least as long as I have—just over six years—but I never liked that man. Not personally, and not professionally. Not even in the neutral way you tolerate someone because circumstances require it.
Years of working with people, of listening less to what they say and more to how they behave, have sharpened my sense for the truth beneath presentation, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself, it’s that I don’t trust masks.
Of course, I understand why people wear them.
Most have good reasons, protection, survival, or just habit.
I don’t judge anyone for choosing that route, but I know, with certainty, that I prefer the ugly truth, even when it’s uncomfortable, poorly timed, or inconvenient. Especially then.
Simon’s empathy always arrived a second too late, as an afterthought only because he knew it was expected. Whatever version of himself he thought he was presenting never fooled me.
“Would it be all right to hold today’s session in Tessa’s room?” Mrs. Vaughn asks. “She had a guest earlier, and we haven’t been able to settle downstairs yet.”
A guest?
“Of course. Please, lead the way.”
And that’s how I present myself to Mrs. Vaughn, as someone who can deal with a change in routine, when my naked truth is that I’m already battling another wave of anxiety as I follow her instead of walking straight to the sunroom.
Upstairs, Mrs. Vaughn opens the door to a large, bright room, then gestures toward a pair of chairs near the window. I cross the room and take the seat opposite her daughter. “Good morning, Tessa,” I say softly.
Her hands are on the armrest of the chair, her gaze fixed on the garden beyond the glass.
My gaze drops to the small table beside Tessa’s chair, where two mugs of tea sit, and I take a discreet inhale, barely holding back a shiver when that same scent from outside floods my senses.
Maybe they’re trying a new blend, and that’s what smells so different. So good.
But another naked truth?
If they’ve changed even a single thing about this tea, I’ll never be able to drink it again.
One of the mugs is only half full, and Mrs. Vaughn seems to catch my frown and immediately hurries over to clear both away.
“I’ll bring you some fresh tea.”
“No, thank you.” I offer her a polite smile. “I’m not in the mood for tea today.”
“How about a coffee?” she offers. “Or water?”
This time, my smile is more genuine. “I’m good, but thank you.”
“Dr. Bennett.” She arches an eyebrow at me, a hint of dry humor surfacing. “You don’t have to die of thirst because I let Simon go. I am perfectly capable of making coffee.”
“I’m sure you are, but still, no thank you.” A quiet chuckle escapes me as I settle back into my chair, and Mrs. Vaughn leaves us to our session.
I turn my focus back to my patient. “So, you had a guest today? An old friend? Or is your mother looking for a replacement for me?” I joke, well aware that Mrs. Vaughn spends a small fortune to keep me coming here.
But then again, I also thought she’d been satisfied with Simon’s work.
I watch Tessa carefully, as I always do, for the smallest signs. A blink that lingers a fraction too long, a subtle shift in focus, the faintest flicker of awareness behind her eyes. Sometimes she gives me those. Sometimes she doesn’t.
My working theory remains unchanged. Tessa and I suffer from the same fracture, just at vastly different severities.
Sleep paralysis is a condition where the body is held immobile while the subconscious remains active.
During the REM phase of sleep, when the brain is highly engaged, that’s when we dream.
To prevent us from acting out those dreams, inhibitory neurons suppress skeletal muscle movement, effectively causing paralysis.
When there’s a disruption or overlap between REM and wakefulness, consciousness returns while the body does not.
Most people recover from the paralysis in seconds. But for me, when I tear myself out of a nightmare, my body keeps me hostage for minutes.
Tessa hasn’t returned at all, at least not in a meaningful way. It’s as if paralysis exists in layers, some deeper than others. The same way dreaming does.
And dreams have always fascinated me.
I didn’t choose this specialty by accident.
Long before I knew the language for it, I was already experiencing sleep differently than most people.
Lucidity came early to me—childhood early.
I don’t remember learning how to realize I was dreaming, only the moment I understood that other people didn’t. Or couldn’t.
I used to enjoy the heck out of my lucid dreams. Most of the time, I was flying or being a superhero.
Until one day, when I was around twelve, I was out playing on the logs behind the house—on the ground of the logging company, really—climbing where I shouldn’t have been.
I took one wrong step, the logs rolled out from under me, and I fell between them into a dark space full of spiders.
I screamed until my throat burned, unable to get myself out. By the time Marcus finally came looking for me, hours had passed. I was still trapped there in the dark, frozen, and surrounded by legs and skittering bodies.
Paralyzed.
The nightmares from that day forward were relentless, and I quickly became afraid of going to sleep. Afraid of the dark, and of my own mind. When I started becoming lucid inside those nightmares, it opened up a new hell, and I reacted the same each time.
Blind panic, followed by a single desperate plea to my frozen body.
Wake up.
Wake up.
Wake up.
I endured years of exhaustion from extreme sleep deprivation until I realized that this was the worst possible response.
I glance at Tessa again, at how her body sits perfectly still while her mind is clearly somewhere else. All I can hope for her is that she’s not trapped in her personal nightmare. That she’s not filled with terror.
Now that I have the language for my state—and hers—I can only hope to help her one day.
An unfinished nightmare isn’t something you can simply shake off.
Your mind doesn’t let go of unprocessed fear.
It circles back, again and again, trying to resolve what you refused to face.
Nightmares recur not because the brain is cruel, but because it’s persistent and wants equilibrium and closure.