11. Julia #3
“That’s it.”
I eye him suspiciously. “You have a habit of saying that immediately before something becomes significantly more complicated.”
“I’ve noticed you have a habit of expecting complexity even when I’m not offering it.”
I open my mouth, then decide there is absolutely no useful response to that and settle for narrowing my eyes at him instead.
He doesn’t look particularly threatened. In fact, he looks… amused?
The room falls quiet for a few seconds, but the silence feels different from the ones during our first session.
Back then, every pause made me feel as though I should fill it before he found whatever I was trying not to say.
Now I can sit in one without immediately needing to rescue either of us from it.
Outside the window, the gray afternoon has darkened enough that the glass reflects part of the room back at me. Kai’s outline sits opposite from mine, composed as always, one ankle resting over the other knee while the notepad lies against his thigh.
I’m still very aware that he’s attractive.
That hasn’t magically disappeared because I now know what his therapist voice sounds like when he tells me my mother has been living inside my decision-making process for most of my adult life.
If anything, familiarity has made certain things easier to notice.
The way he takes his glasses off when he’s thinking particularly hard.
The slight tightening along his jaw when something I tell him makes him angry even though his voice never changes.
The fact that he listens without looking like he’s simply waiting for his turn to speak.
None of those things mean anything. He’s my psychiatrist. I’m his patient.
Still, I understand now why some people become attached to therapists.
There is something unsettlingly intimate about being given someone’s complete attention for an hour when most conversations in real life are divided between phones, thoughts, interruptions and whatever the other person is waiting to say next.
Kai glances toward the clock on the wall, and I follow his gaze. “We’re almost out of time.”
I’m surprised enough to check the time myself. “That went fast.”
“It did.” There’s nothing unusual in the answer, but the simple agreement makes me strangely conscious of how comfortable I’ve become in this chair.
I bend to pick up my bag and pull the strap over my shoulder. “So my homework is basically to catch everyone else answering questions in my head before I do.”
“More or less. You don’t need to analyze it while it’s happening. Just notice it.”
“That sounds suspiciously manageable.”
“I thought I’d give you a week off from emotional devastation.” He says with something pulling at his mouth resembling a smug smirk.
“That’s very generous of you.”
“I have my moments.” The dry delivery makes me smile as I stand.
Kai rises with me, closing his notebook before following me toward the door. “How are you feeling, before you leave?”
I consider giving him the automatic answer just to see what he does with it, but somewhere in the last few weeks that has stopped being as funny as it used to be.
“Good, actually.” I adjust my bag against my shoulder and search for the more accurate version. “A little tired, but not the kind where I want to sleep for eleven hours in my clothes. Just normal tired.”
He watches me for another second before nodding. “Good.”
“Same time next week?” The question has become a habit but nevertheless, doesn’t hurt to check.
“Yes.”
I step into the hallway, then glance back at him. “I’m holding you personally responsible if I discover there are fourteen people living in my head by Friday.”
“I’ll prepare for group therapy” He nods slowly, his hand sliding into his pockets casually.
“You should probably bring snacks.” I throw back over my shoulder, already moving.
“I knew we’d get back to that eventually.” His voice follows me toward reception, warm enough around the edges that I’m still smiling when Mara looks up from behind her desk.
And for once, I leave the clinic feeling lighter than when I walked into it.
The sky has gone completely dark and the temperature has dropped enough by the time I get home.
I hurry from the driveway to the porch without bothering to check the mailbox.
Nothing particularly dramatic happens for the rest of the evening.
Which, after the last few weeks, feels almost luxurious.
I change out of my work clothes, twist my hair into something resembling a knot and heat leftover pasta while scrolling through emails I have no intention of answering until morning.
Tessa sends me a video of a dog refusing to leave a bathtub with the caption you after one emotionally productive therapy session, which makes absolutely no sense but somehow still makes me laugh. Mom sends nothing. I notice that too.
I take my dinner into the living room, curl one leg beneath me on the sofa and put on a show I have already seen enough times that missing ten minutes while scrolling through my phone won’t require rewinding anything. The house settles around me in the way it always does at night.
The refrigerator hums from the kitchen. Pipes click somewhere upstairs. Every so often headlights move across the front windows as a car passes along the street, briefly stretching shadows across the ceiling before disappearing again. Normal sounds. Familiar ones.
By the time the episode ends, I’m barely paying attention anymore.
I reach for the remote, considering whether I have enough commitment left for another forty minutes of television, when something makes me look toward the windows.
I don’t know what because there is no sound.
Nothing moved. Still, the back of my neck prickles.
I stay where I am for a moment, staring at my own reflection in the dark glass.
The living room suddenly feels brighter than it did thirty seconds ago.
Too bright. I can see everything inside from where I’m sitting.
The sofa. The lamp beside me. The television casting light across the room. And beyond the glass, almost nothing.
Someone could see me.
The thought creeps into my subconsciousness and I immediately roll my eyes at myself.
“Excellent. Therapy has made me paranoid.” I say it to the living room and turn back toward the television, but the strange sensation doesn’t leave.
It isn’t fear exactly. There’s nothing specific enough to be afraid of.
Just awareness. The kind that starts somewhere between my shoulder blades and slowly spreads until I’m conscious of the dark windows in a way I wasn’t before.
My neighborhood is quiet most nights, especially this far down where the houses thin out and the woods begin.
That quiet is one of the reasons I bought this place.
I liked the privacy the first time I saw it, the trees wrapping around the back and side of the property and the fact that my nearest neighbors were close enough to exist but far enough away that I didn’t have to participate in their lives unless invited.
But tonight, for the first time, the privacy feels slightly different.
I put the remote down and get up. The hardwood is cool beneath my bare feet as I cross the living room toward the windows. My reflection grows clearer with every step until I’m almost face-to-face with myself, the darkness outside turning the glass into a mirror.
I lift one hand beside my face to block some of the light and lean closer.
Mrs. Pritchard’s porch lamp glows like it does every night.
A car sits exactly where it usually does across from her house.
The road is empty. Nothing moves near the trees.
I shift slightly, trying to see farther toward the wooded edge beside my property, but beyond the reach of the streetlights everything dissolves into layers of black trunks and darker spaces between them. There is nobody there. Obviously.
I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding and straightened.
“This is stupid.” My voice sounds small against the glass.
There is nobody there. No movement between the trees, no unfamiliar car along the curb, nothing that should make the uneasiness crawling beneath my skin feel remotely reasonable. Still, I don’t particularly want to sit in front of the windows anymore.
Whatever is on the TV right now is not enough to hold my interest so I turn it off.
Before heading upstairs, I walk through the house and check the locks, even though I know perfectly well I locked the front door when I came home.
The back door is secure. So are the windows, the ones I can open.
I switch on the porch light and leave the lamp beside the sofa burning, along with the smaller light in the kitchen, telling myself it’s because I’ll probably come back down for water later and not because leaving the entire downstairs illuminated somehow makes the house feel less vulnerable.
By the time I reach the stairs, I feel slightly ridiculous. Nothing happened. I didn’t see anyone, I didn’t even hear anything. I tell myself I’m being silly for even thinking otherwise. But when I eventually close my eyes, the feeling follows me upstairs.
Somewhere outside my house, beyond the pools of light spilling across the yard and into the trees, the night feels occupied.