10. Kai #2
It’s a loaded fucking question and we both know it.
“I’m fine.” The irony of picking those exact words doesn’t escape me.
Her mouth twitches. “Interesting choice of words.”
“Get out.”
She laughs as she disappears behind the door. I remove my glasses and press my thumb and forefinger briefly against my eyes.
By the time Julia steps into my office seven minutes later, I’ve mentally put the letter somewhere where I can pretend it isn’t waiting for me. At least for the next fifty minutes.
She looks different from the woman who left here last week.
Not physically, although today her hair is loose around her shoulders in soft waves, and she’s wearing black trousers with a cream blouse tucked neatly into the waist. The difference is in the way she enters the room.
Her attention is present. Her eyes move over me, the chairs and the table.
There’s no delay, no fraction of a second where I wonder whether she’s actually seeing any of it and that settles relief letter somewhere where I can pretend stop it.
“Good afternoon, Julia.”
“Hi.”
She takes the usual place, then looks down at it as she sits. “I think this might be my chair now.”
“You’re allowed to have preferences.”
“That sounds dangerously close to encouragement.”
“I’ll try to be more discouraging.”
The corner of her mouth lifts, along with the spark in her green eyes.
That’s better.
I take my seat across from her and set my notepad on one knee. “How have you been since last week?”
She exhales through her nose and glances toward the window before answering.
“Better than the first eleven hours after our last session suggested I was going to be.”
“Why eleven?” She gives me a confused look and I clarify. “It’s a rather specific timeframe you’ve chosen so I’m curious as to why eleven.”
Julia bites her lip which hits me lower than my ribs this time.
“I slept for almost eleven hours on my sofa in the clothes I wore here.”
My pen pauses above the paper. I am aware of all of this but I have to ask the right questions. Watching her from the outside didn’t give me insight of what was happening inside.
“Did you eat the following morning?”
“Yes.” There is enough slight irritation in the answer that I believe her.
I nod once and let it go. “And after that?”
“Work helped.”
The answer interests me more than I expect. “How?”
She settles farther into the chair, crossing one leg over the other. “Because I’m good at it.”
There is no hesitation in the way she says it or how she’s handling herself right now. Something warm moves through my chest before I can classify it.
“Tell me about that.”
She looks mildly suspicious. “About being good at my job?”
“Yes.”
“You realize most people would simply accept the compliment and move on.”
“I’m not most people.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
I wait. Julia gives me a look that suggests she’s considering whether resisting would be worth the effort, then finally sighs.
“I work at a law firm. Mostly executive support, case coordination, client management, whatever needs doing before someone else realizes it needs doing. Half the job is making sure attorneys who bill several hundred dollars an hour remember what time their own meetings start.”
“And you enjoy it?”
“I do, actually.” She looks almost surprised by how easily the answer comes. “Not every part of it. Nobody has ever woken up excited about document management. But I like knowing what I’m doing. I like being useful there.”
Useful. The word registers immediately, but I don’t interrupt.
“People trust me,” she continues. “They bring me problems because they know I’ll figure them out.
I know the clients, I know who needs what, I catch things before they become disasters, and I’m very good at telling lawyers when they’re wrong without making them feel like I’ve told them they’re wrong. ”
“You’re smiling.”
Her fingers move toward her mouth as if she’s checking. “I am not.”
“You are.”
“Maybe I enjoy telling lawyers they’re wrong.”
“That sounds healthy.”
She gives me a look. I allow myself a small smile before continuing. “What you’re describing doesn’t sound like someone who struggles universally with confidence or boundaries.”
How her brow furrows. “I didn’t say I did.”
“No. But you’ve described yourself several times as someone who gives too much, apologizes too often and has difficulty saying no. At work, none of that appears to apply in quite the same way.”
Julia thinks about it. “I guess not.”
“You tell people when they’ve made mistakes.”
“Constantly.” She gives a small nod.
“You establish expectations. You say no. So the problem isn’t that you’re incapable of setting boundaries.” Her gaze stays on mine. “It’s that you establish them effectively when you believe you’re entitled to have them.”
Something changes in her face. Not hurt. Recognition.
She looks down at her hands. “That sounds annoyingly accurate.”
“It doesn’t have to be annoying.” I offer.
“You’re the one saying it.” She bites back but not out of annoyance.
She’s being playful and I feel myself react to it. I shouldn’t react to it.
“Fair.” That earns me another small smile.
I make a note before asking, “Did anything happen this week where you noticed yourself doing that differently outside work?”
Julia’s mouth twists. “My mother texted me the morning after our session.”
I lower the pen slightly. “About?”
“She had a doctor’s appointment the day before. Everything was fine, but she worded the message in that very particular way she has of informing me everything is fine while also making sure I understand what a terrible daughter I am for not asking.”
I remember what she told me about her mother last week and keep my tone even.
“What did you do?”
“Started writing an apology.”
“Did you send it?”
“No.” That surprises me.
Not because I think she’s incapable of it, but because six days ago she would have described the impulse as automatic.
“What did you send?”
“Eventually? ‘I’m glad everything went well.’”
“Nothing else?”
She shakes her head. “No apology. No explanation. No three paragraphs about why I forgot.”
“How did that feel?” I ask, my tone careful but curious.
She considers it. “Good for about six seconds. Then horrible. Then good again. Then I got busy at work and forgot to keep feeling guilty, which I assume is not the therapeutic method you recommend.”
“It’s surprisingly effective.” I nod approvingly.
A quiet laugh leaves her.
“And your mother?”
“She responded with a thumbs-up.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Exactly.” Julia looks at me for a second, then nods.
There is strength in her that has nothing to do with endurance.
I saw pieces of it during our first session, mostly in the way she challenged me whenever she felt pushed too far, but last week blurred that picture.
Watching her disappear made vulnerability easier to see than everything surrounding it.
That was my mistake. Julia isn’t fragile.
She has simply spent years confusing strength with how much she can carry without asking someone else to help hold it. Those are not the same thing.
“You know,” I say, setting the pen against the notepad, “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit for how strong you actually are.”
Her eyes lift immediately. The compliment appears to make her more uncomfortable than anything else we’ve discussed.
Before she can answer, I add, “You dissociated after accessing material you’ve avoided for decades.
That doesn’t erase everything else you are.
But, you also function at a high level in an environment that requires competence, judgment and assertiveness.
You’ve built a career, maintained relationships, you own your home and apparently spend a substantial amount of time rescuing attorneys from themselves. ”
Her smile comes easier this time.
“Your difficulty isn’t strength, Julia. It appears much more specific than that.”
“With people I love.” She adds and I nod.
“Yes.”
She looks toward the window again, quieter now. “Because saying no at work doesn’t mean somebody stops loving me.”
There it is. I don’t need to add anything and neither does she. The silence sits between us for several seconds before Julia shifts in the chair and clears her throat.
“Although apparently I’m capable of saying no to people I might actually like too.”
My attention sharpens. “Meaning?”
She paused for a bit, as if she’s considering whether to share this interesting piece of information with me or not. And the fact that I find it interesting for all the wrong reasons doesn’t phase me at all. Especially since I notice a glow in her eyes that I haven’t seen so far.
Go on, little ember.
“One of the partners at the firm asked me out.” She blurts out and briefly bites her lip again. So briefly that a long lost professional in me wouldn’t even catch it, but I did. My pen stops. It shouldn’t, but it does.
I keep my face neutral, my voice steady. “And what did you say?”
“No.”
The tension eases so quickly it irritates me. That reaction is not clinical. It isn’t even remotely justifiable.
“Because he’s a partner?”
“Mostly.”
Mostly. I don’t like that word.
I write something on the page, although I’m not entirely sure what I’ve written because I’m more interested in what she’ll say next. “What’s the other part?”
Julia gives a small shrug and shifts one shoulder against the chair. “I do like him. Not in some dramatic, secretly-in-love-with-my-boss kind of way. He’s just... attractive. Smart. Easy to talk to. If I met him somewhere else and he asked me out, I probably wouldn’t have said no.”
Something inside me tightens before I have the opportunity to prevent it.
Nothing changes in my expression or posture.
“Michael has always been respectful,” Julia continues.
“He’s flirted with me for a while, but never in a way that made me uncomfortable.
When he finally asked me to dinner, I told him I don’t mix business with pleasure, especially when the business happens to pay my mortgage. He accepted it and moved on.”