He pushes a button that makes my chair recline slowly until I’m staring at the tiled ceiling, feeling like I’m splayed out on an examination table. I fold my hands over my stomach, trying not to let them tremble. Dr. Meyer’s footsteps retreat, and I hear the crinkle of the leather as he sits in his chair once more.

“Now,” he says, his tone a lot softer and melodic than it was before. “All I need you to do is relax. Close your eyes whenever you’re ready.”

Once I’ve taken another beat to consider, I do as he says, letting my eyelids flutter shut as I adjust my position.

“Slow down your breathing and let the tension leave your body. That’s it. Nice, deep breaths.”

I force my shoulders to relax and my limbs to become loose, trying to empty my brain of all coherent thoughts.

Dr. Meyer taps my knee gently to stop my leg from bouncing.

“I want you to imagine that you’re completely weightless,” he murmurs. “Drifting, floating, but safe.”

After a while of deep breathing and concentration, the material of the chair beneath me slowly fades away, and I feel as though I’m suspended in the air, but the thought is calming. My eyelids are fastened shut, like I couldn’t open them even if I tried. Dr. Meyer’s voice continues to float toward me gently, though it becomes further and further away the longer he speaks, until I’m underwater, alone.

I exhale, and the air releases in a stream of bubbles in front of me. I imagine myself reaching forward to touch one, but the scenery changes, and now I’m in a room, a man with bronze skin and a familiar smile crouching down with outstretched arms.

“Darling,” he says, mouth spreading in a grin, and a feeling of comfort melts through my body.

The image ripples away before I can reach him, superimposed with different moments in time—peals of laughter around a dinner table, the heat of a fireplace lapping against my skin, pages of a storybook being flipped seen through drooping eyelids—until the man disappears completely, and I feel a chill in his absence.

The boy from my dream emerges, but there’s a grin in place of his solemn expression as he runs through a field of flowers, looking back at me over his shoulder, and I float along behind him, butterflies dancing between us, a flicker of excitement in my chest.

He laughs, and I graze his shirt with my fingers, causing him to come to an abrupt halt, digging his shoes into the grass to stop himself.

“Aw,” he groans. “Not fair! I’m gonna get you back.”

The boy turns on his heel, hands outstretched toward me, and then the world tilts on its axis again.