Appointment Unknown
906 Words
Appointment Unknown
Avril stared at her screen for twenty minutes before typing a single word.
The main character—the cold, unreadable heir who hated therapy—was supposed to be fictional.
But lately, he looked a lot like the man sitting across from her on Wednesdays.
She hated how her fingers hovered over the keys, waiting for Khaid’s voice to echo in her head before she wrote dialogue. It wasn’t healthy. And it definitely wasn’t ethical.
But the scenes were better now. More raw. More real.
She hit save and shut her laptop like it had accused her of something.
She couldn't wrap her head around what she was doing or why she was even doing it, but doing it she definitely was.
---
Therapy that week felt different.
Felt…. Necessary.
Khaid didn’t come in late. He didn’t waste time with sarcastic pleasantries either.
He just sat down, leaned forward slightly, and said: “Do you believe people actually change? Or do they just perform better over time?”
The words hit her with the weight of something familiar. She blinked.
He had said it with casual detachment—but it echoed almost word-for-word from a journal entry she’d read days ago.
She tried to keep her face neutral.
“I think people can grow. But not everyone wants to,” she replied carefully.
Khaid’s lips twitched, almost a smile. “That’s honest.”
She jotted a note in her pad, hands suddenly clammy. She had no idea if he was testing her… or just being himself.
Either way, the overlap between fiction and reality was tightening.
And she wasn't excited at the idea of it all.
---
Back home, she slumped on the couch and groaned into a throw pillow.
Priya walked in mid-rant, holding a bag of groceries and a single mango like it was gold. “Let me guess. Therapy Boy said something deep and you freaked out again?”
Avril stood up lazily to grab a mango for herself and said “How do you always know?”
“Because I live with you. And because you leave your expressionless face at work but bring his name home.” Priya said having a mischievous smirk that always annoyed her
Avril rolled her eyes. “I don’t say his name.”
“Exactly. That’s how I know it’s serious.”
---
That night, Avril didn’t write.
She pulled the journal back out. Just to read one more page.
The handwriting looked sharper than usual. And angry.
“I said I don’t do therapy. But he wouldn’t stop pushing. Now I’m stuck. If I say nothing, I look defensive. If I say too much, I look weak. So I say just enough to keep control.”
Avril closed the journal.
Her stomach turned.
She knew that tone now. She had heard it just hours ago.
This wasn’t coincidence.
But she still didn’t know what to do with that truth.
Wednesdays were usually tolerable. A weird kind of routine. Therapy at 1PM, mental chaos at 2, and emotional exhaustion by 3:30. But this week?
No Khaid.
No call. No warning. Just… absence.
Avril waited an extra ten minutes, then another five.
Nothing.
She texted the clinic’s front desk. “Was the 1PM client rescheduled?”
The reply was fast: “He didn’t book through us. Walk-in. No contact info left.”
Her fingers froze on the screen.
Right.
Of course.
He hadn’t booked the first appointment himself. His grandfather had. There was no record of his number, no email, no emergency contact. Just a name and a dark suit she couldn’t stop picturing.
She thought she needed space from this guy even wished for it but she wasn't so sure about that anymore
---
She tried to carry on with her day. One client. A coffee run. A paragraph of ghostwriting.
But nothing landed right.
Everything felt unfinished. Her characters were flat. Her words were dull. Her brain kept circling the same unhelpful thought: Why do you care this much?
She told herself it was professional concern. She told herself he was just a case. But that didn't explain why she checked the front desk again before leaving. Or why she caught herself staring out the window like he might pass by.
---
By Friday, she was antsy.
Even Priya noticed. “You’ve rearranged your bookshelf three times. Either you’re avoiding work, or you’re lowkey in love with someone problematic.”
Avril dropped the novel in her hand. “I’m not in love.”
“Mhm. That’s what someone not in love would totally not say.”
Avril shot her a glare. “He missed one session. People miss sessions all the time.”
Priya raised a brow. “And you spiral every time that happens?”
Avril didn’t answer. Because no, she didn’t.
---
That night, the journal taunted her from her bedside drawer.
She opened it with the kind of guilt that no one else could see but her.
The most recent entry—one she hadn’t read before—was shorter than the rest.
“The world expects me to show up. Smile. Obey. Pretend I’m not drowning. What happens when I stop pretending?”
Avril exhaled slowly.
This wasn’t just a story anymore.
And the worst part?
She had no way of knowing if the next page was already being written—or if it had ended, somewhere, in silence.
- Writer
