"Dr. Barnes will be right with you, Savi. He’s finishing up an important call with another patient.” Jakobi called to me from his kiosk desk. I was the only one in the waiting room, so he didn’t have to be discreet or quiet about it.

  Having to wait didn’t bother me much, considering I was dreading this session. The last two days had been a blur of chaotic energy, and I was already on edge.

  “No problem, thanks for the heads-up." My legs were bouncing against the side of my chair, creating a soothing rhythm. It somewhat helped with my racing thoughts.

  Sleep had eluded me these last few nights. I wracked my brain on what was happening to me. The night I'd heard Cooper and Rachel talking about me, something happened that I couldn't understand. With everything else going on, I doubted I'd get much help from Theo either because I can’t tell him any of it. This led me to my hesitation for today’s session. How can you get therapy for problems you can’t discuss?

  It’s not like I can go in there and blurt out ‘Hey Theo. So, apparently I’m a witch with magical powers and things have been off-kilter lately because of it. What things you may be asking, well let me tell you. I’ve been hearing and seeing things that aren’t there. Whispers in the dark and movement in shadows. Oh, and also I have been sleep-painting the last few nights and waking up in my studio covered in paint.'

  Yeah, I don’t think handing over those tidbits of information would go over too well. Most likely, I would end up back where I was last year in the hospital having another "breakdown."

  “Are you okay, Savi?... Savi?"

  My vision focused back on Jakobi, who had crouched in front of me with a tissue in his hand. He gestured to my neck.

  “Savi, you’re bleeding. Let me take a look.”

  I pulled away from his hand as it reached out toward me in confusion. Glancing down to where he was reaching, I noticed the small trail of blood on my chest and pulled my hand back. Crimson smeared my fingertips. In all my nervousness, I had rubbed my scar raw to the point of bleeding.

  ‘Good one, Savi, now you look the crazy part.’

  “Oh, sorry, yeah, I’m fine, thank you.” I took the tissue and pressed it against my neck. “A bug bite was bothering me. I must have scratched it too hard and not noticed.” Hopefully, he would buy it, and no further explanation would be necessary. The expression on his face told me otherwise.

  “You look like a nervous wreck. You’ve been staring off into space for the last ten minutes, completely still. Are you sure everything is okay?” His eyes locked on mine, and sincere concern shone through the calm blue stillness.

  "Yeah, yeah. It’s been a heck of a week at work and I've been worried about my boss. She’s been sick the last few days and you never know what can happen. Ya know?” That sickening feeling returned as the lie left my lips.

  'Was I becoming a pathological liar now?'

  He sat in the chair beside me and took my hand in his. “I’m sorry, Savi. I’m sure she will be okay. I’ve heard there’s been a bug going around. A few patients have called in and rescheduled, and the one on the phone now was supposed to be an in-office visit. Hopefully, it’s nothing.” He paused for a moment, studying my face. Squeezing my hand, he asked again, “Are you sure you’re okay? Do you need anything else?”

  “I’m fine, Jakobi, thank you. Once Sue gets better and I can get a little more sleep, I’ll be right as rain. Oh, speaking of, how about that thunderstorm last night? It shook my windows pretty hard. Crazy, huh?” I pulled my hand back from his and fumbled with my shoulder bag to slip the bloodied tissue inside.

  Jakobi sat up a little straighter and cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah. It was crazy. My apartment is on the top floor of my building, so it felt like I was in the center of it. The wind was howling.”

  Dr. Barnes's door creaked open and I glanced over to see him standing in the door, his brow furrowed. “Jakobi, uh, is everything alright? I tried to patch Mrs. Stevenson through to schedule her next session but you didn't pick up. She’s waiting on the line now.” He pursed his lips together and frowned.

  Jakobi shot up from the seat and lunged for the desk. “Oh, sorry. Let me grab it right quick. Savi needed a tissue for a bug bite. Sorry, Dr. B.” He grabbed the phone receiver. "Hello, Mrs. Stevenson, sorry about the wait. Let’s get your next appointment scheduled.”

  My eyes darted back to Theo standing in the door. He was already waiting for my gaze to meet his. He stepped out of his office and held the door open further, gesturing for me to come inside.

  I gathered my strength for the array of questioning that was about to follow and stepped in past him.

  “A bug bite? Is everything okay?” he asked as he closed the door behind us. “I’m not going to have to worry about you climbing up the walls today, am I?”

  I plopped down on my usual side of his sofa, leaned my head into the cushion, and chuckled. "Yeah, watch out for my webs. Need any dusting done while I’m up there?” We both laughed as he sat in his usual chair across from me. “Nah, it was a silly mosquito or something. It’s been bothering me, and Jakobi helped because I scratched the scab off by accident.”

  ‘Please believe me; please believe me.’

  He glanced over my body as he adjusted his glasses and reached for his notebook on the side table. “Ah, well, glad he was able to help you out.” He thumbed through the pages of his journal and settled into his chair. Studying one page in particular, he glanced up at me. "Now, based on our last session, we were discussing your dream journals and how you filled another one. Did you happen to bring it with you today?”

  ‘SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!’

  I knew I had walked off this morning and forgotten something. Work had been crazy, and I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. I gave him the slightest grin and scrunched my face in response. He sighed loudly.

  “Savi, you were supposed to bring it this time. How are we supposed to digest and sift through the material without it being present?”

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  'Oh, if you only knew what material wasn’t present today, Theo. If you only knew what I wished I could tell you.’

  “I’m sorry. I’ve had a rough few days and it slipped my mind. I promise I'll bring it next week.” I had to choose my words carefully. The last thing I wanted was to sound the alarm bells in Theo’s head about anything else going on. I had already received many check-in texts from Aster in the last few days, urging me to make a decision. I didn’t need another thing to stress about.

  He studied me for a long while before he spoke again, trying to read any sign of something hidden below the surface. I’ve seen that look many times before. I will never forget his face the moment before he sent me to the hospital last year.

  “Well, I guess we should start from where we left off. How are your dreams going this past week? Still the same as usual?” He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat once he was satisfied that there was nothing further lurking under the surface.

  The sweat that had built on my neck vanished as I eased into the conversation, still vigilant about every word I spoke. "Well, they have been different, I would say. If you could call them dreams to begin with. I’m not sure you can.”

  His eyes lifted to mine from taking his notes. “And what would you call them? Elaborate on that a little.” He glanced back at his notes, waiting.

  'Think, Savi, think. Let’s word it in such a way so you don’t sound completely insane.’

  “Well, I haven’t dreamt at all; I don’t think.” This was the truth as far as I knew, so I didn’t feel guilty for the lies that were to follow next. He stopped his writing and peered at me again, puzzled.

  “What do you mean? They’ve completely stopped?” He folded his notebook closed over one hand and removed his glasses as he glanced back at my face.

  I tried to look everywhere but at his eyes. “They've stopped as far as I know because if they haven’t, I'm not remembering them.” I studied his expression, checking for any hint of alarm bells. Nothing but blank curiosity staring back at me. Good. “You see, most of the time over the last week it’s been blank. Darkness. No cinematic play-by-play of anything at all.”

  I threw my hands up to either side of me and shrugged, hoping it would help the illusion of nothing else. Maybe if I acted as dumbfounded as he looked right now, this would be a breeze.

  “You’re saying that you haven’t had any dreams whatsoever? Savi, that is… that is fantastic. You’re making real progress here. Now I can’t help but ask, has there been anything jarring or out of the ordinary that could have put you in a more or less heightened sense lately? Anything at all that could throw you for a loop?”

  I immediately stifled my face into submission as I shook my head no. “No, nothing that I can think of. I mean unless you count getting a new set of oil pastels as life-changing or jarring, then no.” I smoothed the lines of my face into a smile behind my eyes.

  'Play it cool.'

  Dr. Barnes chuckled as he put on his glasses and opened up his notebook. “Ah, no, that wouldn’t count as life-altering, no. So it’s possible you may have reached a turning point. Maybe the date of your papers coming through, getting ever closer, is helping to ease your subconscious. Knowing that after that, things will be better for you in some ways.”

  "Yeah. I mean nothing else has been going on so that’s likely it.” I reached for my neck but immediately thought of the blood and stopped myself. It would only draw more attention to the tension I was trying to hide. “So are we done here today? I’m cured? I’m free to go about my days without this anymore?”

  He paused his writing and stared at the page a moment before he replied. “I wouldn’t say that exactly.” He closed it over his hand again and eyed me. "You see, sometimes, and I’m not saying this is the case here, but given last year, we have to be hyper-aware of what could be lurking around the corner. Sometimes we can make a huge leap forward only to stumble backward a bit. It’s my job to make sure that’s not what is happening here. Make sure that everything is moving forward and keeps moving forward. Now don’t get me wrong, Savi, I think you're making significant progress here, but I can’t help but feel like you're on edge today. I can hear what you're saying about your dreams, but I’m going to be honest with you, as I've always promised to be. You look like you haven’t slept in days. So we need to take this turn of events cautiously.”

  I couldn’t hold it back; the words burst out of me before I could check them behind my perfectly placed smile. “Are you fucking kidding me, Theo? Last year was last fucking year! When are you going to let that go?” I leapt from the sofa and started pacing the room. “I have made every attempt to move on from that and do this little dance with you week after week, and still, even after progress, you throw it back in my face? How could you?!”

  “Savi, please, just listen. Sit down and let’s discuss—"

  “I’m done discussing. I’m done parading my every thought around in here to get poked and prodded. I'm a person, ya know, and I don’t deserve this. One misunderstanding last year doesn't warrant all this bullshit. I thought we had trust, and I thought I could move past this, but how can I when you don’t believe that I am?”

  Theo moved to the edge of his seat, ready to stand and calm me as I continued my trek through the room.

  "Savi, please. You have to understand, I’m not saying this has all been nothing. You are making progress and I can see the great strides you've taken. We talked about this last time, how far you've come, but you still have a way to go to heal and move on. You never forgot your notebooks before. You never got upset with talking things out. You never once held things back like you are now. Savi, it’s clear there are more things you wish to discuss, so why are you holding back?”

  “Don’t lie to me! I'm so tired of the lies. I'm no further than I was last week, last month, or even last year. This is all a waste of time and how dare you accuse me of hiding things? I forgot one notebook, sue me. I look like I haven’t slept, yeah well maybe I haven’t been feeling like it. Bite me. Everyone’s talking about me as if I’m some delicate little flower they have to protect and I'm so sick of it!”

  My blood turned volcanic, anger spilling into every fiber of my body, and I wanted to run. I wanted nothing more than to escape this before anything else got blurted out that I didn’t mean to let out. “You know what, screw this. I’m done, Theo.” I grabbed my bag and rushed to the door, almost breaking the handle. I jerked it open, and it bounced off the rubber stopper and slammed into my shoulder. I had to get out of here. I couldn’t breathe anymore. Tears cascaded down my face, the pyre inside had reignited, only this time it was inferno.

  I peeked into the waiting room as I hissed from the door hitting me, and Jakobi bolted up from the desk - fear on his face. “Savi! What’s wrong - what’s happened?” He moved around the back of the desk, but I booked it over to the office doors. I jerked one open and fled before he could reach me. I didn’t dare glance back as I ran through the lobby of the building, arms pumping, heart pounding. The stark difference of the fresh air blasted my face as I exited the front, and I kept running.

  I ran past my bus stop. I didn’t care. I needed to get away. Needed to be free of this feeling, outrun the pain of everything I had said. I knew deep down Theo was only trying to help, and he had always been right. I knew what I said hurt him, but I didn’t care. In this moment, I only wanted one thing. Answers. Progress of my own doing. A new door had opened in my life, allowing me a new path to follow, and I only needed to decide to travel down that road. After what happened, I knew my choice.

  Once I had reached well past where anyone could locate me, I slowed my pace and tried to catch my breath. I glanced around to figure out where I'd ended up and realized I wasn’t far from Cooper and Aster’s bar. I'd instinctually run toward my decision without realizing it. I shuffled through my bag and found my phone. The screen blasted with missed call after missed call from Dr. Barnes's office. Jakobi, no doubt, if not also Theo. I unlocked it and swiped away all the alerts and located the only one that mattered to me in that moment.

  There it was: 8:06 a.m. this morning. An alert from Aster I hadn’t opened yet. Another text from her checking in to see if I was okay and that being scared was normal. That she would be there with me every step of the way if it was the choice I made.

  ‘Hey Aster, are you working tonight? I’m at the bar. I made my choice. I’m in.’

  It was all I needed to say in the text. And before I could reread the message I'd sent, a reply buzzed through.

  ‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes. I promise we’ll find your answers.’

  It was done. Progress of my own. I closed one door and opened a whole new path. One that I chose.

  here that goes out every Sunday. there will be other important news shared on that.

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