4– Aiden
1211 Words
The morning begins like any other, notes, coffee, a quiet office, but there’s a hum under my skin that wasn’t there yesterday. A leftover vibration from the alley. From the correction. From the sense of order restored. It should’ve faded by now. Instead, my thoughts keep drifting back to Essence Clark, not from sentiment or emotion, but purely in a professional manner.
A client who presents one way while the truth leaks around the edges. A puzzle with corners missing, a case that refuses to sit nearly in its box.
I try to read a file on a different patient but only get halfway through a sentence before my mind snaps back to her. Her tone of voice, her posture, the way she used hostility to hide exhaustion. It had only been one session but she lingers in my mind like an unfinished sentence. Most people telegraph their damage but she tries to bury hers under layers of irritation and sarcasm and then slips, just for a second, when she thinks I’m not looking. A client like that requires attention, my attention.
The door opens precisely at 4:00 pm and she steps inside with the same sharp energy she carried yesterday. No knocking or pausing just walks in like she owns the oxygen in the room. She sits down with her arms folded and her phone tossed onto the small table beside her. I just watch quietly while she notices me staring.
“What ? Stop that.”
“I wasn’t doing anything.”
“You were.”
“I’m only observing you.”
“Exactly, that’s worse than staring.” She mutters, never taking her eyes off her hands. Her tone is combative but not cruel. Defensive irritation, an armor piece she probably forged years ago and hasn’t taken off since.
“Tell me what’s on your mind,” I say calmly.
She huffs. “I wasn’t planning to talk today.”
“You came anyway.”
“Not for talking.” A moment of silence. “I just … didn’t want to go to jail for not coming here.”
“That’s one reason.”
She glares. “You think you’ve got me all figured out already?
“No,” I say. “But you’re angry at yourself for being here.” Her jaw tightens and she sinks into the hair slightly, legs crossing tightly, foot tapping a restless rhythm against the carpet.
“That’s what pisses me off,” she says finally. “I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t give a f**k about being here, right? But some tiny part of me…” She cuts herself off, chewing the inside of her cheek. “I think some part of me feels like I need it. I nod slowly.
“And that feels like failure to you.”
She shoots me a look—sharp, observant. “Maybe.”
“Needing help isn’t failure.”
“That’s exactly what someone would say if they thought I couldn’t handle my own shit.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She tilts her head, studying me. I mean really studying me. “You sit too still,” she says suddenly.
I blink once—slow. “Do I?”
“Yeah.” She gestures at me. “You don’t fidget. Your expression never changes. You just sort of watch. It’s weird.”
“It’s my job to watch.”
“No,” she says, leaning forward now. “You watch like you’re waiting for something.”
She’s perceptive, maybe too perceptive. I rest my hands lightly on my knee. “What do you think I’m waiting for?”
She holds my gaze without flinching. “For me to slip.”
“And do you plan to?”
“Probably,” she says with a shrug. “People like me always do.”
There’s no shame or embarrassment in her voice, just a quiet acceptance.
“What makes you think you’re the type of person who ‘slips’?” I ask.
She lets out a short, humorless laugh. “You really wanna go there?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
She looks down at her phone, thumb tapping the locked screen before she locks it again. A tell for avoidance. Then she finally exhales and answers, “Because I’ve been angry since I was a kid. Not like… throw-something angry. Just that low, simmering, always-on-edge kind.” She clenches her hands together. “And people don’t like angry women. They especially don’t like angry Black women. So you learn to swallow it, hide it, pretend you’re fine.”
She taps her nail against the arm of the chair. “And then one day,” she continues, quieter now, “you’re in a parking lot and someone bumps you with their cart and calls you out your name and suddenly all that anger doesn’t stay swallowed anymore.” Her gaze drifts to the window. There it is, not vulnerability but clarity.
“And you regret the reaction?” I ask.
“No.” A quick answer. She looks back at me. “That’s the problem.”
I let a small silence stretch—not long, not uncomfortable, just enough for the weight of her words to settle. “Do you think anger protects you?” I ask.
“I think it keeps me from getting walked over,” she replies. “And I think the world would love it if I was soft. I think people would treat me better if I was easier to digest.”
Her eyes flick over my face again, slower this time.
“But I’m not soft,” she says. “I just… I don't know what to do with everything I feel.”
I study her, not emotionally, clinically. “You came today,” I say, “because something in you wants to understand yourself. That isn't a weakness.” She scoffs again—less forcefully than earlier.
“Or maybe I’m just tired of fighting everything all the time.”
“Tired is a human emotion,” I say.
“Tired gets people killed,” she counters.
Her words hit sharper than she intends but not for me, for her. I make a note in her file, hypervigilant. Defensive. Self-critical. Emotionally restrained. High awareness. High intelligence. High anger threshold. Monitor.
When I look up, she’s watching me again. Not the way a patient watches a therapist. The way a person watches something that doesn’t quite make sense yet.
“You’re weird,” she says for the second time in two days.
“So you’ve mentioned.”
“I just don’t get you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I feel like I should.”
“Why?”
She doesn’t answer and she stands, grabbing her bag, movements sharp but not rushed. “I don’t know if I’m coming back next week,” she says.
“You will.”
She pauses in the doorway—not looking at me, but not leaving either. “I hate how sure you sound,” she murmurs. Then she’s gone. And the quiet she leaves behind settles into me, not suffocating this time, but familiar. Predictable, a puzzle waiting for its next piece.
- Writer
