Page 136 of The Hollywood Switch-up

The therapy room smelled like lavender and industrial carpet, calming that worked on paper and nowhere else. Dr. Hanson’s desk lamp cast the only warm light. The therapist herself matched the room—neutral cardigan, neutral expression, reading glasses pushed up on her head—except for her eyes, which were sharp in a way that had taken Erika three sessions to stop being surprised by.

Erika had been coming here for two months. Twenty-four sessions, she’d counted the tally marks on her notebook.

She perched on the edge of the couch, gaze fixed on a tiny brown stain in the weave. Coffee, probably. Someone's bad day, absorbed into the seat cushion and forgotten.

Her hands sat empty in her lap. Before the island, she’d always had a sketchbook—something to do with her fingers, an excuse not to make eye contact.. Now the blank pages were an accusation she couldn’t face.

Beside her, Anneliese sat perfectly still. Too still—the way she got before a difficult press conference, every muscle calibrated, and that was exactly the problem.

But today, Erika had asked for her.

“Erika.” Dr. Hanson’s voice was gentle. Infuriatingly gentle. “You asked for Anneliese today. Why?”

Erika’s throat locked. She’d been circling this for weeks—never quite getting to the edge of it, always finding a reason to pull back.

She inhaled. The lavender caught in her throat.

“I’ve been doing the work.” She heard herself reaching for the clinical vocabulary, the phrases that lived in this room—exercises, naming, space—and knew she was using them as a shield.

Dr. Hanson didn’t write anything down. Just waited. She’d heard every version of this delay and wasn’t going to help you out of it.

“Like learning to walk again,” Erika said finally. “Except I’m not sure I ever knew how in the first place.”

Dr. Hanson tilted her head—not a nod, not agreement, just acknowledgment. “And the nightmares?”

Erika shut her eyes. The dreams were always the same—bar floor sticky under her feet, Martin’s laughter bouncing off walls she couldn’t see. And Stefan in the doorway. Sometimes reaching for her, Princesa, mírame—sometimes turning away into a darkness she couldn’t follow.

She always woke up reaching for him. She hated herself for it.

“I wake up to see Martin.” The words cracked. “But Stefan’s there. And I don’t know if I’m scared of him or scared of how much I wanted to trust him.”

The weight of his arm around her in that villa. The way his voice dropped when he said her name. Princesa. She shoved the memory down.

Idiot. You fell for the performance. That’s all it was.

She sensed Anneliese tense beside her—sensed the words her sister was biting back, the familiar refrain she’d heard a hundred times: I told you so. But Dr. Hanson had one rule. Stay quiet until invited.

“When you turn inward—focus on your own feelings instead of managing everyone else’s—what do you discover?”

Erika laughed. She’d spent her whole life managing other people’s feelings—Anneliese’s moods, her mother’s disappointments, the constant low hum of everyone else’s needs. Her own feelings were the channel she’d learned to tune out.

She lifted her gaze to Anneliese. Her sister’s eyes were wide. Braced.

“I learned I’m angry.”

Anneliese went still. “Angry at me?”

“Angry at Martin. At the studio. To everyone who watched and did nothing.”

She made herself say the rest. Made herself look at Anneliese.

“But mostly at you.”

Anneliese flinched, a full-body recoil Erika had never seen from her before. Her mouth opened. Closed. Nothing came out.

Part of Erika wanted to take it back. Smooth it over. Make it easier.

The rest of her was so goddamn tired of swallowing the truth.