Chapter 72 The Shrink
Mara stood. “I’ll give you two a moment.”
As she left, the woman pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat,not looming, not distant. Just there.
I studied her warily.
“So,” I said. “You here to tell me I’m coping badly?”
“No,” Dr. Voss replied. “I’m here because you’re coping exactly how someone who’s been shattered would.”
I swallowed.
“And?” I asked.
“And,” she said gently, “you don’t have to do it alone.”
I looked toward the window again, sunlight spilling across the floor, burning and beautiful and unbearable all at once.
“Did Darius send you?” I ask flatly.
My voice surprises me. It’s sharp. Defensive. Already braced for impact.
She closes the door behind her, slow and deliberate, and doesn’t answer right away. That irritates me more than if she had.
“No,” she says finally. “He didn’t.”
“Then leave.” I pull the blanket tighter around myself, as if it could shield me from words. “I’m not interested.”
She doesn’t move.
I glare at her. “I said ”
“I heard you,” she says gently. “But I’m not here to interrogate you. And I’m not here on the Council’s orders either.”
That word,Council,tightens something in my chest.
“Then what are you here for?” I demand.
She takes a seat across from the bed, not too close. That’s deliberate too. Everything about her feels measured, like she’s stepping carefully across glass.
“I’m a psychotherapist.” She says “or as you called me a shrink.”
I bark out a laugh before I can stop myself. It comes out wrong,too brittle, too close to breaking.
“So now I’m crazy,” I say. “Great. Add it to the list.”
She doesn’t flinch.
“No,” she replies. “You’re traumatized.”
I stiffen. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you grew up in foster care,” she says calmly. “Sometimes you stayed in shelters.”
The words hit harder than a slap.
My fingers curl into the blanket. “Who told you that?”
“Intake files. Council records. Pieces you didn’t even realize you left behind.” She answers and takes a look at her slim tablet.”
I swallow. “That doesn’t give you the right to sit here and psychoanalyze me.”
She nods once. “You’re right. It doesn’t.”
Then why are you doing it?
She studies me,not like a specimen, not like a weapon,but like a puzzle she isn’t trying to solve too quickly.
“You asked if Darius sent me,” she says. “That tells me you assume people only approach you with an agenda.”
I scoff. “Because they do.”
“And when someone approaches you without one,” she continues, “you feel threatened.”
“I feel annoyed,” I snap.
She tilts her head slightly. “Defensiveness often disguises fear.”
My jaw tightens. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Talking like you know me.”
She exhales softly. “Lyra, people who grow up without consistent caregivers,especially those moved repeatedly through foster systems,often learn early that trust is dangerous.”
My chest burns.
“I didn’t ask for a lecture.”
“No,” she agrees. “You asked me to leave. And I didn’t.”
“Exactly.”
“Because you’re pushing me away before I can see anything you haven’t already decided is unworthy of being seen.”
I swing my legs off the bed, heart pounding. “Get out.”
She doesn’t raise her voice. “You learned very young that attachment leads to loss.”
“Stop.”
“And that when people claim to protect you,” she continues, “they often fail,or worse, betray you.”
“Stop,” I say again, louder.
“You survived by becoming self-contained,” she says. “Hyper-vigilant. Emotionally guarded. You learned to endure.”
My hands are shaking now.
“That doesn’t make you weak,” she adds. “It makes you resilient.”
I laugh again, but this time it cracks halfway through. “You’re good,” I mutter. “I’ll give you that.”
“I’m not here to win,” she says quietly.
“Then why does it feel like you’re dissecting me?”
“Because you’ve been dissected before,” she answers.
The room goes very still.
My breath catches. “What did you say?”
She watches me carefully now, like she’s approaching something wounded.
“You don’t remember everything,” she says.
I freeze.
“I remember plenty,” I snap. “I remember my father. I remember being loved by him.”
She nods. “I’m not saying those memories aren’t real.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying they aren’t complete.”
A cold weight settles in my stomach.
She continues gently, “The mind has ways of protecting itself when the trauma is too severe, too prolonged, or inflicted by someone the child depends on.”
My throat tightens. “You’re saying I made it up.”
“No,” she says firmly. “I’m saying your mind hid parts of it from you.”
I shake my head. “You’re wrong.”
“Lyra—”
“My father loved me,” I say, rising to my feet. “He did. He told me. Every day.”
“I believe you,” she says.
The certainty in her voice throws me.
“But,” she adds softly, “love and harm can coexist. Especially in abusers.”
The word lands like poison.
Abuser.
“No,” I whisper. “He wasn’t—”
“You don’t remember all the trauma you suffered at his hands,” she says gently. “Not consciously.”
The room tilts.
I grip the bedpost to steady myself. “You don’t get to say that.”
“I do,” she says quietly. “Because your physiological responses say it for you.”
I stare at her. “What responses?”
“You dissociate when confronted with conflicting memories,” she explains. “Your heart rate spikes. Your body prepares for threat even when your mind denies it.”
I shake my head, backing away. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re trying to turn me against him like the rest.”
“I’m trying to help you understand why your memories feel fractured,” she says. “Why the revelations didn’t just hurt,they shattered you, why despite the truth infront of you a part of you still wants to deny it”
I sink back onto the bed, suddenly exhausted.
“I don’t want to remember,” I whisper.
She softens. “That makes sense.”
“What if it breaks me m re than the truth already has?” I ask, barely audible.
“It already hurt you,” she replies gently. “Remembering doesn’t create the pain,it gives it context.”
Tears sting my eyes, unwanted and traitorous.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I admit.
She nods. “That’s often where healing begins.”
I laugh weakly. “You people love saying that.”
She smiles faintly. “We do.”
Silence stretches between us.
I look away. “I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I hate that my mind betrayed me.”
“It didn’t,” she says softly. “It saved you when no one else could.”
I close my eyes.
For the first time since the trial, the beast beneath my skin shifts,not in rage, not in hunger,but in something closer to grief.
Dr. Voss stands. “I’ll come back tomorrow,” she says. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”
I open my eyes. “You’re not leaving because I asked.”
She smiles slightly. “No.”
“Figures.”
She moves toward the door, then pauses. “Lyra?”
“Yes?”
“You’re not broken,” she says. “And you’re not a monster. You’re a survivor who hasn’t been allowed to remember why.”
The door closes behind her.
I sit there long after she’s gone, staring at my trembling hands,wondering what they once endured that my mind decided I couldn’t.
And for the first time, I’m terrified not of remembering, but of what I might finally see.