My parents’ lives had crumbled overnight. They reached out, but I refused to open that door. I wouldn’t subject myself to their falsities. Instead, I instructed my attorney to sign the deed over to the heritage-listed brownstone to them on the condition that they never contact me again. I didn’t do it for my father, but for my mom. Yes, she’d failed me, but Mom was a victim of my father’s narcissism too, and I had no doubt it would turn into cruelty if they lived in poverty. So, I’d ensured they were comfortable for her sake, and then I vowed to never revisit that chapter of my life.
Greece, on the other hand, was one I had been longing to rewrite.
As I stood surrounded by bare walls and half-empty cabinets, I studied the space stripped of any signs of life. The loneliest years of my life had been sealed away in neatly stacked boxes. Every bare patch on the wall carried the ghost of something that once hung there. My Ph.D. thesis—the title page of my work on the ins and outs of criminal minds—used to hang to the left. Beside it had been my awards, my doctoral degree, and my professional accolades.
Yet none of it mattered to me.
There was something—or someone, rather—that mattered to me, and it was in Greece. So, I’d informed Dr. Franklin that as soon as I finished my assignment, I planned on taking the sabbatical. I would stay in Greece and look for what I had given up.
My fingers found the pendant resting against my chest. I clutched it, rubbing the cool metal between my thumb and forefinger, tugging lightly at the chain. In moments like this, when the tides of my life shifted, the pendant felt heaviersomehow. Almost as if it held a story that had been waiting for its turn.
A shrill ringing from my phone jolted me out of my stupor. I spun around, momentarily disoriented, and caught my reflection in the wall mirror. A fatigued thirty-one-year-old woman stared back at me, dressed in jeans and a gray pullover despite the mild March air. My light brown hair that some considered almost blonde was tied into a tight ponytail, revealing high cheekbones and lines of exhaustion on my heart-shaped face. My light brown eyes looked sad, and I couldn’t even recall the woman who’d had a zest for life and untapped curiosity before it all went wrong.
All I could see was this version of me: one who was worn thin by the baggage she carried.
Riiing.Riiing.
I dug into my back pocket and pulled out my phone, answering without even glancing at the caller ID.
“Dr. Freud,” I answered.
“Umm, hi. It’s me.”
My spine straightened, recognizing the voice. “Sienna, is everything okay?”
“Yes.”
I waited for her to continue, and when she didn’t, I asked slowly, “What can I do for you?”
Sienna Baldwin was one of my best friend’s cousins, and while I was very fond of her, she avoided therapy—hence: me—like the plague.
“I need you to answer something,” she said. “And don’t go all therapist on me right away.”
I glanced at the clock on the microwave. “That’s a dangerous way to start a conversation.”
“Can you do it or not?”
A beat. “Fine. You’ve got a few minutes.”
“Hypothetically,” she said, dragging the word out, “how bad is it to… teach someone a lesson?”
I leaned back against the couch. “That depends on the lesson.”
A quiet hum of amusement came through the line. “See, that’s why I called you. You always make it sound reasonable.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” I said. “Who are we talking about?”
“No one important.”
“Sienna.”
She exhaled softly. “Let’s just say… I misread a situation.”
“That’s vague.”
“On purpose.”
I let the silence stretch.
