All Chapters of Mesmerize Me: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

The first sensation was confusion. I woke up on a stretcher, but I wasn’t inside the ambulance yet. The air smelled of smoke and dust; red and blue lights flashed in every direction, breaking reality into uneven fragments. I didn’t know whether I was dreaming or awake. An oxygen mask covered my face, and the cool air filling my lungs slowly brought back the awareness that I was alive. “You fainted,” a male voice said gently. My body tensed immediately. He noticed and gave me a calm smile before continuing. 

Dawn filtered timidly through the hospital window, tinting the white curtains gold. I woke with a strange sensation—it was as if I were surfacing from a deep lake and, upon reaching the top, had no sense of direction, no clear images of where I was. My body felt heavy, slow, as though it didn’t fully belong to me, and when I tried to sit up, the room tilted just enough to force me to stay still and accept that I wasn’t ready to move yet. The sun had risen, and light had always been a reminder that life continued—even when I felt time had stopped. And despite being soft and warm, it bothered me; every stimulus seemed to arrive a second late, as if my mind were still trapped somewhere between sleep and waking. I didn’t remember everything at once. The memories returned in scattered fragments: the stretcher, hands holding me with both care and urgency, voices fading away, a

I woke with the strange sensation of having slept too much—as if my body had been forced to rest and my mind was only just catching up. Morning light filtered once again through the hospital window, soft, almost respectful, and for a few seconds, I didn’t know what day it was or how much time had passed. The first thing I registered was a presence sitting beside my bed. “Well, look at those bright, sparkling eyes,” Kate said. I knew instantly she was lying. My eyes had to look dull, sunken, ringed with dry purple shadows, as if someone had dimmed them from the inside. Still, I tried to smile. 

It was a quiet afternoon. Or at least, it seemed that way. Sunlight filtered through the blinds, casting golden lines across the floor, and the air smelled like tea—the kind Jacob had been making with honey and ginger ever since I came back from the hospital, as if each cup were a small promise of care. Everything looked normal. But inside me, nothing was. I sat at the kitchen table, wrapped in a blanket as if it were a protective layer—a thin boundary between the world and my skin. Jacob had come to see me after work, unannounced, with that discretion that defined him.

The first session took place in a small office, with an ivory-colored wall and a window overlooking an inner garden. The air smelled like lavender and freshly brewed coffee—a calm that unsettled me because it left too much room for my thoughts. The doctor’s name was Clara, and her voice didn’t push or pull—it simply existed. She explained that I didn’t have to tell everything, that in trauma the body comes first and the story comes later, that before speaking, we needed my nervous system to relearn something basic, something forgotten: «There was no longer any danger.» I nodded, not sure if I believed her.