Natalya
Present
I’m sprawled lazily across a sofa chair, the movie playing in front of me even though I’m not paying any attention to it. Then someone knocks on the door, jerking me upright.
“Yeah?” I shout, and the psychiatrist steps inside.
“We already had a session today, didn’t we?” I ask, confused.
“Yes, yes we did. But I wanted to try something, if you have some more time for me,” she says, settling into that professional posture of hers.
I glance at the television, gripping the remote in my hand.
“I’m really busy at the moment,” I say dryly.
She only smiles and waits. I let out a long exhale before standing up.
“Whatever, let’s do it,” I murmur.
“Okay.” She pulls over a chair and sits down next to the large sofa. “I’ll need you to lie down.”
I freeze on the spot and stare at her, my eyes widening.
“Are we doing what I think we’re doing?” I bite out.
Her smile spreads. “We’re doing hypnosis, Natalya.”
I let my hands slap against my thighs. “Oh God.”
“You’ve been doing pretty well lately, and I’d like to access some of your memories, if that’s okay.”
I pace around the sofa for a moment.
She keeps insisting I’m getting better while I’m literally feeling crazier every single day, like everything inside my head is falling apart and nothing makes any sense anymore.
I stop by the balcony door and stare out at the autumn scenery. My brows furrow as I try to go back to last night, to the moment I felt him again.
It felt real. It felt so fucking real. I could swear I felt him leaning over me, briefly touching my forehead. He was here.
Everything is coming crashing down on me. I feel like I’ve lost the ability to push it away. Everyone around me keeps saying that I’m recovering, that I’m finding my way back to myself, while I feel like I’m finally fucking losing my mind.
Even when I try to listen, when I try to let the things they say mean something to me, all the thoughts in my head trip over each other and turn into an even bigger mess.
I used to know how to dissolve it into nothing. I used to scream and slam the drawers shut whenever I wanted to. And now it doesn’t work, as if I somehow lost the very abilities I knew I possessed.
Turning on my heel, I let out a sharp exhale and meet her gaze.
“Fine,” I grit out. “Let’s do it.”
I drop onto the sofa like an annoyed teenager, feeling really fucking awkward and strangely observed.
“Okay, I need you to relax and make yourself comfortable,” she says, folding one leg over the other.
“How am I supposed to feel comfortable when you’re sitting right there watching me lie on a couch?” I squeak out.
“We’ve already spent a lot of time together, Natalya. I think you can make yourself comfortable with me, can’t you?” she asks with a smile.
I look at her and realize once more how ridiculously nice she is.
Okay. Fine.
I shuffle around, slide a pillow under my head, and fold my arms over my chest before closing my eyes.
“Done,” I say.
“Good.”
“Are you going to wave some magical pendulum in front of my face now?” I bite out.
I only hear her huff a quiet laugh.
“No, I will not do that.”
Silence settles between us, as if she’s waiting for me to drop the attitude.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
“That’s okay. Now take a slow breath in, and then let it out.”
I do as I’m told, feeling ridiculous the entire time.
“Good. Another one. This time, try not to feel so awkward. It’s just breathing.”
I crack one eye open and glance at her.
“God, how do you notice everything?” I ask, making her answer with nothing more than a small smile.
I let myself sink back into the darkness and do as I’m told.
“Keep breathing normally. There’s nothing you need to force.”
The room grows quieter with every exhale, or maybe I just stop paying attention to it. For a while she doesn’t say anything at all, and I almost crack one eye open again to check whether she forgot I’m here.
“Can you feel the sofa underneath you?” she suddenly asks softly.
“Yes.”
“The pillow under your head?”
“Yes.”
“The air on your skin?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Her voice stays calm and steady, as pleasant as always.
“I’d like you to imagine yourself standing in a long hallway.”
My brain immediately protests, but I force it anyway and end up picturing a long white corridor stretching out in front of me.
“Done,” I say.
“What does it look like?”
“White. And a lot of doors.”
“Can you walk toward one of them? ”
I don’t answer right away. It feels absurd. And yet somehow, I can.
“Yes, I’m there.”
“Good. Don’t open it until you’re ready. When you are, I’d like you to go back to the day you left the psychiatric ward.”
My stomach tightens the moment I hear the words. Why can’t people just say hospital? The actual name sounds so freaking scary.
“You don’t have to relive it,” she says before I can pull away. “Just observe it.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
I reach for the handle and push the door open, and suddenly I’m right there, sitting by the table with one leg tucked onto the chair while the other hangs lazily over the edge.
“Try to describe everything for me, please,” she says.
“Okay. It’s the day he came for me,” I say. “At first, I thought it was just another visit. I got used to him coming to see me. I even looked forward to it.”
Everything spills out of me with surprising ease.
“Can you try to put yourself back there and tell me what you were feeling at that exact moment?” she asks. “What were you thinking about?”
“Okay.”
I stare at the paper in front of me, absentmindedly playing with the pencil, unsure what to draw next. The page is already covered in scribbles, most of them moths.
“Today I woke up and everything around me was solid, but empty,” I start.
“Like I woke up in a world where I’ve accepted they’re gone and never coming back.
But that world carries this haunting emptiness and pain.
Everything about that version of reality refuses to let me stay there.
Not physically, not mentally, not spiritually.
It’s like this world, the real one, isn’t accepting me.
Or maybe I’m the one who isn’t accepting it.
I’m not really sure who’s pulling,” I explain.
I grab the pencil and start drawing, the lines no longer making any sense.
“I’m never sure how to navigate it. Which way to go, which way is worse, which one leads into a deeper descent into insanity and which one leads into relief.
It’s like a constant push and pull, my mind fighting against itself.
I want to scream, but that’s what got me here in the first place, so I try not to do it,” I say.
My fingers tighten around the pencil until my knuckles turn white, and the lines become more aggressive, nearly ripping through the page beneath them.
“I’m not sure how long I’ve been here, but no one came for me, which means—” I take a breath. “They really are gone,” I force out.
When I stop drawing and lift my head to look at the page, the moths are buried beneath frantic, aggressive strokes. All that’s left now is a chaotic mess of ink.
“He’s here now, at his usual visit,” I say.
“Can you describe him?”
“He has that composure, the same as my brother, that stillness that makes everyone feel like he has everything under control. Only I know my brother uses it to make us feel safe, to make us believe he can handle all the serious stuff. But Lucien somehow carries a hint of cockiness underneath it as well. Like he’s composed, but also above everything, always ready to pull off some manipulative scheme with a smirk on his face,” I say.
“Okay, continue,” she encourages me slowly.
“It’s like he’s this strange, suddenly appealing mixture of both of them, my whole world colliding into the body of a villain.
Like he came straight from the pits of hell and took the exact shape I’m desperately searching for,” I manage.
“But I know he’s not normal. He doesn’t possess emotions like the rest of us. ”
“Is he talking? What is he saying?”
“He’s offering to get me out of this hospital.”
“And you, what do you say?”
I tilt my head, taking him in, thinking… maybe I can live my own fantasy with him. Maybe he’ll let me.
“You will never love me, right?” I state.
There is a slight movement in the corner of his mouth.
“I’m not capable of falling in love with people, no, he says, unbothered by the heaviness behind his words. I fall in love with art, he adds.”
“Does he say anything else?”
“And you, Natalya, I saw you skating, he says, before he lets the smallest smile spread on his lips. You are art.”
I swallow and shift in place, as if my body is trying to warn me about what I’m about to do.
“How do you answer him?”
“I say—Then get me out. And I’m yours.”
The white room around me blurs into nothing, as if the memory ends right there and nothing more is willing to reveal itself.
“I lost it. I’m not in the white room anymore,” I say.
“That’s okay. How do you feel now?”
“Scared. Like I made a deal without knowing all the conditions,” I explain.
“You can open your eyes whenever you’re ready.”
“I’m not,” I admit.
“Okay. Do you know when this happened?” she asks.
I think for a moment. It feels like a lifetime ago, and yet I can’t place it.
“I’m not sure,” I mumble.
“This happened approximately five years ago, Natalya,” she states simply.
“What?” I jerk upright, my eyes snapping open.
She’s still sitting in the same position. Everything looks exactly as it did before, except the light outside has grown a little dimmer.
“Five years?” I whip out.
“Yes.”
I let the number settle in my head, trying to line it up with the rest of my memories, but they refuse to cooperate.
“Do you know when the fire happened?” she asks.
The second she mentions it, my pulse spikes.
“No,” I murmur.
“That was approximately six years ago,” she says, watching me carefully, waiting for my reaction.
My head spins feverishly.
“So it really happened. Then why is everyone telling me it didn’t?” I grit out, my voice rising.
“No one is saying the fire didn’t happen, Natalya. Your brother and your boyfriend just weren’t in it,” she replies calmly.
“They weren’t in it?” I repeat.
“No,” she says. “They never died.”
I stare at her, my heart hammering against my ribs as if it’s trying to break free.
“Right. Then where were they for the last six years?” I mumble, feeling heat flood my face as tears threaten to spill.
“That’s something they’d like to explain. Will you let them?”
I whip my gaze back to her, my eyes widening as a few tears slide down my cheeks. An uncomfortable warmth spreads through my limbs, forcing me to shoot up from the sofa and pace around the room, trying to walk the anger out of my system.
“Will you let them, Natalya?” she repeats the question.
I rake both hands through my hair, frustration tightening its grip around me.
“Will I let them?” I snap, throwing the question back at her. “What about everyone leaving me the fuck alone for a second?” I shout before marching toward the bathroom, the only place I can disappear to right now.
I brace my arms against the counter, and a moment later I hear her quietly leave, the door clicking shut behind her.
That’s when I finally exhale, letting the tears spring free. I rip all my clothes off and step into the shower.
Pain, pressure, or cold.
That usually helps wrench me out of the chaos. I twist the handle all the way to the right until it can’t go any farther, then pull it.
“Oh, fuck!” I hiss as the icy water crashes over my body. “Jesus fucking Christ!”
I endure it, rubbing my arms to make the shock more bearable. My skin turns numb, my teeth chatter, yet no relief comes. Everything she said stays exactly where it was when I stormed out of the room and it’s refusing to leave no matter how desperately I want it to.
The fire happened. Six years ago. Six fucking years. But they were not in it. They never died.
I replay the information in my head over and over, trying to arrange it into something neat.
It doesn’t make any sense.
They would never leave me. They would come for me if they were alive.
It doesn’t make sense.
Did I make it up? Did I make up the part where they died?
No.
Everyone at the hospital told me they were dead. Bryan told me. I saw newspaper articles.
At least I think I did. Did I make it up as well? I can’t picture them all of a sudden.
I could scream and claw at my own head until I pushed it all back out, but I’d just wake up tomorrow and the questions would still be there. I know that now.
A few incoherent sounds escape me before I turn the water hot, deciding I’ve spent enough time pretending to be one giant, confused icicle.
The moment the water warms, I melt beneath it and sink down onto the shower floor, letting my muscles loosen as the steam slowly carries some of the frustration away and my mind settles on the one simple information—they never died.