Page 41 of Angel
Stevie
The therapist’s office smells like citrus and paper. It’s clean in a way that makes me uncomfortable. No clutter. No distractions. Just a couch that looks too soft to trust and a box of tissues placed deliberately within reach, like they already know what I’m going to need.
I sit on the edge of the cushion with my hands folded in my lap, spine straight, and legs crossed like I’m bracing for impact. This would be easier if Angel were here. That thought hits hard and fast because this is exactly why I’m here alone.
Dr. Meyers doesn’t look intimidating. Mid-forties, calm eyes, the kind of voice that doesn’t push. She sits opposite me with a notebook resting loosely on her knee, pen idle. She doesn’t rush me to talk; she waits patiently for me to gather my thoughts. Thesilence stretches, but not unkindly. It’s space. Real space. The kind I asked Angel for.
“So,” she says finally, her tone steady. “What brings you in today, Stevie?”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out; the answer is too big. It will spill everywhere if I don’t keep a lid on it. Because if I start, I’m not sure I’ll know how to stop.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I say at last.
It feels like dropping something fragile on the floor and waiting to see if it shatters.
Dr. Meyers nods. “That’s a good place to start.”
I almost laugh at that. A good place. It feels like the worst possible place. Like standing in the middle of an empty field with no landmarks.
She leans back slightly. “When did that feeling begin?”
I don’t answer right away. Because it didn’t begin all at once. It crept in.
“I think…” I swallow. “I think it started after the second loss. The first one felt like bad luck. The second one felt like a pattern.”
She nods gently. “And what did that pattern tell you?”
“That something was wrong with me.”
The words come out flat.Practised. I’ve said them before, just never in a room this quiet. I tell her about the losses. Not the medical details; those feel rehearsed, clinical, and safe. I tell her about the waiting rooms. The way nurses tilt their heads when they’re trying to soften bad news. The way my body stopped feeling like home.
“It was like my stomach became a clock,” I say. “Everything revolved around it. Every twinge meant something. Every ache was either hope or doom.”
“And your world shrank,” she says.
“Yes.” My voice cracks. “Until it was just me and the numbers.”
Temperatures.
Ovulation windows.
Luteal phases.
Hormone levels.
Charts glowing in the dark at 2 a.m. like they were holy scripture.
“I thought if I just did everything right,” I say, staring at my hands, “my body would cooperate.”
“And when it didn’t?”
“I blamed myself.”
The room feels heavier after that. Dr. Meyers doesn’t rush to reassure me. She doesn’t sayit’s not your faultlike everyone else does.
She asks instead, “What did blaming yourself give you?”
I blink at her.
