The Girl in the Chair
1599 Words
The office smelled faintly of leather and rain. Morning storms had burned into a gray, reluctant afternoon; by the time the clock on his wall slid past two, the city outside was a watercolor of wet pavement and umbrellas. Ethan adjusted the notepad on his desk, lined up the pen with its spine, and told himself the ritual meant something. Control lived in small habits.
Mrs. Collins appeared in the doorway like a punctuation mark—neat bun, neat blouse, fifty going on unshakable.
“Your two-thirty, Doctor,” she said, voice pitched low. “Miss Lancaster. On time.”
“Send her in,” Ethan replied.
The door opened almost immediately. No dramatic pause. No prowling walk. She simply stepped inside, closed the door softly behind her, and stood there a heartbeat as if mapping the room.
Jeans. Clean sneakers. A pale oversized shirt tucked loosely into the waistband, sleeves rolled to her elbows. Hair pulled back in a casual knot that looked accidental and expensive in the same breath. Physically, she looked strong in the way people look when their bodies are something they use, not show—no angles sharpened for cameras, just balance.
“Miss Lancaster?” Ethan rose a fraction, a gesture of welcome he’d practiced a thousand times.
“Vivienne is fine,” she said. Her voice was low and even, not soft exactly—more like a line drawn with a good pen. No nervous tremor. No performance.
He motioned to the chair opposite his desk. She crossed the room and sat without fuss. Hands folded loosely in her lap. Ankles together. Back straight, but not military stiff. She placed a small leather bag on the floor by her feet and didn’t touch it again.
Calm, he noted. Not the brittle kind that cracks if you tap it. The kind born from choosing what to reveal and when.
“How are you today?” he asked, easing into the familiar cadence.
“Well enough,” she said.
He clicked his pen, wrote her name across the top of the page, and was aware—absurdly, unprofessionally—of his own pulse, a shade faster than baseline. Curiosity, he told himself. After last night, anyone’s would be.
“Your mother reached out,” he began. “She seemed… concerned.”
Vivienne lifted her gaze. Pale green eyes, clear in the way winter air is clear: beautiful and not especially forgiving.
“She worries,” she said, and there was no heat in it, no teenage eye-roll of a grown woman. Just a statement.
“About what, specifically?” Ethan asked.
A brief pause, then the faintest lift at one corner of her mouth.
“About me, obviously. Or I wouldn’t be here.”
He let the line settle between them. “She mentioned you might be struggling.”
“Struggling.” Vivienne repeated the word as if it were a flavor. Bland, serviceable.
“Her words,” Ethan clarified.
“And what do you think?” she asked, head tilting a degree. Not a challenge. A test of his starting point.
“I think I don’t have enough information yet,” he said.
Something flickered behind her eyes. Approval? Amusement? It was gone before he could pin a label to it.
“Why don’t you tell me why you think she feels this way,” he added.
“You’d have to ask her,” Vivienne replied.
“I’m asking you.”
Her gaze didn’t wander. “Maybe she’s bored. Or lonely. Or maybe she likes stories.” The words were mild; the precision wasn’t.
He wrote a line that meant nothing and everything: narrative control.
“Let’s just start with some basics,” he said. “Work?”
“Consulting. Mostly brand strategy. Freelance. I read a lot of data so other people don’t have to.”
“Hours manageable?”
“As manageable as I make them.”
“Sleep?”
“Good enough.”
“Exercise?”
“Five days a week. Morning.”
“Alcohol, tobacco, recreational drugs?”
“No. No. No.”
He marked each answer, his attention more on the way she moved than the content. No fidgeting. No defensive laughter. Breath steady, not shallow. She matched his cadence at times—mirroring, or simple compatibility? Hard to tell this early.
“Friends?” he asked.
“A few.”
He flipped a page. “Relationships?”
Her eyes flicked—briefly—to his hand on the pen, then back to his face.
“Is that relevant?” she asked, tone light, edges smoothed.
“It might be,” he said, keeping his voice even.
A beat. She leaned back a fraction, posture still neat, as if making room for an honest sentence.
“I had someone,” she said. “It lasted almost five years.”
“That’s a long time,” Ethan noted. “What happened?”
“Nothing dramatic.” The faintest edge crept in—exhaustion more than bitterness. “We reached the point where a next step was expected. Marriage. Family. The usual script.”
“And you didn’t want that.”
“I wasn’t ready.” Her eyes held his. Not flirty. Not defiant. Just steady. “I’m still not.”
Truth delivered like a closed door. No apology offered; none requested.
He felt a small current move through the room and vanish. He turned a page to bleed it off.
“Any history of anxiety, depression, panic?”
“No formal diagnosis.”
“Any history of self-harm, suicidal thoughts, attempts?”
“No.”
“Any physical health concerns?”
“No.”
“Childhood? School?”
“Private schools. Stable household. I was a quiet child.” A wisp of humor. “Not very interesting, I’m afraid.”
“Your relationship with your mother?” he asked. The air changed a degree. Not colder—quieter.
“She enjoys managing outcomes,” Vivienne said at last. “She believes management prevents pain.”
“Did it?” Ethan asked.
“For her,” Vivienne said. If there was blame in it, the blade stayed sheathed.
He let silence make space. Most people rush to fill it; she did not. The clock hummed. Rain stitched soft lines across the glass.
“Your mother mentioned worries about violent behavior,” Ethan said, finally placing the word in the room. He didn’t watch her face; he watched the small muscles at the jaw, the line of her throat, the hands in her lap.
Vivienne’s shoulders didn’t lift or lock. “My mother has strong feelings and few outlets,” she said. “She would prefer I participate in her feelings.”
“Do you ever have thoughts of hurting others?”
“No,” she said. Then—after the smallest pause—“Not outside the ordinary human range.”
He almost smiled. “And what do you consider ordinary?”
“Anger when hurt. Annoyance when lied to. Fantasies when powerless.” The words landed without perfume. “Human.”
He wrote another nothing that might mean everything: frames violence as continuum.
“Do you believe you need help, Vivienne?” he asked.
“Don’t we all, Doctor?” she returned, and that one found a precise spot between his ribs.
By the forty-minute mark, Ethan registered two parallel truths. One: if there was pathology, it sat behind thick glass—no cracks yet, no fog on the pane. Two: it was… pleasant talking to her. Not thrilling. Not provocative. Just clean. He couldn’t remember the last time that had felt like enough.
“Thank you,” he said, closing the notepad softly. “I’d like to schedule another session, if you’re willing.”
“Of course,” she said, rising in a smooth line. “Same time next week?”
“That works,” he said, standing as well.
“Payment with Mrs. Collins?” she asked.
“She’ll handle it,” Ethan replied.
Vivienne bent to lift her bag—no rummaging, no performative delays. When she straightened, her eyes caught his for a moment. It wasn’t a look that said I know you. It wasn’t even a look that said I want you to know me. It was the look you give a window to see if it reflects or reveals.
“Thank you for seeing me,” she said.
“My pleasure,” Ethan said, and was aware as he said it that, yes, it had been.
She turned, crossed to the door, and left. The latch clicked. Silence took its seat again.
He stood where he was for a count of three, then exhaled and sat. The smallest ribbon of disappointment tugged somewhere unprofessional. No revelation. No explosion. No monster peering through lace. Just a composed young woman indulging her mother’s narrative.
Maybe, he thought, not for the first time, the mother was the problem.
He reached for his mug—and froze.
The top magazine on the side table sat open, though he hadn’t left it that way. Across the white margin, dark graphite lines sprawled in deliberate strokes.
A cat.
Not cute. Not cartoonish. Its body hung from a thin rope, limp and twisted, head tilted at a grotesque angle.
For a long moment Ethan just stared. The air in the room seemed to thin.
Vivienne’s soft voice still lingered in his ears, her calm replies echoing. And here—this.
Nothing in her posture, her tone, her words matched the violence on that page.
And somehow, that made it worse.
- Writer
