40

Marianna.

His gaze moves past me. Locks onto something across the room.

I turn.

Dr. Kevin Hartley is standing near the water feature, talking to someone from the clinical team.

Duane moves.

Not fast. He doesn't run. Doesn't charge across the marble floors like some kind of action hero. He just... walks.

Dr. Hartley looks up. Sees Duane approaching. His smile doesn't falter—if anything, it gets warmer. Professional. The expression of someone greeting a high-profile client.

"Mr. Richter!" He extends his hand. "Right on time. I was just—"

Duane grabs him by the collar.

Not the extended hand. The collar. His fist closes around the fabric of Dr. Hartley's expensive polo and he just... lifts. Slightly. Enough that Dr. Hartley's feet are barely touching the ground. Enough that everyone in the lobby can see exactly what's happening but nobody seems to process it.

"We need to talk," Duane says. His voice is conversational. Calm. The voice you'd use to discuss weather or traffic or any other mundane topic that doesn't involve manhandling a man in a public space. "Privately."

Dr. Hartley's smile falters. Just for a second. "I don't think—"

"It wasn't a question."

Duane starts walking. Still holding the collar. Still moving with that terrifying control. He's steering Dr. Hartley toward the hallway that leads to the private consultation rooms—the ones with soundproofing, the ones where high-profile clients discuss sensitive medical issues away from prying eyes.

I should move. Should say something. Should—

But I'm frozen.

Again.

Always fucking frozen.

The lobby is silent. Everyone is staring. But nobody moves. Nobody intervenes. Because Duane Richter is a three-time world champion and Dr. Hartley is just... a guy. A very accomplished guy with a very impressive resume, but still just a guy who's currently being escorted down a hallway by someone who looks like he's about to commit a very focused murder.

They disappear around the corner.

I count to sixty in my head.

Then I count to sixty again.

The lobby slowly comes back to life around me. Conversations resume. People go back to their coffee, their phones, their pretending that nothing unusual just happened.

What the fuck.

What the actual fuck.

I'm still standing there—same spot, same coffee, same inability to process reality—when Duane emerges from the hallway.

Seven minutes. He was in there for seven minutes.

His knuckles are red.

Not bleeding. Not split open in some dramatic display of violence. Just... red. Flushed. Like he's been hitting something. Like he's been hitting something hard enough and repeatedly enough that the skin has protested but not quite broken.

His expression is exactly the same as when he walked in. Cold. Controlled. The mask firmly in place.

Our eyes meet across the lobby.

He doesn't say anything. Doesn't explain. Doesn't acknowledge what just happened or why it happened or what the fuck I'm supposed to do with this information.

He just... leaves.

Walks out the same doors he walked in through, back to his Bugatti, back to his life of controlled violence and expensive cars and being a person who can grab other people by the collar in public spaces without consequences.

I stand there for another minute. Maybe five. Time is weird.

Dr. Hartley doesn't come out.

I spend the rest of the morning in a fugue state.

That's not a metaphor. That's literally what's happening. I'm moving through my day—seeing clients, taking notes, applying pressure to muscles in all the correct anatomical locations—but some part of me is floating three feet above my own body, watching this puppet-version of Marianna go through the motions.

Dissociation, my Intro to Psychology textbook would say. A disconnection between thoughts, identity, consciousness and memory. Often a response to trauma.

Cool. Great. Love that for me.

Oliver's 10 AM session passes in a blur. He's chatty as always—something about simulator work, about his engineer's new boyfriend, about the N*****x show everyone's obsessing over—but I'm nodding and making appropriate sounds without actually processing the words.

I sanitize the equipment and prep for my next client with mechanical precision. The puppet-version of Marianna is very efficient.

Lunch happens somewhere around 1 PM. I eat a protein bar standing in the staff kitchen, surrounded by conversations I'm not part of.

"—can't believe we have to wait until tonight—"

"—my watch party starts at nine, you're all invited—"

"—the preview clip they posted has me SCREAMING—"

I tune in. "What are we talking about?"

Derek—college football glory days, remember him from orientation?—looks at me like I've asked what color the sky is.

"Heated Rivalry," he says, with the tone of someone explaining basic mathematics. "The new episode drops tonight. Episode five. Everyone's losing their minds."

Heated Rivalry. I vaguely remember Jill mentioning it—some streaming show about hockey players that apparently has the internet in a chokehold. I've never watched it. Can't really stomach sports dramas when I'm living in one.

"I didn't realize it was such a big deal," I say.

"It's HUGE," Priya chimes in. "Last week's episode had six million views in the first 24 hours. Plus the representation? Chef's kiss."

"Representation?" I ask, genuinely confused.

Derek and Priya exchange a look.

"It's a queer romance," Derek explains. "Two rival hockey players. Enemies to lovers, forced proximity, years of pining. Very If We Were Villains meets Check Please energy."

"The sexual tension is INSANE," Priya adds. "And episode five is supposed to have—" She lowers her voice conspiratorially. "—the scene everyone's been waiting for."

Oh. Oh. That explains the collective hysteria.

"Sounds intense," I manage.

"You should come to the watch party," Priya offers. "My place. Nine PM. We're making it a whole thing—themed cocktails, drinking game, the works. Fair warning: we all cry during the opening credits."

Puppet-Marianna says: "Maybe. I'll let you know."

The conversation moves on. I finish my protein bar and escape back to my scheduled clients.

It's 3:41 PM when Dr. Lindholm appears in the doorway of Recovery Suite 2.

"Ms. Reyes. A word?"

Oh fuck.

Her office is exactly as intimidating as I remember. Same pristine desk. Same reading glasses on a chain. Same energy of someone who could fire you and feel fine about it.

She gestures to the chair across from her. I sit.

"How are you settling in?" she asks. Casual. Like this is a routine check-in. Like she didn't just watch Duane Richter assault someone in her lobby this morning. "Any concerns? Questions about protocols?"

"Everything's good," I say. My voice sounds normal. The puppet is very good at sounding normal. "I'm learning a lot. Really grateful for the opportunity."

She nods. Makes a note on her tablet. Then she sets it down and looks at me directly.

The temperature in the room drops approximately forty degrees.

"Marianna." Not Ms. Reyes. Marianna. "I need to ask you something, and I need you to be completely honest with me."

My throat closes.

"Did Dr. Hartley do something to you?"

The question hits me like a physical blow. Like someone reached into my chest and squeezed my lungs until all the air evacuated.

My body goes rigid. Every muscle fiber locking into place. That familiar freeze—the one that happens in therapy rooms and bedrooms and anywhere someone's hands go where they shouldn't.

Dr. Lindholm is watching me. Those sharp eyes seeing everything I'm trying to hide.

Say it.

Say it say it say it—

Tell her what happened. Tell her about his hands under your shirt, under your waistband, the wedding ring catching light while he murmured about trauma and potential and beautiful muscle tone.

Tell her about the freeze. About lying there like a corpse while he touched you. About how you couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't do anything but wait for it to be over.

Tell her.

My mouth opens.

"Nothing happened."

"Marianna—"

"Nothing happened," I repeat. Firmer this time. "Dr. Hartley was teaching me a technique. Deep tissue work on the psoas. It was... intense. Emotionally. But that's normal. He said that's normal. The body stores trauma and sometimes treatment brings it to the surface."

I'm quoting him. Word for word. Using his own explanation to bury the truth.

You're protecting him.

Why are you protecting him?

Dr. Lindholm leans back in her chair. Studies me for a long moment.

"If something inappropriate happened," she says carefully, "you can tell me. This is a safe space. You won't face any professional consequences. We take these matters very seriously."

Safe space.

My tongue is lead. My throat is concrete. The words are trapped somewhere between my brain and my mouth, stuck in the same place where all my other truths go to die.

Nothing happened.

He was teaching.

I overreacted.

Dr. Lindholm holds my gaze for another beat. Then she nods.

"Alright." She picks up her tablet again. "But Marianna—my door is always open."

"Thank you."

I stand. My legs are shaking but they hold.

I'm not drowning at all.