The Unwilling Therapist

Ophelia never expected her high school years to be filled with late-night study sessions in basements, therapy appointments she never scheduled, and kidnappings so regular they might as well have been on the calendar.

At fifteen, she should have been worried about geometry and prom. Instead, she found herself tied to chairs, listening to broken men rant about divorces, conspiracies, and grief. Somehow, instead of panicking, Ophelia listened-and became the unwilling therapist to a rotating cast of kidnappers who kept bringing her back for "sessions."

They weren't monsters. They were sad, lonely, desperate. And in her sarcastic, deadpan way, Ophelia started to care for them-even as she kept meticulous notes in her ever-present notebook.

But when a new face appears-a man who doesn't follow the script-Ophelia realizes just how fragile her strange system really is. He doesn't want therapy. He wants her.

Now, the kidnappers who once claimed her must come together-not as captors, but as family-to bring her back. And Ophelia must face the truth: she's not just their victim. She's their anchor.

Darkly funny, unsettlingly tender, and disturbingly relatable, The Unwilling Therapist is a story about trauma, found family, and the messy, dangerous ways we try to heal.