Chapter 1
Chapter 1
The Therapy Session #1
The room smelled faintly of lavender, and the chair she sat in felt uncomfortably stiff. It was the kind of chair that wasn’t designed for comfort but for making you feel as though you were meant to openup. She hadn’t come here to open, though. She was just... here.
Dr. Reyes sat across from her, watching her with an expression that was almost too neutral to decipher. She couldn’t decide if it made her nervous or if it made her want to lie, to test how much she could say without really saying anything at all.
“How are you feeling today?” Dr. Reyes asked, his voice warm but firm, as if he already knew she wouldn’t answer in a straightforward way.
She took a deep breath, her fingers tracing the edge of her cup of coffee cold now, forgotten. “Like I’m stuck,” she muttered. “Like I’ve been stuck for... forever.”
“Stuck in what way?”
The question was simple, too simple. Her thoughts, however, were not. She hadn’t prepared for this session, hadn’t planned what to say. In fact, she hadn’t planned much of anything in years.
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I just feel like there’s nothing left to figure out. Like... it doesn’t matter. People change, right? They get better, or they move on, or whatever. But it doesn’t feel like I’m any different. I think I’ve always been this way.”
Dr. Reyes nodded slowly, writing something down on his notepad. It irritated her a little. She wasn’t here for notes. She was here to talk, to make something click if that was even possible.
“Let’s talk about that feeling,” he said gently. “You say you’ve always been this way. What does that mean for you?”
Her mind flickered, as if it wanted to take her somewhere she didn’t know how to go. Always this way. What did that even mean? She wasn’t sure she could explain. It was as though a part of her had always been locked inside herself, a quiet part that never learned how to speak.
She shifted in her seat, her eyes lowering to her hands. “When I was a kid... no one really talked to me. Not in the way you’d expect. Like... I don’t remember anyone ever telling me things would be okay, or even asking if I was okay.”
Dr. Reyes didn’t interrupt. He let the silence sit with her, like a weighted blanket.
She closed her eyes for a moment, allowing the memory to surface, though she didn’t know if she was ready to let it out.
Flashback Childhood
The house smelled of faded wood and stale air, the same every evening, no matter how many times she walked through the door. She remembered the way the floor creaked when she entered the kitchen, the hum of the refrigerator always louder than any conversation that took place. Her mother was there, usually, fixing something with her back turned. Sometimes her father, but he was more of a shadow than a presence. She couldn’t remember ever sitting down to dinner as a family, where everyone would talk, laugh, share the day’s events. Instead, there was the sound of dishes clinking, and a vague sense that everyone existed in separate worlds.
“Did you have a good day?” she’d ask her mother one evening, holding up a drawing she’d made in school. It was a picture of the house just like every other drawing she’d done.
Her mother barely glanced at it. “It’s nice,” she muttered, her eyes already on something else. There was no real response, no curiosity about the details of her day, her life. No words to fill the silence.
Her father didn’t ask questions. Ever. He would come home, watch TV, and sit in the chair with a distant look in his eyes, the only sound his sighs and the occasional grunt.
In a way, she had learned to fade into the background. To speak was to invite nothingness, so it became easier not to.
Back to Present
Dr. Reyes’ voice brought her back, pulling her from the past. “It sounds like there was a lot of silence in your house growing up. What do you think that taught you about communication?”
She shifted again in her seat, her gaze still lowered. “That it wasn’t necessary. I mean, what’s the point of saying something if no one’s really listening? If no one cares enough to ask? It’s easier to just not say anything at all.”
Her voice cracked slightly. It was hard to admit. Hard to admit that silence had been a sanctuary and a cage.
“You mentioned before that you’ve always felt like you’ve been stuck. Do you think this silence has something to do with that?”
She didn’t answer right away. She didn’t have to. She already knew the truth, but she wasn’t sure she could say it. For the first time, she realized how much she had buried. How much of her life had been shaped by those early years in that quiet, distant house. Her inability to communicate, to trust, to feel understood it all started there. All of it.
“It’s... I don’t know,” she said, trying to find the words. “It’s like I’ve been living in a cage I built myself. And maybe I’m the only one who can unlock it, but I don’t even know where to start.”
Dr. Reyes was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was softer, almost like a question in itself. “What do you think would happen if you did unlock it?”
She closed her eyes again, a slight tremor in her hands. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know what would happen.”
