Chapter Text
She stood out in the small waiting room like a black hole, swallowing every trace of warmth around her and reflecting nothing but the hollow glow of icy blue eyes. Her short white hair, unnervingly perfect, framed a face that only deepened her unsettling singularity. Unlike most first-time patients, she showed no signs of agitation. People usually betrayed their anxiety through tiny involuntary gestures, subtle movements invisible to untrained eyes. But her… she remained perfectly still. A statue carved from calmness and elegance.
I pulled myself back to reality and remembered why I had entered the waiting room in the first place. My eyes dropped to the name written in my appointment book.
6:30 PM — Miranda P.
Over the phone, the woman who scheduled the appointment had refused to provide a full last name. Unusual, certainly, but not something that interfered with my practice.
“Miranda P ?”
I had spoken the name more for myself than to announce that it was her turn. After all, she was the only person left in the waiting room, long after my official consultation hours had ended. The woman on the phone, her sharp British accent still vivid in my memory,had insisted the appointment take place after closing hours. Her employer, she claimed, required complete anonymity.
The woman’s frozen blue gaze lifted toward me, and I immediately felt it dissecting me from head to toe. She undressed me with her eyes, though not in any sensual way. It was clinical. Analytical. The kind of stare a physician gives while studying a patient.
The same stare I had directed at countless patients myself.
“If you would follow me for your session,” I said, gesturing toward the open door behind me.
She rose without a word. Even that movement felt calculated, impossibly smooth, stripped of any wasted motion. A long black fur coat draped over her shoulders, the kind of garment that looked as though it cost more than an average person’s yearly salary. The dark fur flowed around her like liquid shadow as she approached me in measured silence.
And for the first time that evening, I felt a faint, irrational discomfort settle beneath my skin.
Her black heels clicked sharply against the floor. She dropped into the armchair without hesitation, slipping off her coat and tossing it carelessly to the side.
I couldn’t hold back a small laugh. Most people never quite knew where to sit or whether they were allowed to make themselves comfortable without being invited. But apparently, she didn’t care. She waited for permission from no one — least of all me.
I settled into the chair across from her.
Notebook in hand, the familiar click of my pen was the only sound filling the room during those first few minutes.
At the top of the page, I wrote:
Miranda P. — 6:30 PM, First Session.
She still hadn’t spoken.
As appealing as the idea of being paid simply to admire her was, I still had a job to do, and I intended to do it.
“Mrs. P., we’ve been sitting here for a good five minutes now, and you haven’t said a word. If you don’t wish to begin on your own, I’ll start with some standard questions so we can establish objectives for our future sessions.”
“Miranda.”
“Sorry?” I looked up from my notebook, caught off guard by the softest, most sensual voice I had ever heard.
She swallowed slowly, her eyes half-lidded.
“Call me Miranda.”
I nodded. “Miranda, then. Are you married? Single? Divorced ? Any children, perhaps?”
“I’m currently going through a divorce,” she replied, avoiding my gaze as she turned toward the window. “My third one, actually. It’s practically routine by now.”
Not a trace of emotion pierced the mask she wore. Nothing suggested any real attachment. Interesting. Miranda had said it like it was a simple fact , another line on a résumé. Ordinary. Forgettable.
“I had twin girls from my first marriage. Cassidy and Caroline.”
A pause.
I could see her wrestling with the idea of offering more information.
“They’re turning nine next month.”
My pen scratched across the page, recording the sparse details she’d given me. The sheet was still almost entirely blank.
“You know, even if it isn’t your first divorce, it’s still not a trivial event. It’s entirely normal to need to talk or to feel supported through something like this. Is your divorce the reason you came to see me?”
Miranda’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. She looks down at her manicured hands, slowly turning one palm over the other—an unusual flicker of hesitation for a woman who seems to command every room she enters.
“…It was a reason,” she says at last, her voice quieter, but still measured.
She lifts her eyes to meet mine. There’s no vulnerability there, only calculation, as if she’s weighing exactly how much of herself she can afford to expose to the stranger across from her.
“One doesn’t go through divorce and walk away unscathed,” I add.
A beat of silence.
“Not that I’d ever say that in public,” she replies, a predatory little smile touching her lips.
The air in the room shifts. It feels as though a window has been opened onto an October wind, cold and invasive. But there is no window. Only the weight of something unspoken settling between us, pressing into my chest. My fingers tingle faintly around the pen, and I find myself wanting to rub warmth back into them.
Miranda’s breath catches, barely. Just enough to betray her.
Her posture stiffens, the polished exterior cracking for a fraction of a second before she forces it back into place.
She won’t look at me now. Her gaze drops to the floor, fingers curling into the fabric of her skirt, smoothing it with excessive precision.
“…It wasn’t an attempt,” she says quickly. Too quickly. A justification forming before she can fully control it—and already unraveling as she speaks.
“I was tired. Exhausted from work and… everything else.”
The lie is fragile, even in her voice.
“It was late. Around 2 a.m. I’d been working all day: meetings, calls with the Paris office and then dinner alone.”
Her tone shifts suddenly, drained of edge, as if the memory itself weighs on her.
“I don’t even remember deciding to take them,” she admits more softly. “I just… drank too quickly. Then I took a pill because I thought it would help me sleep.”
A sharp exhale escapes her nose, frustrated, almost angry. For the first time since she walked in, there is no control in it. No careful construction of herself.
She finally meets my eyes again. Her gaze is glassy, not with tears, but with something deeper beneath the surface. Grief, or guilt. Something still forming, still uncontained.
“It was a mistake,” she says through clenched teeth. More like an accusation directed inward than an explanation.
Silence stretches.
The truth sits between us like a third presence in the room. Dense, suffocating, impossible to ignore.
“…I didn’t want to wake up,” she whispers.
The words are so quiet they almost fail to exist at all.
“What do you remember after taking them? Did you feel anything in particular?”
Miranda hesitates, her manicured fingers twisting together, an uncharacteristic nervous tic.
“Rien.”
She says it in French, flat and immediate.
She clearly isn’t going to give more than she wants to, but the refusal itself becomes its own kind of answer. Two can play at this game, and the idea of deciphering her is far too tempting to abandon. Even if she doesn’t want to speak, that is still her choice. In any case, I don’t need words to understand her entirely—only her body language. The problem is, she seems trained to control even that.
“We’re in a psychiatrist’s office, Miranda. Words matter. I need words, not a word.”
Miranda’s voice drops into a whisper, stripped of its usual poise. Each syllable seems dragged out of her, as if it costs something to release them.
“It was… cold. Not physically, the townhouse is always perfectly heated. But emotionally. A numbness spreading through my chest as the alcohol and pills took effect. Then nothing,” she says flatly. “No dreams, no thoughts… just darkness.”
A pause. As if she’s measuring the weight of what she’s about to admit.
“I don’t remember wanting to die that night,” she adds quietly. “But I also don’t remember wanting to live either. And the scariest part… I hadn’t been thinking about Cassidy or Caroline at all in those final moments before blacking out. I didn’t care enough.”
My page is finally starting to fill with ink. I nod passively, understanding she likely doesn’t want commentary for the moment. I avoid her gaze. People need to feel alone when they confess their most buried thoughts. They don’t need a psychiatrist in their thirties staring at them like it’s just another Tuesday.
“What’s the first thing you remember after waking up?”
Miranda’s eyes glaze slightly, as though pulled back into the scene. When she speaks again, her voice is eerily detached like she’s describing someone else’s nightmare.
“Bright lights. The blinding white ceiling of a hospital room. The sharp chemical smell of antiseptic burning my nose. Then the beeping of machines.”
“Do you know what happened in your absence?”
“Cassidy went into my room to sleep with me. She’s been having nightmares lately. Normally, when she comes in, I wake up automatically.” A small, dismissive flick of her hand. “But not that night. She panicked and called 911.”
That is all she offers. And I understand immediately it will be all I get today.
Sessions are usually an hour, maybe an hour and a half. With Miranda, it’s closer to thirty minutes. And even that feels like pushing against something sealed tight. So thirty minutes it will be.
I close my notebook and give her a small, polite smile, one that signals closure.
“I think for a first session, we’ll stop here. That’s a lot of emotion for one day, and it’s important you process it in the best conditions possible.”
I stand and turn toward my desk, pulling out a prescription pad and writing quickly.
When I hand it to her, she frowns.
“This is a prescription for an anxiolytic. Alprazolam. I’ve reviewed your medical and psychiatric history, and there are no prior contraindications, so we’ll start with a low dose.”
Her face pales, if it’s even possible for her to look more alabaster.
“I’m also giving you my personal number. I’ve scheduled our next appointment for the same time next week; it’s written on the back as well.” I hand her the card. “You can call me between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. in case of a crisis or any issue related to the prescription. I remain available to my patients even on weekends.”
Her lips tighten into a thin line.
“Aren’t you the gallant knight on a white horse, ready to rescue your poor neurotic patients?” she says with glacial sarcasm.
“I don’t have a horse,” I reply lightly. “Just a white Porsche. You were close though, almost poetic.”
For a moment, her expression sharpens. Then she grabs her coat, pulls it close around her, and leaves the room with a door that slams like a verdict.
A strange woman. Stunning enough to stop a room but with a temper like a blade.