Page 20 of Into Pitch

I hum and keep from tapping my pen to the page. I already know this much about her and there’s no need to pretend that I need to write it down to remember. My mind gobbles anything she spits at me and commits it to memory on principle alone.

“And your father?”

She lifts her shoulder in a shrug. “Never met him.”

No, that doesn’t seem to be her wound. She doesn’t scream that she’s been hurt by daddy.

“She had… boyfriends,” Sadie adds. “A lot of them.”

Revolving door would be a more accurate term, but I’m not going to point out that I already know it .

“And how did that feel?” I ask mildly, settling deeper into the chair.

Her eyes narrow on mine for the basic question, but she looks away before answering. “I don’t know. Loud and unstable? You learn how to stay out of the way.”

“And did staying out of the way keep you safe?” I challenge.

“No. It just kept things… survivable.” She admits.

I watch her fingers as they drift to the bracelet again unconsciously. The charm taps softly against the chain, a grounding behavior she hasn’t named yet.

In the mirror room, I’d asked her what scared her and she hadn’t answered. Now, she’s circling that same question in a different form.

“When people grow up in unpredictable environments they often develop a high tolerance for chaos. Stability can feel empty. Or worse—dangerous.” I offer her.

“And when intimacy is introduced,” I continue, my tone unchanged, “it can feel either overwhelming or meaningless. Sometimes both.”

She swallows and I wonder if she realizes I’m talking about what she said in that room about lacking connection. She shifts as she ponders her reply and I give her the moment to formulate it.

“I don’t really do expectations. I don’t want to owe anyone anything.”

It’s not really connection alone then, it’s the pressure and risk that comes along with it. That much I had figured and it’s nothing new, but for her—this conversation is new. She clearly has no idea who I am or that I am Plague. If she had realized it, I have no doubt she’d have run for the hills at this point.

Though, she did have a way of surprising me.

So all we are really doing is getting the same questions and answers, just dressing them differently.

I lean forward, not enough to invade, just enough to signal focus. “Do you feel pressured easily?”

Her eyes snap back to me from whatever she had been focusing on over my shoulder, and I think she feels the echo of that question.

“No,” she bites, a little too quickly.

She’d answered me differently in the mirrored room and I file that discrepancy away.

“That’s something we’ll explore,” I say smoothly. “Patterns like these don’t form in isolation. They’re adaptive and useful. Until they aren’t.”

She nods, absorbing it like it’s something she can carry home and examine later.

“We’ll take this slowly though. There’s no rush.”

It’s a lie, but a necessary one. I am going to peel her open and leave her raw and exposed. It’s just a matter of which session and how far she can be pushed before she inevitably pushes back. Though there might be thrill in seeing her do so.

The bar smells like bleach, citrus, and a plethora of regret tonight.

It’s a familiar cocktail and comforting in its own way.

I slide a pint across the counter and catch it just before it tips, muscle memory doing what my brain doesn’t have to anymore. Four years behind this bar will do that to you. Four years of drunk men, sticky floors, broken glass, and music played just loud enough to drown out all the bad decisions one might just make.