Chapter 5The Storm Beneath the Skin
The Storm Beneath the Skin
Isabella
The rain has stopped, unlike my nightmares.
For the first time in weeks, the streets of New York aren’t slick with water, reflecting neon lights like shattered pieces of a dream.
The air is cold but clear, the kind of night that should feel fresh, new.
But it doesn’t. The dampness lingers in the cracks of the pavement, in the spaces between heartbeats, in the places I can’t quite reach.
I sit in the waiting room of Dr. Monroe’s office, staring at the floor.
The chair beneath me is firm, unyielding, the fluorescent lighting above just harsh enough to remind me this isn’t a place meant for comfort.
The air smells sterile, clean but in an artificial way, the kind of scent that doesn’t belong anywhere real.
The clock on the wall ticks steadily, each second dragging into the next.
Ada pushed me here. Dragged me, really. She didn’t say it outright, but I could hear it in her voice every time she told me to ‘‘get some rest,’’ every time she watched me over the rim of her coffee cup, waiting for me to break.
She was waiting for the cracks to show, for the storm inside me to finally spill over.
I let her win. I didn’t have the energy to fight anymore.
After weeks of sleepless nights, of drowning in the weight of my own mind, I stepped into this office and sat across from a woman who was supposed to fix me.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be fixed. I loved being a mess, especially when it came to him.
I don’t even believe I can be ‘“fixed” after all I have been through and have seen.
When I was a child, I was never allowed to be anything other than small.
His voice, loud and suffocating, would fill the house, and I learned to shrink into corners, to make myself invisible.
There was never any room for softness. The warmth that a child should have, the love that should’ve flowed freely, none of it ever reached me.
He took all of it. Took it with his hands and his words, and what was left behind was a quiet, aching loneliness I could never outrun.
I didn’t know what safety felt like, not really. Until him.
He was the first person who made me feel something real, something alive. I never knew what excitement was until he looked at me like I mattered.
It’s ironic, really.
He was the first person to ever make me feel alive.
A criminal. A marked man. A force of chaos, of destruction, someone who should have been the last person to make me feel safe.
But he did. He made me feel seen, wanted, and for once, I felt like I mattered, something I had never experienced, not in the warmth of my mother’s arms or in the safety of a home that was supposed to protect me.
A few sessions in, Dr. Monroe put me on Prozac. Just a low dose, something to ‘‘balance the chemicals,’’ something to ‘‘help me function again.’’ It worked. I wake up. I eat. I work. I exist. The machine inside me is running again, smooth and efficient.
The sharp edges of my thoughts are duller now, the grief I carried like an open wound has scabbed over. I don’t feel like I’m drowning anymore, but I don’t feel like I’m breathing either. I function, but I am not me.
The door to the office opens, and Dr. Monroe steps out, her expression calm, professional. “Come in, Isabella.”
I rise without a word, stepping into the office.
It’s small but warm, decorated with soft colors and lined with bookshelves filled with psychology texts and literature.
A small couch sits against the far wall, but I never use it.
I take my usual chair across from her desk, my hands folding neatly in my lap as if they belong to someone else.
Dr. Monroe sits too, flipping open her notebook, pen poised between her fingers. “How have you been feeling?”
It’s the same question every time. I give the same answer.
“Fine.”
“Fine,” is the most told lie in human history.
It slips from our lips like a shield, hiding the weight we’re too tired to carry. It’s the mask we wear when we don’t know how to say that we’re drowning, when the world feels too heavy to share.
She studies me for a long moment, assessing, peeling back the layers I try so hard to keep in place. “Fine isn’t a feeling.”
I exhale slowly, forcing my body to relax, though every muscle in me feels wound too tight, stretched too thin. “I don’t know,” I say eventually. “The Prozac is working. I can focus at work again. I’m eating, I’m sleeping. I guess that means I’m fine.”
Her lips press together, thoughtful. “It means you’re functioning. But functioning isn’t healing.”
I don’t respond.
She lets the silence linger before shifting gears, her voice gentle but firm. “Last time, we spoke about your childhood.”
I tense. I knew this was coming. I always know. It doesn’t make it easier.
“We don’t have to go there if you don’t want to,” she says, watching me carefully. “But I think it’s important that we continue to explore how that shaped you.”
I glance at the clock. Fifty minutes to go.
My fingers tighten around the fabric of my sleeve, nails pressing into my palm. “What do you want to know?”
“We spoke briefly about your stepfather.”
I nod, jaw clenching. “Yeah.”
She waits for me to continue. I don’t.
After a moment, she speaks again, her tone light but insistent. “You mentioned he was… strict.”
Strict. That word doesn’t come close to what he was.
I force myself to meet her gaze. “He believed in discipline.”
“And your mother?”
“She let it happen.”
Dr. Monroe watches me carefully, reading between the lines, picking apart the things I don’t say. “You told me before that you don’t remember much.”
I shake my head. “I remember enough.”
She waits, giving me space. But I won’t fill it.
I was only four when it began, when the world started to feel heavy and wrong. I remember the cold concrete floor of the basement, the sharp smell of mildew in the air. My small hands gripping the edge of a broken chair, trembling as I tried to make myself smaller, to disappear into the shadows.
By the time I was eight, the dark had become familiar.
The nights locked in the basement, cold and alone, my stomach gnawing at me, my body bruised and aching.
I wasn’t just underfed, I was starved, starved for food, for affection, for anything that might tell me I was worth something.
The beatings, the isolation, the darkness, it became my life. No one came. No one cared.
I wasn’t allowed to shower, to sleep, to feel clean or human.
Days stretched into weeks, and in that time, I was stripped of everything: my dignity, my sense of self.
I learned that I was nothing, that I didn’t deserve warmth, didn’t deserve care.
The world outside was an unreachable dream, one I could never have.
Instead, I was a prisoner, locked away in a small, cold space where I was nothing but a body to be used and broken.
The worst part wasn’t the physical pain, it was the emotional deprivation.
The silence. The loneliness. The complete lack of love, of touch.
I was a child, but I was made to feel like I had no right to feel anything but fear.
No one ever told me I was loved. No one ever showed me that I was worth anything.
And with each passing day, I faded more and more into the nothingness they created.
I learned early that survival meant submitting. It meant becoming small and weak, shrinking into the background, making myself invisible.
And then, there’s Aslanov. I can’t tell her what happened between us, the things we did, the choices we made. The man he is, or was . The blood that stains my hands, the life we ended on my command, my stepfather. The time we spent together, the promises we made.
I remember his voice, low and unwavering: “Command me. I’ll do anything you tell me.”
It’s like a phantom touch, a memory that lingers longer than it should. I can still feel the weight of it, the power in his words, the intensity of his presence. His voice is etched in my mind, impossible to erase.
I wonder, sometimes, when it will fade. When the sound of it will stop reverberating in my ears, when I’ll forget the way he spoke, so unwavering, so certain.
I can’t tell her that a criminal like him has made me feel things no one else ever had.
She’ll send me straight to a psych ward.
How could I explain to her that the man who should have been the worst and most feared thing in my life, the one who was meant to ruin me, was the one who made me feel alive?
The Prozac keeps the panic at bay, keeps me from unraveling when these memories surface. But it doesn’t erase them.
Dr. Monroe leans forward slightly, voice steady. “You spent years in survival mode. Even now, you still operate that way, keeping yourself busy, staying detached. But eventually, Isabella, you have to let yourself feel.”
I look past her, toward the window. Outside, the city is alive, people moving through their lives, unaware of how easily the world can crack beneath their feet.
Let myself feel.
If I let myself feel everything, I might never stop.
The session drags on, but I say little. Dr. Monroe doesn’t push me. She never does. When the hour is up, she hands me my prescription refill and tells me to take care of myself.
I nod, but I don’t make promises I can’t keep.