Nine
Rowan
“You don’t say much, Rowan, but you’re a breath of fresh air in here.”
Gemma, the wife who lies about spin class, gives me a warm smile as she zips her coat. I’ve just quietly pointed out that her husband’s phone addiction might be a defense mechanism.
Uncomfortable heat creeps up my neck. I force a tight smile and pretend to be very busy with my tote bag. “Right. Thanks, Gemma. Hang in there with the spin class.”
I’m pulling my jacket on when Dr. Webb approaches me, hands folded over her clipboard.
“How are you finding the group, Rowan?”
“Really helpful.”
Complete fraud.
“I know opening up can be hard, but it really is beneficial once you’re ready to share.”
“Oh, I’m more of a listener,” I say, nodding. “I find processing helps me absorb the dynamic.”
Liar, liar. Pants on fire.
Dr. Webb opens her mouth to offer another slice of therapeutic encouragement, but over her shoulder, the door beside the mirror swings open.
A man steps out. Tall, broad, with a dark shirt stretched across shoulders I unfortunately recognize.
What the hell is Hudson doing here?
Dr. Webb’s brow furrows as she turns. “Dr. Vaughn?”
Hudson walks toward us, forcing a smile that doesn’t reach anywhere near his eyes. In his right hand, he holds a single sheet of paper.
“There are a few details I need to clarify on an intake form.” His voice carries a level of suppressed fury I’ve never heard from him before.
Dr. Webb blinks. “I can handle that, Hudson. I usually deal with—”
“It’s fine.” He manages to look completely composed while glaring directly into my soul.
Dr. Webb looks between us. “Do you two know each other?”
“Unfortunately,” I say.
“Family connection,” Hudson says at the same time.
Her eyebrows rise.
“A friend is engaged to her sister,” Hudson clarifies.
“Right.” She looks at him, then at me. “In that case, I can handle any clarification needed on Rowan’s paperwork.”
“Normally, yes.” His jaw clenches. “Except the clarification isn’t clinical. It’s eligibility.”
I don’t like that word. I like it considerably less when he looks straight at me.
“I need to establish whether Ms. Callahan qualifies for the research cohort.”
Oh, no.
“You should get going, Dr. Webb,” Hudson says smoothly. “I can review the form. I just want to ensure all the metrics are accurate for our data.”
She hesitates, then smiles, completely oblivious to the silent murder occurring three feet away from her.
“Well, alright then.” She grabs her coat, steps past him, and gives his arm an affectionate squeeze. “I hope to see you next week, Rowan.”
“Right,” I choke out. “Next week.”
The door clicks shut behind her, leaving me alone in a room of empty chairs with a six-foot-three psychiatrist who looks ready to drag me straight to a tribunal.
Hudson turns slowly, the fake smile vanishing the second Dr. Webb’s footsteps fade down the hallway.
He raises the intake sheet in his hand. “Care to explain why you’re in my research study, Littlest Callahan?”
“Your study?” I squeak before clearing my throat and manifesting a spine. “What do you mean, your study?”
“I run the research program. That one-way glass you’ve been sitting in front of for three weeks? That’s my observation room.”
Oh, sweet Jesus. The mirror. The one I’ve been staring at while drawing Jason’s hairline and David’s passive-aggressive posture. He’s been behind it the entire time.
“You’re a stalker!” I point a finger at his chest. “You’ve been spying on me! Pervert.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” I tell him, having no idea where I’m going with this.
He arches a dark brow, refusing to take the bait. “I sit behind that glass to monitor couples. Imagine my surprise when I see you sitting there, coloring.”
“I was not coloring.” My cheeks burn. “It was sketching.”
“You are single.” He takes a step closer.
“You filled out a form for couples therapy. You checked communication difficulties. You checked disconnect between self and partner. Under relationship status, you wrote it’s complicated.
” He reads the lines off the paper, his eyes locking onto mine. “Do you have a secret husband?”
My brain freezes. Two responses are available to me. The first is the truth. The second is apparently: “Yes.”
He leans in like he didn’t hear me properly. “Yes?”
Too late now. “Yes, I’m married. Happily? Debatable. But legally? Absolutely. We had a ceremony. There were cupcakes.”
He crosses his arms, taking up an absurd amount of space. “Fascinating. What’s your husband’s name?”
Think, Rowan, think.
My brain enters white-hot panic. Every male name in the English language vanishes from my memory. For some ungodly reason, the only face that pops into my head is Madison’s old upstairs neighbor—an eighty-four-year-old man who died two years ago.
“Roger. His name is Roger.”
“Roger,” Hudson repeats in a tone that makes me want to kick his shin. “And tell me, does Roger know he’s currently married to a twenty-six-year-old artist, or is this a spiritual union?”
“He knows,” I huff, crossing my arms to match his posture. “He’s very aware of it. We have a lot of communication difficulties. A profound disconnect between self and partner. It was on the form, Shrink Wrap. Didn’t you read it?”
He goes silent for a long beat. “Wasn’t Roger your sister’s old neighbor?”
I really wish Madison would stop telling those stories.
“Why are you here, Rowan?”
“Therapy.”
“You’re not in a relationship.”
“Single people need therapy.”
“Not couples therapy. Why did you come to this group?”
“I ended up here!” I throw my hands in the air. “I didn’t know it was a couples group until I was already trapped in the circle, and then Dr. Webb handed me a clipboard and I panicked!”
His mouth opens and closes. For two glorious seconds, the brilliant psychiatrist looks completely speechless. “You… panicked?”
“Yes, I panicked! I tried to leave, but everyone was watching.”
“You stayed in a study for relational strain because you were too awkward to walk out the door?”
“I have severe boundary issues, okay? Then Chloe started talking about her husband’s Call of Duty addiction, and it was interesting, so I stayed.”
Exasperated, Hudson scrubs a hand down his face. “You are unbelievable.”
“I’m an artist. We’re deeply sensitive to our environments.”
“You’re a data hazard!” He drops his hand, glaring at me.
“You’re corrupting my solo-attendee cohort.
These are research participants who consented to a specific study, not to become source material for your work.
And I have a grant renewal in two months that requires my data to actually mean something. ”
“That’s rude.”
“You’re a single woman sitting in a research cohort designed to examine relational strain.”
“Maybe I have relational strain.”
“With who? Roger’s ghost?”
“Too soon.”
“He died two years ago, and you weren’t married to him!”
“Grief has no timeline, Hudson.”
He stares at me. “I cannot believe this conversation is happening.”
“I told Dr. Webb I wasn’t ready. That is a valid therapeutic stance.”
“You’re not ready because your spouse is residing in a municipal cemetery.” His voice cracks just enough to show he’s entirely out of his depth. He takes a deep breath to rein himself back in. “Why are you doing this? Seriously. If you need support, why aren’t you with the right group?”
“That is none of your business.”
“You’re done,” Hudson says. “I’ll have the front desk remove you before next Tuesday.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a negotiation.”
“I’m painting again,” I tell him before I can stop myself.
His expression changes.
Of all people, I don’t want to explain this to him, but I need this room.
“I couldn’t paint. I have a show in two months, and I couldn’t put a single thing on a canvas that didn’t make me want to set fire to it.
Then I sat in this room.” I look toward the circle of empty chairs.
“People started talking, I started drawing, and when I got home, I painted. I’ve been painting ever since. ”
“That doesn’t make you eligible for the study.”
“I know.”
“You can’t stay in the research cohort.”
“Fine. Take my data out. Delete me. Put a giant red X through everything I’ve ever said.”
“You haven’t said anything.”
“Even better.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“Then tell me how it works.” I step closer. “I don’t need to be studied. I need to sit in the room.”
He ignores the olive branch, his focus remaining locked onto me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle.
“I’m not doing this with you.” He turns around, reaches for the doorknob, and pulls the door open. “I’m glad you’re working again, but no. These are real people. They consented to participate in a research program, not become material for your art.”
“I’m not using them like that. I don’t paint them literally.”
“The point is that their pain isn’t yours to take just because it makes you productive.”
My fingers tighten into fists. I look at the rigid line of his shoulders and realize the lies are over. He sees right through the theater. If I want to stay in this room, I need to give him something real.
“Okay, wait. Please. Just give me a minute.”
“To think up more lies?”
“Please,” I whisper, my eyes stinging. “I can’t fail again.”
I take a breath, keeping my gaze fixed on the floor. “Two years ago, I was part of a group show. It changed everything for me. A prominent gallery director saw my work, and a few months later, the gallery offered me a solo show.”
My throat tightens as my mind goes somewhere I don’t want it to. Mornings when my hands wouldn’t cooperate. Days when getting from my bed to the bathroom felt like work. Appointments, tests, more appointments. The gallery deadline getting closer while my body became less reliable by the day.
I shove it back down. “It was my big break, and I backed out. I called them two weeks before the opening and canceled the whole thing.”
“Why?” Hudson asks quietly.
“I told everyone I had a creative block,” I say, shifting my weight to relieve the throb in my left hip. “I told them the work wasn’t ready.”
“There’s more.”
I slip my hands into my coat pockets so he can’t see them shake. “Yes. There’s more. But is it okay if I don’t tell you every detail right now?”
He stands by the open door for what feels like an eternity.
“You’re not staying in my study.”
“Hudson—”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t stay in the room. You sign a confidentiality agreement. We pull your data. Everything from the last three weeks is excluded. You are not a participant in my cohort.”
“But I can come to the group?”
“If Dr. Webb agrees, and the group consents to you being there, you can attend as an observer.”
Hope sparks so fast I almost hate him for it. “Really?”
“I haven’t finished.”
I take a breath.
“You sit in the same chair. You don’t participate in exercises designed for couples. You don’t misrepresent yourself as being married, separated, widowed, or otherwise romantically involved with any more dead men.”
“That’s very restrictive.”
“Rowan,” he groans, frustrated.
“Fine.”
“You do not reproduce identifiable participants in anything you exhibit or sell.”
That sobers me. “I don’t. I wouldn’t.”
He nods once. “Good. And one more thing.”
“Anything.”
“If Dr. Webb agrees, I’ll be observing every session you attend.”
I shrug. “Don’t you do that anyway?”
“No, Rowan. This isn’t the only study I’m working on, and I work shifts at the hospital.”
I blow out a breath. “Someone’s a busy boy.”
Shut up, Rowan.
“I’ll be here every week,” he says.
“Because of me?”
“Because you’ve demonstrated a remarkable capacity for creating ethical problems when left unsupervised.”
I smile. “So, because of me.”
“Goodnight, Rowan.”
“You know, if you wanted to watch me every Tuesday night, you could have just asked.”
His jaw tightens.
Oh, that’s fun.
I grin. “Night, Shrink Wrap.”
I make it halfway to the door before he speaks again.
“Next Tuesday, you sit down, you draw, and you keep your mouth shut.”
“Got it.”
“And if you interfere with the group—”
“You’ll kick me out.”
“Immediately.”
I nod solemnly. “Understood.”
His eyes drop pointedly to the sketchbook sticking out of my bag. “No husbands.”
I clutch the bag to my chest. “Roger was my muse.”
“Out.”
I laugh as I step into the hallway. The door starts to close, but I catch it with my hand and stick my head back through.
“Hey, Hudson?”
His eyes close. “What?”
“Thanks.”
He gives me one small nod.
I let the door close.
I’m still smiling when I reach the parking lot.