Empty.

That’s it, that’s all. We sit in a quiet, dimly lit room with knotted wood floors and tall frosted windows. Beneath my feet, the carpet has swirls and lines that I conjure into pictures in my head. Anything to avoid eye contact. She asks me again, what am I feeling right now?

Empty. Cavernous. Like a barren soul, merely bones, trapped but free. Grieving without loss. Hot but cold. Fearful but defensive. Screaming but silent.

And it’s there, in my head with the pictures from the carpet and the other delusions I try to deny, but the words remain hidden. I could tell her, but what good would it do?

“Tell me”, she says. “Tell me about it.”

It. I shift my feet, new swirls in the carpet. New pictures in my head. We don’t talk about it.

“Your childhood”, she clarifies.

So collected, so casual. I give her what she wants, looking up from the safety of the floors, and for a moment our eyes lock. She is human; expressive, emotional, real. I feel as though I’m falling, as in a dream, and I quickly return to the floor, startled awake.
They called it pride, but it looks a lot like shame. I create these patterns to align the things I see – to imagine a place between then and now – to escape. Maybe it dictates the patterns in my behaviour, the lines carved into my skin. The way my eyes wandered, my thoughts conjured, while it was happening.

I ask her, “what about it?”

She watches me for a moment before telling me – “whatever you want.”

She always watches – studies me, catches the intimate moments between each fear that swims in my mind. Doesn’t she know what I want? Always, to find the correct path? To say the right words to make her go away, to leave me with my own thoughts? Does she know I would say anything to achieve that? She doesn’t want me to. She wants to linger in this uncomfortable place, to convince me that this small, dark room with the ornate carpet and the big windows is a sanctuary. Maybe it is, or it could be, but why would I want to poison it?

“This is a safe space”, she says.

How many secrets have been shared in this room? Has anyone else noticed the swirls in the carpet? And the hardwood floors? They tell a story. They remind me of bark on a tree, or tall grass in a harsh wind. If you look closely there are knots in the bark, like a dog’s nose, or maybe a bear. Yes, that’s a bear. But did they see him, too? Probably not – he exists only for me to disappear, even if just for a moment.

“Was there any sexual abuse?” she almost whispers the words, as though the bear in the floors might hear our secret.

My brain vibrates, a buzzing sensation tickles the back of my skull and my hands visibly whiten, curled together in my lap. My skin feels cold but inside I am hot. Hot with anxiety, with frustration, with fear. How dare she ask? How dare she ask! The pictures are gone now, she’s taken me away. Reality hits. The swirls are no longer trees and grass, the bear in the floors has gone away. There are only waves and I am drowning, as a boat between shores, my lighthouse cannot be found. The carpet is merely an ornate collection of shapes and lines, maroon in colour and faded like an old wall tapestry. The floors are old and scratched, just scratched – no pictures. Stupid, precious girl.

She watches, expectantly. Quietly. She waits.

My back is to the wall but this chair is too far away. The space between us is maddening. What could lurk in the moments between? My shoulders fall below the crest of the chair but not low enough. The door is beside me but it opens inward, there is not enough room. I don’t have an out. I wore a t shirt today, I don’t have a sweater. It isn’t cold. I want my sweater. My feet are half on the carpet and half on the floor. The pictures are gone and I look for them. I wait for the bear in the grass and the trees. The old building creaks and I jump. A boat between shores, am I without hope? Nobody can know, nobody can know…

No

“Yes”