Chapter 5 #2
Not even a little.
I exhaled sharply and turned away from the elevator, pacing once across the office.
The city stretched out beyond the windows, glittering and indifferent.
I’d built my life on that indifference. On control.
On never letting anything or anyone get close enough to disrupt the order I’d carved out of chaos.
And yet Sarah had been disrupting it since the moment she sang “Happy Birthday” to my daughter in that restaurant.
I sat down, opened my laptop, and tried to focus on the quarterly reports. The numbers blurred. My mind kept drifting back to the way she’d looked tonight—wet hair clinging to her face, eyes bright with fury, voice shaking when she’d snapped back at me.
Most people didn’t talk to me like that. Most people didn’t dare.
But Sarah wasn’t most people. She didn’t seem to understand the concept of self-preservation. Or boundaries. Or silence. She was chaos, but Lily responded to her.
That was the only reason she mattered.
I forced myself to read the same paragraph again, but the words refused to stick. My jaw tightened. I closed the laptop and leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling.
I’d spent years perfecting the art of compartmentalization.
Business in one box. Lily in another. Grief in a third, sealed shut and buried deep.
There was no box for Sarah. She didn’t fit anywhere.
She spilled into places she shouldn’t be, asked questions she had no right to ask, looked at me like she could see through the armor I’d welded around myself.
And I hated that.
A soft knock pulled me from my thoughts.
Mrs. Pearson stepped inside without waiting for permission—one of the few people allowed that privilege. She held a folded blanket in her hands.
“You left this in Lily’s room,” she said gently.
I took it from her. “Thank you.”
She hesitated, studying me with that perceptive gaze she’d perfected over the years. “You look tired.”
“I’m fine.”
“You always say that.”
Because anything else would be admitting weakness. And weakness was dangerous. Weakness got people killed. Weakness had taken Joana from me.
Mrs. Pearson didn’t push. She never did. She simply nodded and left the room, closing the door softly behind her.
I sat there for a long moment, blanket in my hands, the faint scent of Lily’s shampoo clinging to the fabric. My chest tightened. I folded it carefully and set it aside.
The elevator chimed again.
I checked the time. 12:01.
Sarah was punctual today. Good.
I straightened my tie, smoothed my sleeves, and stepped out of my office. I told myself it was because I needed to observe the session. Because I needed to ensure she wasn’t falling apart. Because Lily’s progress depended on consistency.
But when I reached the hallway and saw Sarah standing there—hair pulled back, eyes shadowed with exhaustion—I felt something sharp twist in my chest.
She looked smaller today. Not physically, but in the way people look when they’re carrying too much. When the world has been unkind and they’re still trying to stand upright.
She noticed me and straightened, shoulders pulling back like she was bracing for impact.
“Good morning,” she said, voice steady but thin around the edges.
I nodded. “You’re on time.”
“I always am.”
A lie. But I let it pass.
Her gaze flicked to my tie, then to the floor. She looked like she wanted to say something—maybe an apology, maybe a challenge—but she swallowed it down.
“Lily’s in the therapy room,” I said. “She’s been waiting.”
Sarah nodded and walked past me, the faint scent of rain trailing behind her. I watched her go, jaw tightening again for reasons I didn’t want to examine.
She paused at the therapy room door, hand hovering over the handle. I could see her take a breath, steady herself, pull on that bright, warm mask she used with Lily.
Then she stepped inside.
I followed a moment later, stopping just outside the doorway where she couldn’t see me but I could see everything.
Lily sat on the floor with her sketchbook, legs crossed, hair falling into her face. She looked up when Sarah entered, and something in her expression softened. Not a smile—not yet—but a shift. A loosening.
“Hey, Lily bug,” Sarah said softly, kneeling beside her. “I missed you.”
Lily didn’t speak, but she reached for a crayon and nudged it toward Sarah.
A gesture.
An invitation.
Sarah’s face lit up with genuine warmth, the kind that couldn’t be faked. She sat beside Lily, close but not too close, and began talking about colors and stars and ballerinas like nothing in her world was falling apart.
And Lily listened.
Really listened.
Her shoulders relaxed. Her breathing steadied. She leaned—just barely—into Sarah’s space.
I felt something in my chest loosen too, something I’d been holding tight for months.
This was why I tolerated Sarah’s chaos: because Lily needed her, responded to her, and felt safe with her. And because, if I was being honest with myself, I didn’t hate the way Sarah made the room feel less empty.
I stayed there longer than I intended, watching them. Watching Lily draw. Watching Sarah coax her gently into the world again. Watching something fragile and hopeful take shape between them.
When I finally turned away, heading back to my office, one truth followed me like a shadow:
Sarah Tinsley was becoming a problem.
A problem I couldn’t afford, and one I couldn’t seem to walk away from.