The waiting room felt unusually sterile today, the quiet hum of the fluorescent lights above me doing little to drown out the thoughts running through my head. I held the crumpled, old piece of paper that Mera had drawn on her usual messy but beautiful sketch of two stick figures in spacesuits one holding a book and the other reaching out. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to show it to Aaron yet, but I wanted to have it with me, it felt like a bridge I could offer him.
The time had come for our next visit. The counselor had told me Aaron was eager to share his story with me, a book he had been working on about a boy lost in space. I could almost feel my pulse quicken.
This was a moment, a turning point. I was about to meet Aaron where he was, and this time, it wasn’t going to be through some cold, clinical sheet of paper or a session monitored by someone else.
This was us.
The door opened, and I saw him standing there, holding a book close to his chest, eyes downcast, shifting from foot
