The Savior’s Trap

Chapter Twelve – The Question

The clinic seemed louder than usual that morning. Phones rang in quick bursts at the front desk, and the clatter of keyboards echoed faintly from the administrative offices. A nurse hurried past with a stack of charts pressed to her chest. The ordinary rhythm of work carried on, but to Elena it all sounded sharper, almost intrusive, like every noise was trying to interrupt the thoughts she hadn’t been able to quiet since the night before.

She had slept badly. Too much replaying of the dinner, of the way Evan’s questions had cut beneath the polite surface of the evening. Too much of the image of herself pulling the white box down from the closet shelf, standing there with it in her hands as though it weighed far more than it did. The memory of her choice made her pulse flutter now, walking down the hallway with her bag over her shoulder. The release had calmed her body. The rest of her felt unsettled, almost raw.

As she passed the narrow window by the stairwell, she caught her reflection in the glass. Black skirt, pale blouse, hair pinned in her usual neat twist. Professional. Attractive even, in a restrained way. Yet she barely recognized the woman staring back. Her eyes looked too alert, too restless, as though something behind them was pacing, waiting to be let out.

How do other women manage this? she wondered. How do they live with the same ache and still look untouched, unshaken? Do they bury it under busy schedules—kids, chores, yoga, book clubs? Do they distract themselves with housework, with husbands who only half-listen? Or do they have their own secrets, tucked away in drawers, unspoken and invisible?

By the time she reached her office, the question had grown too loud to keep inside. She set her bag down, flipped absently through the stack of folders on her desk, but the words kept circling in her head until she felt almost reckless with the need to let them out.

Katherine would understand. Or at least, Katherine would listen.

Elena found her in the staff lounge, pouring coffee into a travel mug. Katherine always looked as though the day bent to her instead of the other way around. Her dark hair was pinned smoothly back, her blouse crisp, her lipstick perfectly applied even this early. She carried herself like a woman who knew exactly who she was—wife, mother, therapist, someone whose life made sense.

Elena hesitated in the doorway, then stepped inside. “Katherine, do you have a minute?”

“Of course,” Katherine said, smiling. She screwed the lid onto her mug and leaned against the counter. “Though if it’s about patient schedules, I might need two cups first.”

Elena managed a small smile and sank into one of the lounge chairs. She folded her hands in her lap. “It’s not about scheduling. It’s… something more personal.”

That piqued Katherine’s interest. She arched one eyebrow and crossed the room to sit opposite her. “All right. You’ve got my attention.”

Elena drew in a breath, then pushed the words out before she could stop herself. “I’ve been thinking about how women handle loneliness. Not just emotionally. I mean… physically. Sexually.”

For a moment, Katherine froze with her mug halfway to her lips. Then she gave a startled laugh. “That is not what I expected to hear over my morning coffee.”

“I’m serious.” Elena’s voice was quiet but steady. “You’re married, you have stability. But imagine if you didn’t. Imagine if you were alone. How would you manage? What would you do with… all of that?”

Katherine blinked at her, genuinely surprised. “Elena, are you really asking me this? Because it doesn’t sound like a hypothetical. It sounds like something you’ve been carrying around.”

Elena felt heat climb into her cheeks. “Maybe I have. But don’t you ever wonder? About other women, about what they do when there’s no partner? Or when the partner isn’t enough?”

Katherine shook her head, almost incredulous. “No. I don’t wonder, because I’ve never had to. When I was younger, there were boyfriends. Later, there was my husband. And when things between us aren’t perfect, we talk about it, we work on it. That’s the difference. You build, you fix. You don’t… you don’t go looking for replacements.”

Her tone softened, but her gaze stayed sharp. “Elena, what happened? Because this isn’t the kind of question you just throw out casually.”

Elena’s throat tightened. She looked down at her hands, fingers pressed white together. “Nothing. I was just thinking. That’s all.”

Katherine leaned forward, setting her mug down on the table with a soft click. “I’ve known you for years. I can tell when you’re holding something back. You’ve been steady through the divorce, through everything. And now suddenly you’re asking me about s****l loneliness? Something has changed.”

The words pressed against Elena’s chest like a weight. She thought of Vincent, of his smile when he said he liked rules, of the way his presence unsettled her more than any patient ever had. She thought of Evan across the table, asking for dirty stories as if her work existed for his entertainment. She thought of the pink box, the decision she’d made, the flood of relief and the sting of shame that followed.

But she couldn’t tell Katherine any of that. Not yet.

“It was only a question,” she said finally, forcing her tone into something light. “Maybe too blunt for morning coffee. Forget it.”

Katherine studied her for a long moment, clearly unconvinced. “Whatever it is, Elena, you can’t carry it alone forever. That’s how mistakes happen.”

Elena rose, smoothing her skirt, her professional calm sliding back into place. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, turning toward the door.

But she stopped, her hand on the frame, something inside refusing to let the conversation end there. She turned back, the confession spilling out before she could stop it.

“I went on a date,” she said softly. “A blind date, my friends arranged it. And it was… awful.”

Katherine blinked in surprise, then let out a laugh—warm and teasing, a sound that filled the sterile lounge. “Awful enough that you came in here first thing in the morning to interrogate me about women surviving s****l loneliness? Then he must have been truly dreadful.”

Elena tried to smile, though it felt thin, almost brittle. “Yes. He was.”

Katherine shook her head, still amused. “One bad man can’t scare you back into hiding. If he did, then he really must have been a monster over dinner.”

Elena nodded as though in agreement, letting Katherine’s laughter fill the space. Outwardly, she looked like a woman sharing a clumsy anecdote. Inwardly, she knew the truth Katherine couldn’t guess: it wasn’t about one man, or one dinner. It was the shadow of her own need, growing darker each day—and she wasn’t ready to let the world see it.