The leather chair creaks under his weight. He settles into it like a man lowering himself into a trap, spine rigid, hands braced on his thighs. Her office smells like paper and something floral—lavender, maybe. He doesn't belong here. His knuckles are still raw from the punching bag this morning, the skin split in two places, and he catches himself flexing them open and closed, open and closed, like the pain proves something.
She sits across from him, legs crossed, hands still in her lap. Her gray eyes don't flicker. He'd expected a desk between them, some barrier, but there's nothing—just the low lamp casting its cone of light, the worn leather of her couch, the space she occupies like she's never had to apologize for taking up room.
The silence stretches. Ten seconds. Twenty. He shifts his weight and the chair groans again. She doesn't fill the empty space. Doesn't offer a soft opener, a welcome, a script for him to follow. Her stillness is a patience that feels older than her face suggests, and he realizes with a jolt that she's not waiting for him to speak—she's waiting for him to stop performing.
His jaw tightens. "So. This is where I tell you about my feelings."
The words land wrong. Too sharp. He hears it as they leave his mouth, the sneer in them, and he watches her not react. Her lips don't thin. Her brow doesn't lift. She just holds the silence like a mirror, and what he sees in it is himself—a man who walked into a therapist's office and started swinging before anyone asked a question.
"Noah." Her voice is low, unhurried, with a softening on the vowel that catches him off guard. "You don't have to tell me anything yet."
His name in her mouth. She says it like she's known him longer than eight seconds, and something in his chest pulls taut. He looks away, finds a crack in the ceiling, counts the seconds of quiet until he can breathe again.
"I don't know why I'm here." The words come out rough, scraped. "That's—I don't know."
It's the first honest thing he's said in months. He feels it land between them like a stone dropped in still water. His hands are trembling. Not much. Just enough.
She doesn't pounce on it. Doesn't lean forward with a therapist's soft encouragement. She lets the honesty sit, lets him feel what it costs to speak it, and when she finally speaks, her voice is the same unhurried current. "That's a good place to start."
His throat works. The silence returns, but it's different now—not hostile, not waiting. It's a space she's built around him, and he doesn't know what to do with his body inside it. His thumb finds the split skin on his knuckle, presses until it stings.
He doesn't look at her. But he doesn't leave either.
His thumb stops pressing into the split skin. Her question hangs in the air between them, and he feels it settle into his chest like a weight he didn't know he was carrying. He opens his mouth. Closes it. The words won't line up.
"What do I need." He repeats it flat, testing the shape of it. "I don't—" He stops. Runs his palm over his jaw, feels the stubble scrape against his calluses. "I don't know how to answer that."
She doesn't look away. Her gray eyes hold him steady, and he realizes she's not going to rescue him from this question. She's going to let him sit in it until something true surfaces.
"Try," she says. Not a command. An invitation. Her voice soft on the vowel, that slight Southern drawl bleeding through. "Without the armor."
His laugh comes out wrong—sharp, bitter, a sound that doesn't belong in this quiet room. "Armor. Right." He shakes his head. "You think I'm wearing armor?"
"I think you walked in here ready to fight someone who wasn't here." She says it without accusation, just observation. "And you're still looking for the fight."
His jaw tightens. He wants to snap back, to throw something sharp at her feet, but the truth of it sits too close to the bone. His hands are fists again. He forces them open, spreads his fingers across his thighs, and the sting in his knuckles is a familiar anchor.
"I need—" He stops. Swallows. His throat works around the words like they're made of glass. "I need to stop feeling like I'm going to tear out of my own skin."
The silence that follows is different. Thinner. More fragile. He's said it now, put it in the air between them, and he can't take it back.
Adrienne's posture shifts—just slightly, a softening at her shoulders. "That's the first real thing you've said since you sat down." Her voice is quiet. "How does it feel to say it out loud?"
He looks at her then, really looks, and something in his chest cracks open a fraction of an inch. "Terrifying," he admits. "And I don't even know why."
She doesn't answer him for a long moment. The silence settles between them like dust in still air. When she speaks, her voice is the same unhurried current, but there's a new edge to it—a sharpness that cuts through his deflection. "What makes it terrifying?"
His throat works. He looks down at his hands, at the split skin, at the way his fingers won't stop trembling no matter how hard he presses them flat against his thighs. "Because I don't know what comes after." The words come out raw, scraped from somewhere deep. "I've been angry for so long it's the only thing that feels like mine. If I let it go—" He stops. Shakes his head. "I don't know who I am without it."
Adrienne's gray eyes don't release him. She leans forward just slightly, and the movement draws his gaze back to her face, to the red of her lipstick against her pale skin, to the silver pendant catching the low light. "You're afraid that if you stop fighting, there'll be nothing left." It's not a question. She says it like she's reading a chart, but her voice is softer than the words deserve.
He nods. Once. The motion feels like a surrender. "I had a coach once. Told me anger was fuel. Said as long as I kept it burning, I'd never lose." His laugh comes out hollow. "He didn't mention it'd burn everything else down first."
"And what has it burned?" Her voice is quiet, but the question lands like a hand on his chest. She says it without accusation, without the clinical distance he'd expected, and something in the way she holds his gaze makes him feel like she already knows the answer.
He opens his mouth. Closes it. The words stick in his throat, and he presses his thumb into the split knuckle again, letting the sting ground him. "Everything," he says finally. "My shoulder. My career. The only girl who ever—" He stops. Swallows. "Yeah. Everything."
The silence that follows is different. Fuller. Like the room has contracted around what he just admitted. Adrienne doesn't fill it. She lets it breathe, lets him feel the weight of his own confession, and when she speaks, her voice is barely above a murmur. "That's a lot to carry alone."
He looks at her then—really looks, past the tailored blazer and the careful makeup, past the therapist's composure. There's something in her gray eyes that he can't name. Not pity. Something older. Something that's seen its own fires. "What else am I supposed to do with it?" The question comes out smaller than he meant it to. More honest.
She holds his gaze for a long moment. Then she uncrosses her legs, a small shift that brings her closer to the edge of her seat, and something in the gesture feels like permission. "You let someone help you carry it." Her voice is steady. "That's what this room is for."
His jaw tightens. His hands curl into fists on his thighs, and he feels the sting of the split skin, the familiar ache, the old friend that's kept him company through every long night. But he doesn't leave. He doesn't look away. He sits in the silence she's built around him, and for the first time in months, he lets himself feel something other than the burn. Something like relief. Something like fear. Something like a man standing at the edge of a cliff, not sure if he's going to jump or step back.