Brooke
My therapy session with Dr. Feldman is quieter than the others.
Nothing erupts, and nothing unravels. The truth settles in me, and it finally feels quiet.
Surprisingly she still wanted to treat me after everything. After the headlines, the murders, the fire that was supposed to end it all. When I reached out months later, using a new name, and a story so close to the truth it barely qualified as a lie, she didn’t hesitate. She looked me in the eye through the screen and said, “I know who you are, Brooke. I’m still here. And your secret is safe with me.”
The screen loads. Her face appears like it always does, serene, patient, a soft lamp glowing in the corner behind her but everything feels different. Or maybe I do. I sit cross-legged on the couch, fingers knotted in the hem of my sleeve, but not because I’m unraveling.
Dr. Feldman waits, as she always does, without pressure just giving me space.
I exhale slowly. “I still have nightmares about the manor.”
She nods, and doesn't write it down.
“I still miss the girl I was before everything,” I sigh. “Not in a sad, desperate way. Just… sometimes I grieve her. The version of me who didn’t know what it felt like to kill someone, or be hunted, or tortured.”
Dr. Feldman’s voice is calm. “Do you wish she could come back?”
I shake my head. “No. She wouldn’t survive this world. I think she had to die for the rest of me to live. But sometimes… I miss not knowing. I miss the version of life where monsters were abstract. Where survival wasn’t a strategy.”
“That’s an honest answer,” she responds. “Painfully so. You’ve carried a lot of guilt about who you had to become.”
“Because part of me liked it.” I meet her eyes through the screen. “Not inflicting pain. But the control, rage, the vengeance. I’m not ashamed of surviving. I’m just scared of what parts of me survived with it.”
Dr. Feldman leans in slightly. “Do you think those parts define you?”
“I think they protect me, but they don’t have to lead.”
She studies me for a moment, then nods. “And now?”
I look down at my hands, then toward the window. “Now I want a life. One that’s real. Even if it’s strange or messy or hidden. Even if we have to build it from nothing.”
“That’s good,” she says. “The desire to reclaim something normal. The key is redefining what normal means for you.”
I laugh under my breath. “I don’t think normal even exists anymore. But peace? Safety? Love? I think those can still happen.”
“And Seth?” she asks gently.
I smile a little. “I choose him. Every version of him. The broken one, the violent one, the one who would burn the world down for me. He’s mine. And I’m his. That’ll never change.”
Dr. Feldman watches me carefully. “And do you feel safe with him?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “Undoubtedly, he’s the only person I feel completely safe with. He knows who I am. He doesn’t ask me to pretend. He’s the only person who never looked away from my flaws.”
She smiles. “That sounds healthy.”
“It feels like it,” I reply.
Dr. Feldman closes her notebook softly. “You’ve done the work, Brooke. You clawed your way out of something most people couldn’t survive. You lost things. You let parts of yourself die. But you’re still here. You’re still choosing love, you’re choosing yourself. That isn’t only healing. That is transformative.”
I blink hard, trying to fight back tears. “Thank you.”
“You don’t owe me gratitude,” she says. “You did this. I’m just glad to be here to witness your journey.”
I nod.
Dr. Feldman watches me for a moment, then her tone shifts, gentler. “Before we end, tell me one thing you’re going to do tonight that is for you.”
