Gemotions

The sterile white of the office blurred. He felt a cold sweat prickling his skin. Across the room, she sat, the same girl who'd locked him in the janitor’s closet in sixth grade. The same girl, now Dr. Emily Carter, PhD, specializing in trauma.

His hand trembled as he reached for the water glass on the small table. He felt detached, as if watching himself from above. The polite smile she offered felt like a carefully constructed mask.

"So, Michael, what feels most pressing for you right now?" she asked, her voice deliberately neutral. His carefully rehearsed anxieties, the issues that had driven him to seek therapy, vanished from his mind. All that remained was the echo of playground taunts and the phantom sensation of being trapped in darkness.