The Loving Confines

 

Tessa Owens took a deep breath, trying her best to stay calm.  So far, anyway, she felt all right:  her heart rate was elevated but not racing, her respiration quicker than normal but still steady, and she had at least some feeling of centeredness, of inner peace, sitting here now in the small, gray lobby of the therapist’s office.  Of course, thirteen-year-old Tessa reminded herself, it was easy to hold it together when she was alone but for the young receptionist at the other end of the room, a dour brunette who didn’t seem interested in making small talk; that it was a simple thing indeed to maintain that inner peace when no one was asking the sorts of questions that would surely cut her to the bone.  What about when the therapist called her inside, though?  How would Tessa fare then?

 

Keep calm.  You can handle it.

 

One thing was for sure:  her turn was coming quick.  Just a moment ago, an unsmiling girl of maybe sixteen or seventeen with acne-scarred cheeks and mouse-brown hair had exited he heavy oak door leading into the office—a patient, no doubt, whose session was now over—and shut it behind her.  Tessa imagined that the lady she was supposed to see today—a Ms. Hostem, or was it Mrs.?—would take a short break in between seeing people.  How long, though?  Five, ten, fifteen minutes…?

 

She gazed at the clock on the wall.  Her appointment was at four.  It was two minutes past four now.

 

Tessa took another deep breath. 

 

Not long now, no, not long at all.

 

Each tick of the second hand seemed an eternity—and yet, oddly, was gone in an instant.  How could the same increment of time be both ponderous and fleeting?

 

Fifteen seconds…

 

Maybe Tessa was going crazy.

 

Thirty seconds…

 

Maybe whatever therapy she was due to undergo here wouldn’t be enough to cure what ailed her.

 

Forty five seconds…

 

What if they decided to do with her what they had done with Devon?

 

One minute…

 

She wished none of this had ever happened.  She wished—

 

The door was opening again.

 

Here she comes, Tessa thought.  Her heart throbbed now; a grotesque coolness rose on her skin.  She took a third deep breath—the deepest one yet this afternoon—as a woman appeared in the doorway.  “You must be Tessa,” said the woman.

 

I guess I’d have to be, since there’s no one else out here but me and the receptionist.

 

Tessa got to her feet.  “Yes, ma’am.”  Her vocal cords were tight.