Chapter 47 Gabe
GABE
The building looks so ordinary. I don’t know what I expected, something more sinister, maybe.
Instead, I’m greeted by pale stone, a yellow door, brass numbers, and a little pot of flowers on the step.
I stand there for a long time just staring at the flowers.
They’re pink, so pretty and bright, unlike all the reasons I’m here.
I could leave.
My foot lifts, and my stomach twists hard enough to make me stop. I think back to last night, dancing with Noah. Finding that spark of happiness within myself to feel joy even through all this. I want that life. I want my life. I need to be here.
Before I can think twice, I press the bell. There’s a soft chime, and then the door clicks open. Inside smells faintly herbal. The carpet is pale, the walls are lined with prints of Willowrun. It’s so quiet that I realize how loud my breathing is.
The receptionist smiles softly at me, and I have the urge to turn and bolt.
“Hi, do you have an appointment?” she asks.
“Um, yes. Gabe Shaw.”
“Perfect, Gabe. Take a seat. Dr. Keane will be with you shortly.”
There’s a waiting alcove with two chairs and a table stacked with magazines. I sit and try to calm down. I press my palms into my thighs, and I can feel the damp sweat on them even through the fabric. It feels like there’s a rubber band around my chest.
I stare at the front door. At the handle. I picture myself leaving, calling Noah, telling him it was too much. I imagine standing up so clearly that my thighs tense with the start of it. I squeeze my eyes closed and remind myself again that I need to be here. I want to be here.
A door opens further down the hall, and I hear muffled voices. A young woman walks past me, giving me an understanding smile that only makes me feel sick, and then she’s gone.
Another woman appears in the office doorway, mid fifties maybe, with greying hair pulled back in a neat bun. Her face is calm—not smiling too wide, she looks friendly enough, but my heart pounds at the sight of her.
“Gabe?”
I nod, unable to answer.
“I’m Dr. Keane,” she says. “Come through when you’re ready.”
I stand quickly, knees threatening to give out. My body feels like it’s trying to choose between running toward her or running out the front door.
Her office is bright. A big window, thin curtain, neutral walls.
Two chairs angled toward each other with a small table between them.
A box of tissues. A shelf of books. A bowl of smooth stones on the windowsill that I have the strange urge to grab and hold until my fingers stop tingling…
or maybe throw them. I feel like such a mess on the inside right now.
I sit on the edge of the seat, shoulders tight, every muscle locked. My eyes keep flicking to the door—just knowing it’s there, that it’s an option, makes it easier to breathe.
Dr. Keane sits opposite me, a notebook resting closed on her knee.
“Would you like some water?”
“Yes, please.” My voice wobbles, and I hate how terrified I sound.
She pours from a glass jug into a tumbler and sets it down within reach. The glass sweats against my palm when I pick it up, a tiny stream running over my knuckles as my hand shakes.
“We’ll go slow today,” she says. “You set the pace.”
I nod again, unsure what to say. She doesn’t rush me, letting the silence settle for a bit.
“What was it like coming here this morning?” she asks at last.
It’s such a weighted question. “Hard,” I rasp.
The word isn’t enough to describe how I’ve felt this last week.
It’s too small to encompass the depth of both relief and despair flowing through me every day.
If it wasn’t for Noah, I think I’d already be lost to my own mind again.
He’s the one constant thing in my day—the one person who knows everything and keeps turning up with warmth when my brain feels like a storm.
She nods but doesn’t fill the pause.
“I nearly didn’t come in,” I admit, watching the curtain move with the breeze. “I stood outside for a while. Thought about leaving.”
“What made you stay?”
“I promised myself I would.” I rub my hand over my mouth. “If I didn’t do it now, I wouldn’t at all. And… I want to be here.”
“Sometimes the first session is just getting used to being here,” she says. “Knowing you can stop when you want. We can talk about what brings you here, or just see how it feels to stay.”
I let out a shaky breath. My ribs hurt from working so hard, but I nod. “I had…” I falter, grinding my teeth before continuing. “I had a bad morning. Last week.”
“Do you want to say more?”
No. Yes. I don’t know.
I stare at the trembling surface of water in the glass. “I went running,” I say finally. “And I—” I swallow hard. “I ended up at the lake.”
She doesn’t react, doesn’t write anything down. Just listens.
“I don’t…” My throat closes, and I clear it before continuing. “I don’t really know what happened. I didn’t mean to go there, but—” I shut my eyes. The cold, the weight, the silence slam back into me so hard my chest jerks. “Then I was in the water. It was like I blinked and I was under.”
Her voice is level. “Did you want to hurt yourself?”
The question buries under my skin, leaving me feeling instantly exhausted.
I search myself for an answer and find fog. I didn’t want to hurt. I wanted the opposite—I wanted everything to stop hurting. My mind, the memories, the nonstop emotional overload of fighting my past. I wanted it all to go away, even if that meant I disappeared with it.
So, did I want to hurt myself? I don’t know.
I just wanted to stop existing for a while.
“I wanted the quiet,” I tell her, my voice breaking.
“Just… quiet. My head wouldn’t stop, and I thought maybe—maybe if I just—” My hands flex helplessly.
“I didn’t decide to do it. I had no plans.
I didn’t feel like I was in control at all.
My body just… went. And then I was under. ”
She nods slowly. “And do you want to hurt yourself now?”
Every cell in my body screams no. I don’t want that. I never want that to happen again. “No. I don’t. I just… I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“Thank you for telling me that,” she says evenly. No pity. No shock. Just understanding. My shoulders drop. I was waiting for disgust, for a look that says you’re broken beyond repair, but it doesn’t come.
“That’s why I’m here,” I manage. “Because I don’t want that to happen again.”
“You had a moment where you felt like you weren’t in control of yourself, and it frightened you.”
“Yes.” My voice comes out hard. “It terrified me.”
“Has that happened before?” she asks.
I nod my head slowly, thinking of how often I’ve lost track of time over the last year. Sometimes minutes, sometimes hours. “Yes, but not like that. Sometimes I just zone out, and time passes without me even realizing. Or sometimes… sometimes when I look in the mirror, it happens.”
“Would you be open to sharing what made your mind so loud that particular morning?”
I hesitate, gripping the glass tighter. “It was something that happened the day before. Someone came to my bookshop.”
“Someone significant?”
“Yes.” I swallow. “My ex. His name’s Kyle.”
She nods, a silent invitation to continue.
“He was…” It’s a struggle to force the words out. “He was… abusive . Not at first, not always. But enough to make me think it was my fault when it happened.”
My voice thins. “He hurt me. Hit me. He’d do things to me that…” My eyes sting, and I sniffle before trying again. “That I didn’t want. And then one day h-he—” I gesture at my scar. “Split my face open. That’s when I left him.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you.” Dr. Keane’s face doesn’t change. “That sounds terrifying.”
“It was,” I whisper miserably.
She waits, and the silence pulls more from me.
“He came into the shop,” I tell her. “He apologized. Said he was sober now. In therapy. Said it was never me, that it was all him.”
“That’s a lot to hear from someone who hurt you.”
“It should have helped,” I say, almost angrily. “But it didn’t. It made everything louder. Like I was back there. The shop didn’t feel safe anymore. It’s always been my safe space and suddenly…” My breath hitches. “I could feel him all over it.”
Dr. Keane studies me for a long, quiet moment, her expression calm but focused.
“That makes sense,” she says finally, her tone gentle but grounded. “When someone who’s hurt us shows up again, even just for a few minutes, our body can react as if the danger never ended. It’s not weakness, it’s your mind and body trying to protect you.”
Tears fall down my cheeks, and I bat them away. “I just don’t understand why he did all those things to me. I need to know why.”
Dr. Keane’s gaze softens. “Wanting to understand the ‘why’ is completely natural,” she says.
“But people who choose to hurt others often don’t have a reason that will make sense or feel good to the person they hurt.
Any explanation he could give you would still be about him—his problems, his choices—not about your worth. ”
“He said he was weak and angry. That I was ‘too good’ for him, and he couldn’t stand it, so he tried to tear me down so he didn’t have to feel so small.” My throat tightens around the words. “He said it was never me. That I never did anything to deserve it.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “That sounds like him describing his shame,” she tells me. “And it matters that he said it wasn’t your fault. But even if his reason is about his own issues, it doesn’t make what he did hurt any less. It doesn’t undo the fear your body learned.”
Her voice stays calm. “Sometimes we hope that if we can understand the ‘why,’ the pain will finally make sense and stop hurting. But his ‘why’ will always be about him. What we can work with here is you—what his choices did to you, and how we help you feel safe again.”
Safe.
My mind goes straight to Noah, to the way he watched me that night; he was so worried about me. I couldn’t even look at him when I should have told him everything.