Dark Therapy

6–Aiden

I arrived at her building faster than I should have. She didn’t expect me to come. That much was obvious from the surprise and irritation in her voice when she saw me but that didn’t matter. She called while actively escalating. Sometimes stabilization requires presence, no phone call could’ve calmed that.

She stands at the top of the stairs staring at me like she can’t decide whether to curse or thank me. “You weren’t supposed to come,” she finally says.

“I know.” I take one step up, but no more. Boundaries, professional boundaries always. “But you needed someone to stop you from burning the whole building down. So, here I am.”

Her jaw flexes. “You think I can’t interrupt it myself?”

“No,” I say calmly. “I think today you couldn’t.”

She doesn’t argue and that tells me more than if she had screamed. I keep my posture loose, non-threatening, hands visible, stance angled—not blocking her door, but offering a choice. She chooses to let me in. Inside, her apartment smells faintly of lavender and something metallic—old stress and newer exhaustion.

The lights are low. Her jacket is thrown over a chair. Shoes kicked near the door. A life in motion, not rest.She sits on the couch as if gravity forced her down. I remain standing a moment longer, giving her space to adjust to my presence. She looks small and furious at the same time, a combination I’ve learned is the most volatile.

“I’m fine now,” she says. She’s not.

“Tell me your physical symptoms,” I say, sitting in the chair opposite her. Not beside her. Never beside.

Her eyes narrow. “Why does that matter?”

“Because your body escalates before your mind does. If you can identify the signs early, you can control them before they control you.”

She lists her symptoms reluctantly, “My hands won’t stop shaking, my jaw hurts, I’m breathing fast, and my chest is tight.” All the hallmarks of adrenaline fatigue layered over prolonged emotional strain.

“Your body isn’t betraying you,” I tell her. “It’s reacting to a threat—real or perceived.”

“You call that man a threat?”

“I call anything that destabilizes you a threat.”

She looks away, embarrassment mixed with indignation. “I shouldn’t have let him get me that worked up,” she mutters. “Now I just look like that stereotype, that angry Black woman everyone thinks they understand.” I nod once.

“They weaponize that stereotype against you,” I say. “To invalidate you. It doesn’t mean your anger is misplaced.” Her eyes flick to mine.

She’s beginning to understand that I don’t flinch from her intensity. I don’t fear her anger. I don’t minimize it. I study the tension in her shoulders, the way her foot keeps tapping, the shake in her exhale. She’s decompressing, slowly.

“You called before acting,” I reminded her. “That’s progress.”

She scoffs. “You showed up.”

“You needed interruption, not isolation.”

“Still doesn’t mean you had to come.”

“No,” I agree. “But clinically, it was the correct response.”

Her gaze sharpens, studying me again, she thinks she can read me. I know she can’t but the attempt is noteworthy. She softens slightly, just enough to breathe without strain.

“I’m okay now,” she says.

“You’re calmer,” I correct. “Not okay.”

Her eyes narrowed again, irritated but she didn't challenge me this time. There it is, a shift, small but significant. She’s beginning to trust the analysis even when she resists the process.

“I’ll leave,” I tell her, rising from the chair. “You’ll sleep better once the adrenaline clears.”

She looks away again, jaw tightening, but she doesn’t argue. Her body is still humming with leftover tension, it’s not panic anymore, but the aftershock. The part most people mistake for calm because it’s quiet. She stands when I stand, unintentional mirroring. Overstimulation often does that. Another detail I filed away.

I walk to her door. She follows a few steps behind, arms crossed tightly — defensive, embarrassed, irritated that she needed grounding at all. I won't comment on it. I don’t comment on the fact that she keeps glancing at me from the corner of her eye either, studying me like I’m a pressure she hasn’t named yet. At the door, she reaches for the handle first, as if regaining control of something small makes the night less humiliating.

“Thank you,” she says, barely audible, like the words cost more than she wants me to know.

“You’re welcome,” I say simply. “Call sooner next time.”

She bristles. “I’m not making a habit of this.”

“I’m not asking you to,” I reply. “I’m telling you what will prevent escalation.”

She hates that answer. Hates that it makes sense and that she knows she’ll do it. We stand there for a moment, not close or intimate, but aware. The first spark of recognition. She opens the door, expecting me to leave immediately. I step into the hall, but I pause — not looking at her, not looking back inside — simply allowing the moment to settle.

“Essence,” I say quietly.

She lifts her chin. “What?”

“You’re not failing,” I tell her. “You’re regulating.”

Her throat works once, as if she’s swallowing something she refuses to let out. She closes the door, softly. Not slamming it, or locking it instantly, softly. A sign she won’t recognize, but I do. I descend the stairs, calm and measured but I don’t leave the building.

I pause at the bottom of the stairwell, hands in my pockets, listening to the faint sounds coming from her apartment. I hear the rustle of her jacket being picked up, the muted thunk of her shoes kicked aside, the slow exhale of someone no longer holding herself together. She thinks she’s alone now but she isn’t.

I step outside into the cold night air, scanning the street automatically for her car, the sidewalk, the neighboring units, the shadows along the edges of the lot. Not looking for anything specific. Searching because it’s just become my instinct, simply to understand the environment that rattles her edges.

I turn toward the street, the cold settling comfortably into my bones. The night is quiet in the way that cities rarely are — subdued, waiting. My eyes adjust easily to the dark, picking apart movement from stillness, intention from coincidence.

Then I see the man from earlier, her neighbor, stepping out of the side walkway with his hood half up and his phone pressed to his ear. I recognize the posture immediately, loose and careless. This is someone who’s used to taking up too much space and never being checked for it.

He’s laughing, not loudly or dramatically, just casually. As if he didn’t spend the last half hour provoking a woman who worked all day, walked into her building exhausted, and tried her damned hardest not to crack. As if he didn’t call her an angry Black woman. As if he didn’t call her aggressive. As if he didn’t call her something far worse under his breath. He doesn’t notice me. He starts down the sidewalk, oblivious, still talking on the phone.

“Man, she crazy,” he says, snickering. “For real. Always got an attitude. I swear—” My jaw flexes once. That’s all it takes and I move, not fast just with a purpose.

I follow him without being seen, staying just far enough back that he never turns around, never senses a shift in the air, never once considers that the night might decide to balance itself. He rounds the corner into the alley behind the dumpsters, a shortcut he’s clearly used to taking. It’s a narrow space with low visibility and one exit which is very convenient for me. I step into the alley after him, hands still in my pockets, expression unchanged.