Chapter 18
“Emily?”
The sound of my name pulled me out of a fog. I blinked and focused on the screen.
Anna, my new therapist, was waiting for an answer on the telehealth video session.
She looked nothing like the profile headshot that had reminded me of Cynthia when I’d browsed therapists.
The cropped white hair had been dyed a bold, firetruck red, and a string of chunky wooden beads circled her neck and wrists like something she’d found at a craft fair booth.
Her glasses were oversized and rimmed in rainbow swirls.
She looked like the kind of woman who’d hug strangers and find beauty in pain.
And she somehow made me feel like I mattered, despite my hammering her with my broken life. I dumped my whole story on her in under ten minutes. Didn’t sugarcoat a damn thing.
The childhood trauma I didn’t remember until recently. Cynthia getting shot. The nightmares, the sleepwalking, the wide-awake dreams. Daniel. A speed-run of our relationship. The dream about the nail and the scar. The woman in the basement.
“So the psychiatrist is starting you on Risperidone for the auditory and visual hallucinations?”
I nodded.
“How do you feel about that?” Anna asked. “You mentioned earlier that you’ve been resisting antipsychotics for a long time. Can you tell me why?”
Her voice was soft, yet steady. She could have coaxed secrets out of a stone.
“It always felt like if I wasn’t on antipsychotics, maybe I wasn’t actually broken.
Crazy. Like I could get back to normal someday.
” I looked down, then back up. “But I can’t pretend anymore.
I’m hearing things. Seeing things. I’m actually talking to a goddamn woman in a basement that doesn’t exist.”
“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder with Psychotic Features does not make you crazy,” she said, firm but kind. “Hallucinations—auditory or visual—can happen during flashbacks, under intense stress, or during dissociative episodes. It’s us trying to survive something we don’t know how to survive.”
Her words sat warm in my chest, heavier than anything I took for sleep.
“What happened to your old therapist could absolutely have triggered a flare-up. And your dreams and flashbacks, like the one where your father hurts you, those are trauma responses, not madness. If anything, they’re proof that your brain is doing its best to process hell.
That it’s doing what it’s supposed to do. ”
She paused, her lips curling into a smile. “Crazy is someone leaving a one-star review on vanilla ice cream because it didn’t taste like chocolate.”
A laugh bubbled out of me. It was tight in my throat, but real.
“You,” she continued, her voice threading its way into some part of me that I didn’t even know was sore, “are a normal human being who has been through a lot. And it’s normal to feel pain.
Fear. Shame. Doubt. That isn’t weakness.
That’s what being alive means. What being normal means.
I actually don’t like using that word here.
What does ‘normal’ even mean?” She leaned in slightly.
“If none of this touched you, if you felt nothing at all, then I’d be really worried. ”
“I guess that means I’m not a serial killer,” I said, managing a half smile.
Anna snorted and pushed her bright glasses up her nose. Her eyes flicked to the corner of her screen. “Oh, shoot. We’re out of time.” She looked back up at me. “If it’s all right, I’d like to see you two or three times a week for a bit. Until you feel more grounded. How does that sound?”
“That sounds good. Really good.”
“And remember what we talked about—the five-four-three-two-one grounding. Five things you see. Four you can touch. Three you can hear. Two you can smell. One you can taste. Keep doing your four-seven-eight breathing, and follow the psychiatrist’s medication plan.
” She glanced at her notes. “I’ll help you track your triggers and responses.
We’ll keep a journal together, okay? Look for patterns and work through them one at a time. ”
“Thank you.”
“And if it helps,” she added, “keep recording what you hear and see when you’re unsure. Real voices reply. Hallucinations don’t.”
I nodded again. “I will.”
“You can schedule our next session this week. My calendar’s open.” She tilted her head. “Is there anything else before I go?”
“No. And if you’re wondering, I’m not going to hurt myself or anyone else.”
“I wasn’t,” she said, her eyes bright with something more than kindness. “But it’s still good to hear. Because you’re precious, Emily. You deserve to be loved, and to love.”
“Thank you.”
Then she was gone.
I placed the MacBook on the side table. Sunlight was still spilling through the windows. My gaze drifted to the phone.
Everything felt a little better. The session with Anna had helped, even if I still hated that I was now officially on antipsychotics. But if that’s what it took to make the hallucinations stop . . . because that’s what this was. Right?
My eyes stayed locked on the phone. My thoughts were circling.
Maybe I should go back down there and record the exact area where I’d seen the woman. Just in case. To be 100 percent sure that I was having psychotic episodes. I mean, I was 99 percent sure that was what it was.
But that 1 percent.
I hadn’t used my phone last time. I’d been too stunned. Next time, I’d be smarter. More prepared.
A low thrum crept into the room. The heavy sound of a helicopter cut through the quiet.
Daniel.
I stood up from the bed, straightened my spine, and planted my feet firmly on the floor. I’d tell him everything myself. Eye to eye. With dignity. And the promise that I was doing the work in therapy again.
Head held high, I walked into the kitchen. The aroma of pasta hit me right away. Rich tomato sauce and fresh basil filled the air.
Tara and Hudson sat stiffly at the table, sipping coffee like it was a funeral. They exchanged a glance, then smiled softly.
“Are you hungry?” Tara asked quickly. “Remember, I made homemade tortellini.”
I wasn’t hungry at all, but she’d tried so hard.
“Yes. We could all have dinner together,” I said. “Daniel must be starving.”
The helicopter grew louder. Closer.
Crossing the room, I unlatched Mochi’s crate. His feathers were puffed up, and he cocked his head with a low chirp. I was calm enough now to handle him. Birds were sensitive—too much stress, and he’d stay up all night, anxious.
I pet his feathers gently and kissed the top of his head. He closed his eyes, pressing into my fingers, soaking in the affection.
“I’ll put Mochi in his large cage in the library,” I said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to Daniel about today first. I want him to hear it from me.”
“Of course,” Hudson said.
“I’ll play with Mochi for a bit and then set the table,” Tara added.
I glanced at both of them. The worry was obvious in their faces, which meant only one thing: they cared. Even if the whole day had been a damn disaster. Embarrassing. Awful. They cared.
Strangely enough, I kind of felt calm. Anna’s words still clung to me. I was a normal human being who’d been through hell. My reactions weren’t wrong. I was a normal human being. Not feeling pain would be the crazy thing.
Even the meds didn’t seem so terrible now. They might be temporary—a bridge until I could finally wade through the trauma.
“Can you tell Daniel that I’m waiting for him in the garden?” I asked.
The sun was setting, and I wanted to feel the warmth of those last rays across my skin. I needed to feel something real.
“Of course,” Hudson said.
I’d barely made it outside when I saw the helicopter approaching. Dust kicked up, whipping across the yard, and the roar of the blades drowned out everything else.
I ignored the sound and stepped toward the stretch of fading sunlight, letting it brush across my face and arms. The breeze stirred the edges of my sleeves.
The thrum grew louder, then dipped. I turned in time to see the helicopter begin its descent onto the pad beside the gravel driveway.
Briefcase in hand, Daniel stepped out, spoke quickly with the pilot, then ducked low and hurried toward the house.
He didn’t see me at first.
But when I stepped out to meet him, his eyes found me, and he smiled.
It was the kind of smile that told me the meeting must have gone well.
His white shirt caught the sun, glowing faintly against his tanned skin.
His brown hair was tousled just enough to still look perfect. His eyes lit up like they always did.
But when I stared back at him with a serious look, it all shifted. His joy vanished. I watched it unravel in slow motion as his smile crumpled, pulled down into something heavy.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, barely audible over the roar of the helicopter blades. His eyes scanned me as he stepped closer.
The wind kicked up around us, tossing the ends of his shirt and ruffling my hair. I didn’t speak until the helicopter had lifted and the sound began to fade.
I turned and led Daniel through the garden to one of the benches tucked beside the lavender bushes. I sat down and waited for him to follow. He did, lowering himself beside me, his briefcase resting against the leg of the bench.
“Emily, what happened? Are Hudson and Tara okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah, they’re fine. But . . .”
“But what?”
Using the tip of my shoe, I nudged a loose rock along the white gravel path. “I-I had another episode while you were gone.”
His jaw tightened. His shoulders locked. “What kind of episode?”
I tilted my head back, staring at the soft-pink clouds melting across the sky.
His hand slid over mine. Warm. Steady. “Emily, what kind of episode?”
The silence stretched. A dog barked in the distance. “I saw a woman in the basement.”
“What?” His whole body jolted, and he jumped to his feet like the bench had shocked him. “Emily—”
I rose quickly and took his hands. “It’s okay. It was just a trauma-induced hallucination. That’s what the psychiatrist and therapist said.”