Episode 9 — Like a Dream

Marcus loses his balance on the fourth step.

It's nothing, really—his good leg plants wide and he catches himself on the bar—but the therapist sees it, and Marcus sees that the therapist saw it. The whole session shifts after that.

He tries again. Fails again. On the seventh attempt, he makes it to the end of the bars, but his face is dark and set. When the therapist says, "That's good progress, Mr. Hunt," he snaps, "It's not progress. It's barely walking."

The therapist doesn't argue. He just glances at me.

I'm against the wall beside the bars, where he told me to stay.

"At least you're walking faster than a turtle," I say.

The room goes very quiet.

Marcus turns his head toward me. His face is already forming the words—something sharp, something cruel.

Then his mouth twitches.

Then he laughs.

It's short and surprised and a little rusty, like a door opening after years of being stuck. But it's real.

"A turtle," he says.

"A turtle with a limp."

The therapist is staring at us.

Marcus is still laughing. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

"You're not funny," he says.

"You just laughed."

"That was at the absurdity of you."

He turns back to the bars.

"Again," he tells the therapist.

He does nine steps this time.

I spend the rest of the afternoon waiting for it to go wrong.

It doesn't. That's the strange part. He doesn't snap at me when I bring his medication. He doesn't tell me to leave when I sit in the study with him. When I say something stupid about the weather, he answers me normally, like I'm a person he's having a conversation with, and not a ghost he's tolerating.

I keep waiting for the glass to cut me. It never does.

I find him in the study that evening, alone. The file open in front of him is the same one from days ago. He hasn't turned a page.

I don't ask if he's all right. I sit down in the chair across from him and don't say anything.

The clock ticks. The light outside goes orange, then grey.

"Every morning I wake up and I think today will be the day," he says. "That I'll get out of the bed and walk to the window. And every morning I can't, and I have to remember all over again."

I don't tell him it's going to be all right.

"Being frightened doesn't mean you're weak," I say.

He looks at me. "How would you know what it feels like?"

"Because I've spent my whole life feeling like I'd never be enough for the people I love."

He doesn't answer. The clock ticks.

"For different reasons," I say. "Obviously."

He watches me for a moment.

"I know what your family is like," he says. "I've been in that house a hundred times. I've watched your mother talk over you. Watched Jade hand you her coat like you were staff." He pauses. "I knew you were the spare. Everyone knew. Nobody said it out loud."

"Nobody ever does."

"No."

He looks down at his hands. Then, after a while, he says, "Tell me something. Something I don't know."

I tell him about fashion.

Not the way I'd tell a stranger—not the polite version. I tell him about the sketches I keep in a folder under my bed, the ones I've never shown anyone. About the fabrics I'd use if I ever had the chance. About the one collection I've been working on for years in my head, the one I'm afraid to start because if it's bad, then it's proof I was never worth anything.

Marcus asks questions. Not many. Just small ones.

"What fabric?"

"Silk. Something heavy. Not the usual."

"Why that silhouette?"

"Because it's the only one that doesn't make me look like I'm apologizing for taking up space."

He doesn't say anything to that. But he doesn't look away, either.

Then he tells me about the summer he and Milo spent at his grandparents' house. The broken fountain in the garden. How they convinced themselves it was haunted and spent two weeks trying to catch a ghost with a camera and a bag of flour.

I laugh. Properly. It surprises us both.

"You were an idiot," I say.

"I was ten."

We go on like that for a while. It's easy. It's strange how easy it is.

"Don't," he says.

"What?"

"You're leaving."

"How did you know?"

"You straightened your skirt."

I look down. I didn't notice I'd done it.

"Stay," he says. "A bit longer."

"Do you need something?"

"No." He hesitates. "I just don't feel like being alone right now."

I sit back down.

We talk about smaller things after that—the kind of things you talk about when the big things have worn you out. Food. Music. A terrible film we've both seen and both hated.

He tells me a story about his first driving lesson that makes me laugh until my stomach hurts. I tease him about it and he doesn't get defensive. He just sits there and takes it, mouth twitching, and something in his face is relaxed in a way I've never seen.

And underneath all of it, this quiet thought keeps surfacing, over and over: This isn't real. This can't be real.

A week ago, this man sat in a bed and told me I was nothing. That I was a ghost in his house that he couldn't get rid of. That he would never feel anything for me.

And tonight he's laughing at my jokes, asking about my sketches, and telling me he doesn't want to be alone.

It feels like a dream. One of those dreams where everything is soft and warm and you know, somewhere at the back of your mind, that you're going to wake up and it will all be gone.

I don't want to wake up.

It's past midnight when I finally stand.

"Thank you for staying," he says.

"Goodnight, Marcus."

"Freya."

I turn.

"You know, I don't think I've ever really known you."

I look at him.

"Maybe you never wanted to."

He doesn't flinch.

"No," he says. "I didn't."

There's no apology in his voice. No promise. Just the truth, laid out plainly.

"I paid attention to what my parents wanted. To the company. To Jade." He stops. "Not to the person I actually married."

I don't answer.

"It's late," I say.

"I know."

I walk out of the study and close the door behind me, then stand in the hallway with my hand against the wall.

For weeks, every conversation with him was glass. Tonight wasn't.

I'm halfway up the stairs before I let myself think it, and even then I have to stop walking.

My heart hasn't learned a thing from his rejection. All it needed was one good evening with him, and it's already hoping again.

I should know better.

I do know better.

It doesn't change anything at all—and yet, I keep hoping it does.