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Tugging on the pockets of my high-rise jeans, I swallowed and began. “Summer school, work, it’s been a lot. Less episodes”—I pressed my lips together, fighting the truth; like being tortured by invisible flames and seeing monsters in the night was any better—“which is crazy…”

“Why is that crazy?”

“Because with the…” I gulped. Here goes. “Anniversary of my mom’s death, you’d think I’d be experiencing more of them. Not less. And now they’re…it’s like they’re gone.”

Curiosity lit the amber flecks in Dr. Fairmore’s brown eyes. “What do you mean ‘gone’?”

I sighed, trying to ignore the flicker of concern that furrowed her brows for a literal second. I was looking for that—something in her body language to derail me so I didn’t have to go through with this. Stop it. Stop it stop it stop it.

“As if that part of me has poof! vanished.” My fingers balled and extended, mimicking a firework burst. “Something I’ve wished away for so long, but without them…the world doesn’t feel right. It feels wrong.” I gnawed at my lip. Maybe I was giving too much away.

Dr. Fairmore let my words hang in the air for a beat. “When did this start?”

“Last week, around my birthday.” I replayed the final convo with the Voices in my head.

GET OUT OF MY LIFE!

That’s not the worst idea you’ve had. We are better off without you.

Dr. Fairmore leaned a little closer, resting her forearms on her knees. “Let me ask you something, River. Why is this upsetting to you? Is it not what you wanted—what you’ve been working towards—for your episodes to lessen, in frequency or severity?”

Fair point. It’s what my file said. It’s what I’d always said. I wondered when I’d actually stopped wanting that. “Because I-I feel like…some faulty version of myself. Like I lost the main thing tying me to…”

“Your mother.” Her voice cracked on the words. She took a sip of water and cleared her throat.

I dipped my chin but couldn’t bring it back up. A tear slipped, whether in sadness or in shame, and I didn’t try to hide it. Because it was all true. No one else had witnessed her death—except us, me and the Voices—and as they took their first breath, she took her last, like her final exhale had formed them.

“River.” When I met Dr. Fairmore’s gaze, she trembled with a hesitation I didn’t think possible. All I’d seen from her was confidence. “There are…ways to get them back.”

Her words almost knocked the wind out of me. Were we talking about the same thing?

Did she know? She had to know. I didn’t ask her to clarify.

Instead, I sucked in a ragged inhale, trying not to show how breathless I’d become. Still, my voice came out raw. “How?”

“Allow yourself to feel. And listen”—the word sent a full body shiver through me—“to your emotions before pushing them away. That’s where the power lies—where you can confront the things you have pushed deep down inside of you.”

I was ready to, oh God I was ready to. But I was also scared. I reached for my necklace, a beacon of warmth against my ice-cold skin. My heart thumped beneath it so fast I swore the pendant jumped.

Dr. Fairmore cleared her throat. “Can I see your hands?”

The ones I’d been wringing in my lap, those ones? “Why?”

“So we can do a breathing exercise. Sometimes a moment of peace is all you need to reconnect to your truest self.” She presented her hands, casting twin shadows that grew above our heads and folded around me. But the space didn’t cool. If anything it…warmed, the billowy shade a cocoon until it retracted back into her shoulders.

I blinked. A few times. Just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. Must have been a shift of the storm. The shadows were gone, but her palms waited before me. A quick once-over revealed no claws or talons or any other indication they’d be tearing me to shreds.

Before I could stop it, I placed my fingers atop hers, flushing at how bitten and nubby my nails were compared to her manicured tips.

That weird sting of familiarity I’d felt the first time I’d met her struck me again. I shook it away, obviously just desperate for some form of connection.

“Close your eyes.” Her voice lost its tremble, poised and self-assured again. “Lower your head to take the strain off your neck. Good. Now take a deep breath.”

With trembling lips, I sucked in the air, staring at the blank space beneath my shut lids. I willed myself to latch on to this untapped quietness. But I’d never felt so vulnerable in my life. I was as good as naked.

“Think of somewhere peaceful that totally relaxes you. Imagine yourself there.”

There was only one place capable of that. Patterns from the natural light filtered into the room, ebbing and flowing before my eyes even though they remained closed, swirling until they settled into a mirrored horizon—glassy blue above and below: the ocean.