Adrien
Present
“I’ll need to know what type of medication she was on until now,” she says, her pen already moving across the paper, neat and efficient.
The psychiatrist came in early this morning, right after breakfast, and spent more than an hour alone with Natalya. The first sitting, she called it. Then she spent another hour with Kiara before she sat down with us.
Kas is sitting beside me, exactly the way he always does—composed, hands loosely folded, like he’s holding the chaos together simply by refusing to react to it.
I know better. I know he’s fucked up too. He just knows how to bury it under control and quiet breathing.
Me, on the other hand, I’m a disaster.
My leg won’t stop bouncing, heel hammering into the floor like it’s trying to drill through it. My teeth keep catching the soft skin inside my mouth, biting down. I probably look like a man one second away from bolting or breaking something.
I haven’t taken anything today.
I flushed every pill I had down the toilet after spending the night pacing the length of the hall in front of Nat’s room, back and forth, listening to her sleep as if it was something I could actually hear. I couldn’t.
The only thing I let myself have was a mouthful of some old, cheap whiskey I found in the back of a cabinet. It was warm, stale, and disgusting, but just enough to bring out the burning sensation in my chest that drowns out everything else.
“So,” the psychiatrist says, finally looking up. “I’m going to need your help to put this together.”
She gathers the notes in her hands and presses them flat against her lap before turning fully toward us.
She’s young. Early thirties, maybe. That’s good. I wanted someone Natalya might actually trust. Someone she wouldn’t instinctively see as distant or untouchable. Someone who doesn’t feel like authority.
Maybe that’s stupid. I don’t know how this works.
“She experienced the loss of an entire family in a tragic fire,” the psychiatrist says carefully. “Is that correct?”
We all nod.
“Six years ago, according to the intake,” she continues.
We nod in unison once more.
“And this family is…” She hesitates, her eyes flicking between us. “You?”
We don’t answer. We don’t have to. We give her one long, loaded look, the kind that says yes, we know how insane that sounds, yes, it’s exactly what you think, and no, we’re not going to unpack that right now.
We’re paying her well enough to understand what’s private and what’s simply unavoidable.
She doesn’t push. Just takes a small note and moves on.
“And this Lucien she keeps referring to,” she says, tone neutral, “is he her current partner?”
“No,” I whip out, the word coming out fast and final.
Kiara shoots me a warning look, then steps in smoothly before the silence can stretch too long.
“She experiences him that way, yes,” Kiara explains to the psychiatrist.
She nods slowly, absorbing that and filing it where it belongs.
“Alright. After my first session with Natalya, I can say with a high degree of certainty that she needs to start medication immediately.”
She says it the same way someone would say her blood pressure is unstable. Calm, clinical, and devoid of drama.
“She’s showing clear symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder,” the psychiatrist continues, “as well as selective amnesia.”
My jaw tightens. Selective.
“The amnesia isn’t total. It’s fragmented and situational. Certain memories remain accessible, others are distorted, and some are completely inaccessible unless triggered.”
“Triggered by what?” I ask, my voice coming out sharper than I intend.
She looks at me then and quickly analyzes me.
The bouncing leg. The clenched jaw. The way my hands haven’t stopped flexing since she walked in.
I don’t know why I’m acting like a complete idiot. She’s helping, and we need her. So why the hell do I sound like I’m a second away from blowing up?
“By sensory overlap,” she answers. “Touch, scent, physical proximity, or emotional familiarity. And it’s important you understand this,” she continues.
“These triggers don’t function logically.
They don’t respond to reassurance or reason.
The body reacts first and the mind tries to catch up later, or the other way. Don’t try to find logic in there.”
The room feels smaller all of a sudden.
“She doesn’t remember the fire as a linear event,” the woman goes on. “Her brain doesn’t place it in the past. To her nervous system, it’s ongoing.”
Kas finally shifts beside me.
“She said the ceilings keep changing,” she reads quietly from her notes.
“That sometimes they burn. That’s derealization and it happens when the brain gets overwhelmed.
” She looks back at us. “Reality stops feeling solid. Not because it isn’t there, but because her nervous system can’t handle it the way it is.
So it starts loosening things or distorting them.
It’s her mind trying to protect her. If the world feels unreal, it hurts less. ”
She pauses, then adds, more tactfully this time, “She’s also showing signs of trauma bonding.” Her pen hovers over the paper before she writes it down. “Which complicates things.”
My stomach drops hard, like I’ve missed a step on the stairs.
“Explain,” I snap before I can stop myself.
Kiara’s glare cuts into the side of my face like a warning shot.
“Please,” I add, my voice tighter now.
“She has learned to connect this relationship to the way she copes. His presence may have made it easier for her to stay in those fantasies instead of separating them from reality. If she spent years seeing parts of one person in the other, it’s possible she became emotionally dependent on that dynamic. ”
She lets that sit for a moment.
“But that doesn’t mean the feelings aren’t real,” she adds.
The words land heavy in my chest, each one pressing down like a weight I don’t know how to carry. I swear I’ll create an earthquake with the leg bouncing. Kiara inhales sharply beside us but doesn’t interrupt.
“Is it possible to contact Lucien? It would help to have a session with him as well.”
All of us nervously exchange a few looks, before I turn back to the woman.
“No. He’s gone,” I state.
I’m definitely paying a visit to the basement soon.
“What about us? What about me?” I ask eagerly.
“She’s convinced that you’re dead. She thinks her mind plays tricks on her—those are her exact words,” she says, squinting at my leg and my fisted hands, then continues.
“I believe she spent those years oscillating between two survival strategies. One was keeping you both alive in her mind, reconstructing you, and that allowed her to survive the grief.”
“And the second?” I ask quietly.
“She tried to erase you,” the psychiatrist says. “To sever the attachment entirely. To convince herself that if she could feel nothing, she wouldn’t hurt. Neither strategy worked long-term, of course. They never do. They only postponed the collapse.”
I stare at the floor, flinching at every breath like my body expects another blow.
“So what now?” I ask hoarsely.
“Now,” she says, taking a slow breath herself, “we stabilize her. I’ll start her on medication and continue the sessions. She may actively try to dismiss you or convince herself you’re a hallucination, a coping mechanism, a trick of her mind.”
I gulp.
“But with the correct medication, that belief should weaken very soon. Once she begins to accept reality, she’ll need to process it.”
“Process it how?” I ask.
“Anger, grief, confusion, possibly resentment. All of that has been deferred for years.”
“How long does it take to,” Kas hesitates, searching for the right word. “Get there?”
“It’s individual,” the psychiatrist answers. “We need to move carefully. Pushing too hard would only reinforce the dissociation.”
She looks at all of us, but we’re waiting for the estimate.
“Can be months, or years. But it can also be weeks. It really depends on her.”
“When can I visit her?” I ask, impatience threading through my voice like it always does.
“Let her adapt to the new environment for a few days,” the psychiatrist says. “Only with the person who doesn’t trigger anything painful.” She pauses and turns her head slightly toward Kiara. “That’s you, Kiara?”
Kiara nods once.
Okay. Days.
Fucking days.
Fine.
“I’ll be coming in every day,” the psychiatrist continues. “I’ll keep you informed.”
“Okay,” I whisper, my voice barely holding together as I drag my hands through my hair, fingers snagging restlessly.
“Also,” she starts again, gaze frozen on me. “I’d like to have a private session with you.”
“Excuse me?” I blurt out, my mouth hanging open.
Okay. Sure.
I know I mentally added that to the checklist at some point. But that was theoretical and abstract. A future-me problem. I wasn’t actually planning on following through.
“You heard me,” she says flatly.
There’s the faintest hint of a smile on her face, but it doesn’t soften the statement.
“Jesus Christ,” I breathe out, too exhausted to even pretend I want to talk about my feelings.
I don’t have time for this. I have a hostage to visit. To kill.
No, not to kill. To cripple. Slowly and painfully at least.
The psychiatrist simply nods toward Kiara and Kas. They stand up and walk away.
No no no. Stay. Please stay.
They’re already moving toward the door.
And they’re gone.
The room suddenly feels too big. I feel like a little child left alone at a doctor’s appointment.
My head falls into my palms, elbows braced on my knees, breathing hard, when it’s suddenly just me and this woman sitting across the table.
“So,” she says calmly. “Adrien, is it?”
“Mhm,” I mumble into my hands.
I drop them a second later and lean back into the sofa, forcing myself to settle, stay still and stop vibrating out of my own skin.
She crosses one leg over the other. “Before we start—are you currently on any medication?”
“No.”
She looks at me for half a second longer than is comfortable.
“No, as in not at all, or not currently?”
“Not… currently.”
“And when did that stop exactly?”