The missing six months
It was finally the day of my therapy.
I got up, dressed, and left my apartment with a heaviness I couldn't shake. The streets felt emptier than usual, the quiet pressing against me in ways I couldn't name. The security guard led me to the psychiatry department, where a nurse offered me a seat and told me to wait in line to see Dr. Jay Justin.
I tried to distract myself, but my mind kept wandering. Was it fate that the doctor's name was so close to Aunt Taylor's son? Jay Justin. Jay Taylor. Different, of course. But even that thought made my stomach twist.
I told myself he couldn't possibly be the same. After all, Uncle Luke had already made me hate everything related to the Taylors.
Still… there was a small knot of curiosity I couldn't untangle.
The waiting room smelled faintly of antiseptic and old magazines. I stared at the clock, each tick stretching longer than the last. I noticed how quiet it was—too quiet. I could hear my own pulse in my ears.
When the nurse finally called, "Number 222," my legs moved on their own. I straightened my clothes, picked up my bag, and walked toward the office. The fluorescent lights hummed above me, cold and sterile, but I felt a strange warmth pooling somewhere in my chest—a sense that something important was about to happen.
I knocked lightly.
"Come in," a calm voice replied.
"Sir, Miss Vivian Ray is here to see you," the nurse announced, and then the door closed behind her.
He didn't look up at first, only nodded, murmuring something that I barely caught: "You can leave us."
The quiet click of the door left me alone with him.
Finally, he looked up. For a moment, I thought I saw recognition flicker in his eyes. And then… nothing.
"I thought I was mistaken… but I'm not," he said softly, almost to himself.
My mind snapped. What is this handsome creep talking about?
He stretched out his hand. I hesitated, unsure, but eventually took it. His palm was warm. Too warm.
"It's a pleasure to finally meet you again, my dear Vivy," he said, faint smile curving his lips. "Hope you missed me."
I blinked. Missed you? I don't even know you.
Yet, there was something in his tone that made me pause, something that unsettled and intrigued me all at once.
I sat down slowly, my body taut with cautious curiosity. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if he would be gentle, if he would understand, if he could even help me at all.
We sat in silence for a long moment. The office was still. The quiet pressed against me again, but it wasn't uncomfortable—it was expectant, like the pause before a first note of music.
He finally spoke again, softly, carefully. "How have you been, Vivy?"
I wanted to laugh, to roll my eyes, to answer with sarcasm as I always did with strangers—but something made me pause. I answered simply, cautiously. "I… I've been surviving."
He nodded, as if weighing my words, and I felt a strange shiver run down my spine. Not fear, not exactly, but a tension that made my chest tighten and loosen all at once.
I realized then that Lily and Mia had not been here in weeks. Not because they didn't care, but because I had slowly drifted away from them, letting myself close the door to the world I used to know, focusing instead on surviving, on navigating the shadows that haunted me at night.
And now, here I was, face-to-face with someone new. Someone who seemed calm, unnervingly calm, and yet… there was a depth in his eyes I couldn't read.
I didn't know it yet, but this was the beginning of something I couldn't have imagined. Something that would make the past six months of my life stretch and twist in ways I was not prepared for.
For now, though, all I could do was sit and listen, feel the warmth of his hand fading, and wonder… what did it mean that I remembered nothing beyond the moment he said my name?
And somewhere deep inside, I felt a flicker—a curiosity, a thread of something dangerous, something thrilling—that maybe, just maybe, I was exactly where I needed to be.