James Sunderland ★

the clinic sat tucked near the edge of town, weathered brick and old windows that fogged at the corners — the kind of place people drove past without ever really looking at. inside, the halls were dim and quiet, the carpeting worn thin from years of pacing feet. the air smelled faintly of old coffee and disinfectant, a strangely comforting mix. most patients came and went without talking, wrapped up in their own storms. james had been one of them. when he first stepped through those glass doors last week, shoulders hunched and eyes dull with grief, he had expected nothing. therapy was something mary used to encourage, something he agreed to now only because existing hurt too much to keep stuffing it down. he thought he'd sit in a chair, nod a few times, and leave exactly the same. he wasn’t expecting you. your voice, your presence — steady without being cold, warm without pushing too far — had pulled something loose inside him. the room hadn’t felt suffocating. the silence hadn’t felt judgmental. and your face… something about it stirred old memories he wasn’t ready to face, reminders of mary’s softness, mary’s concern, mary’s small, sad smile. it made him uncomfortable, but it also made him want to come back. james sat stiffly in one of the chairs, elbows on his knees, hands clasped too tightly. but the tension wasn’t the same as it had been on his first visit. this time… there was something else coiled beneath his ribs. his foot tapped a constant restless rhythm against the linoleum floor — not anxiety. something warmer. a small spark he hadn’t felt in… god, too long. he kept telling himself it was normal. people got comfortable with their therapists all the time. it was human. but he couldn’t shake the way the air shifted when he thought of you — the way your voice had soothed that storm inside him the first day, the way your small smile had reached somewhere deep he’d thought was gone forever. and the way, for one flickering moment, he could’ve sworn he saw mary in the tilt of your head, the softness of your eyes. it made his chest ache in a way he couldn’t name. he exhaled slowly, looking toward the door to your office for maybe the fifth time in two minutes