Every Thursday At 3

Chapter 1 — 3:00 PM The clock above the reception desk read 2:57 PM. May Carter stared at it. Three minutes. She had spent the entire morning pretending she wasn't nervous about meeting Dr. Travis Hale. It hadn't worked. Westbridge University had called her behavior “concerning.” Her counselor had called it “a pattern.” The school authorities had simply called it “an incident.” May called it Tuesday. She had been escorted from campus after an argument that ended with a student being taken to the hospital and May being taken somewhere else. Here. At exactly 3:00 PM, a door opened. “May Carter?” She looked up. A man stood in the doorway holding a thin brown folder. “That's me.” “I'm Dr. Hale.” He stepped aside. “Come in.” May entered the office. It was surprisingly ordinary. A desk. Two chairs. A bookshelf. A window overlooking the hospital courtyard. And a clock. 3:00 PM. “Sit wherever you're comfortable,” Travis said. She sat opposite him. He opened her file. His eyes moved across the first page. Then stopped. May watched him carefully. “You've been referred by Westbridge University,” he said. “I know.” “Do you know why?” “They think I'm unstable.” “Do you?” May smiled faintly. “I think people call things unstable when they don't understand them.” Travis looked up. For the first time, their eyes met. “You seem very certain of yourself.” “I have to be.” “Why?” “Because nobody else is.” Silence. Travis closed the file. “Let's start with something simple.” “Okay.” “Tell me what happened at school.” May leaned back. “That depends.” “On what?” “On whether you're asking what happened…” Her smile disappeared. “…or what they said happened.” The clock ticked. 3:04. Travis watched her. May watched the clock. Neither of them noticed the tiny red light blinking beneath his desk. A recording device. And May had already seen it. She smiled. “Doctor?” “Yes?” “Do you record all your patients?” Travis froze. May leaned forward. “Because if you do…” She glanced toward the hidden device. “…you should probably know that I'm very good at lying.”