The Therapist’s Touch: 1. The First Session

Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

The waiting room smelled faintly of lavender, a calculated calm that only made her more aware of her own storm. She clutched her purse to her chest as if it were the only anchor she had left, eyes fixed on the abstract painting across from her seat—a swirl of grays and blues dissolving into black.

She felt like that painting. A blur of color, edges lost, pulled into a darkness she couldn’t name.

“Ms. Lane?” he called.

The voice was warm, steady, with the cadence of someone used to being obeyed. She looked up and saw him—Dr. Adrian Cole—her new therapist.

He wasn’t what she expected. Therapists in her mind had been soft, older, vaguely disheveled. But Dr. Cole was… put together. Dark hair swept back from his forehead, clean lines to his jaw, and eyes that were neither kind nor cruel, but something sharper—like he saw through her before she even spoke. He had a kind of pull to him, she found that she wanted to learn more