CHAPTER 9 Soft Music and Slower Breathing
1626 Words
Thursday, December 13, 2018
Thorne Psychiatric Institute
5:06 PM
The rain had stopped for once.
Blackwater City looked strangely unfinished without it.
Elena noticed that while standing outside Thorne Psychiatric Institute staring up at the tall gray building with both hands buried deep inside her coat pockets.
The windows reflected a pale winter sky.
Cold light.
Sharp edges.
Everything looked cleaner after rainstorms.
More exposed.
She checked her phone screen.
5:06 PM.
Six minutes late.
Not disastrous.
Still enough to make her stomach tighten.
A man brushed past her toward the entrance while speaking loudly into a wireless headset.
Elena instinctively stepped aside too quickly.
“Sorry.”
The man never even looked at her.
She exhaled quietly through her nose.
Then finally walked inside.
Warmth wrapped around her immediately.
Cedarwood.
Coffee.
Soft piano music drifting through hidden speakers.
The institute still felt too polished for human suffering.
Jasmine looked up from the reception desk.
“There she is.”
Elena blinked.
“You say that like I escaped captivity.”
“You missed Tuesday.”
“I had volunteer work.”
“You voluntarily interacted with society. We were all very concerned.”
Elena almost smiled.
Almost.
Jasmine leaned slightly across the desk lowering her voice dramatically.
“He’s been in a mood.”
Elena frowned immediately.
“Doctor Thorne?”
“Oh absolutely. Brooding. Staring out windows. Probably listening to tragic cello music.”
“That feels medically inappropriate.”
“Everything here feels medically inappropriate.”
A reluctant laugh slipped out before Elena could stop it.
Jasmine pointed triumphantly.
“See? Improvement.”
The waiting room sat unusually quiet tonight.
Only one elderly man occupied the chairs near the fireplace reading a newspaper beneath dim amber lighting.
Elena removed her coat carefully before sitting near the windows.
The depressed octopus painting still hung above the shelves.
She studied it suspiciously.
Still depressing.
Still slightly octopus shaped.
Her gaze drifted farther across the room.
Framed degrees lined the far wall beside the hallway entrance.
Harvard Medical School.
Johns Hopkins.
Professional commendations arranged in expensive black frames.
She stared at them longer this time.
Not because she doubted they existed.
Because she realized she had never actually questioned them before.
That unsettled her slightly.
Trust happened quietly.
Not all at once.
One remembered tea order.
One late night phone call.
One hand reaching for yours in a crowded subway station.
And suddenly someone existed inside your life before you noticed the door opening.
The thought sat uneasily beneath her ribs.
“Elena.”
She looked up too fast.
Adrian stood near the hallway entrance wearing a dark wool coat over charcoal trousers, silver framed glasses catching the soft light briefly as he removed them.
No tie tonight.
For some reason that detail felt strangely intimate.
“You’re staring at my credentials like you’re preparing an investigation.”
Heat crawled instantly into her face.
“I was not.”
“You were frowning at Johns Hopkins specifically.”
“I was thinking.”
“Dangerous hobby.”
“That’s exactly what a suspicious person would say.”
A faint shift touched the corner of his mouth.
“There’s still time to leave before the session begins.”
“I considered it in the elevator.”
“The elevator is useful for reflection.”
“It smelled like burnt wires and regret.”
“Old building.”
He gestured lightly toward the hallway.
Elena stood slowly.
As they walked toward his office she noticed another framed photograph hanging near the corridor wall.
Two boys standing beside a lake.
One older.
One younger.
The younger one looked painfully serious.
Dark hair.
Thin shoulders.
Expression already guarded despite looking no older than ten.
Victor stood beside him with one arm shoved awkwardly into his pocket.
“You look miserable in childhood photographs too?”
Adrian glanced briefly toward the frame.
“Family trait.”
“That explains a lot actually.”
“Cruel.”
“Honest.”
Something quieter moved briefly across his face then.
Gone too fast to fully read.
Inside the office the jazz music had returned.
Low trumpet drifting softly through warm lamplight.
Her tea already waited beside the couch.
This time she noticed something else.
The mug matched the one from last week exactly.
Dark green ceramic with a tiny crack near the handle.
Same placement on the table.
Same amount poured.
The consistency should not have affected her.
But it did.
Because consistency felt dangerously close to safety.
She sat carefully.
Adrian remained standing briefly near the record player adjusting the volume lower.
Noticing the thunder forecast perhaps.
Or maybe simply noticing her.
That thought unsettled her enough to make her look away.
“How was the outreach center?” he asked finally.
Elena wrapped both hands around the warm mug.
“Loud.”
“That sounded personal.”
“The soup tried to psychologically assassinate me.”
A faint flicker of amusement touched his expression.
“You remembered something.”
Not a question.
Of course.
She stared down into her tea quietly.
Steam curling slowly upward between her hands.
“Yes.”
Adrian sat across from her.
Patient.
Still.
Never interrupting silences too quickly.
That probably mattered more than she admitted.
“Elena.”
She looked up reluctantly.
“What happened in the storage room?”
The question landed softly.
No pressure hidden inside it.
Which somehow made answering harder.
Her fingers tightened slightly around the mug.
“The other kids used to lock me in there sometimes.”
Adrian’s expression did not visibly change.
But the room itself somehow felt sharper afterward.
“How long?”
“Usually an hour.”
The word usually hung unpleasantly between them.
“One girl kept a timer once.”
Silence.
Jazz murmuring quietly in the background.
Elena forced herself to continue before she lost momentum.
“She said crying before fifteen minutes meant I was pathetic.”
Her voice remained calm somehow.
Detached.
That frightened her slightly.
“I got good at counting things.”
Adrian’s gaze rested on her carefully.
Not pity.
Never pity.
That mattered more than it should have.
“What happened when they let you out?”
The question caught her off guard.
Not because it was difficult.
Because nobody had ever asked it before.
She stared at him quietly.
Then shrugged one shoulder.
“I usually pretended nothing happened.”
“Why?”
Elena laughed once.
Small.
Humorless.
“Because kids smell weakness like sharks smell blood.”
The office fell quiet again.
Outside the tall windows, evening traffic crawled slowly through wet streets while distant sirens echoed somewhere downtown.
Adrian leaned back slightly in his chair.
“You learned invisibility very early.”
The words settled strangely beneath her ribs.
Not dramatic.
Not overly sympathetic.
Just accurate.
Elena looked away first.
Her gaze drifted toward the bookshelves lining the walls.
Psychiatry texts.
Neurology journals.
A row of vinyl records near the window.
And farther above them, another framed photograph.
This one older.
A woman beside a piano.
Elegant posture.
Sharp cheekbones.
Beautiful in the cold intimidating way expensive statues were beautiful.
Eleanor Thorne.
Even smiling, she looked difficult to survive.
“You look like your mother,” Elena murmured absentmindedly.
A pause followed.
Then:
“I’ve heard that phrased less ominously.”
Elena glanced back toward him.
“You know she scares me.”
“She scares most people.”
“You say that very casually.”
“I grew up there.”
The answer arrived dry enough to almost sound humorous.
Almost.
Elena studied him carefully.
“You really told me Victor was locked outside during thunderstorms.”
“I did.”
“Does he know that?”
Adrian’s gaze shifted briefly toward the rain dark windows.
“No.”
Something tightened quietly in Elena’s chest.
“Would he be angry?”
“Victor dislikes personal disclosures.”
“That feels unfair considering he interrogated me like a murder suspect.”
“That’s his love language.”
A startled laugh escaped her unexpectedly.
The sound lingered briefly between them.
Soft.
Unpracticed.
Real enough to make something unreadable flicker across Adrian’s face before disappearing again.
And suddenly Elena became aware of how easily she laughed here now.
How naturally she reached for comfort inside this room.
The realization unsettled her enough that she sat straighter immediately.
Adrian noticed.
Of course he did.
But this time he said nothing about it.
Instead he rose quietly from his chair moving toward the record player near the shelves.
“What is this?” Elena asked, watching him flip through vinyl sleeves.
“Billie Holiday.”
“You listen to depressing jazz professionally?”
“I contain multitudes.”
“That sounded rehearsed.”
“It was stolen from Walt Whitman.”
“Intellectual theft. Disturbing.”
He placed the record carefully onto the turntable.
Soft crackling filled the room before slow trumpet music drifted warmly through the office.
Elena recognized the song immediately.
“I know this one.”
“You like old jazz.”
The statement arrived simply.
Matter of fact.
Yet something about hearing her preferences reflected back at her still created that strange quiet feeling beneath her ribs.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Recognition maybe.
Which felt rarer.
Outside, thunder rolled faintly somewhere far across the city.
Elena tensed before she could stop herself.
The music volume lowered slightly a moment later.
Not enough to announce itself.
Just enough.
Her throat tightened unexpectedly.
Because he noticed.
Because he adjusted.
Because nobody had ever learned her fear patterns before.
And somewhere beneath the warmth of jazz and lamplight and careful attention, another quieter thought unfolded slowly inside her.
People did not become dangerous all at once.
Sometimes they became necessary first.
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