‘There is something I have to tell you,’ Leah says, her eyes returning to the busy performance of her hands tearing at the jacket sleeve. I remain silent, fully concentrated, ready to receive her words and to help her hold the intense emotions she must be feeling. For a long while, she doesn’t speak. She closes her uninjured left eye and I can’t help but stare at her now that I know she can’t see me. I allow the intense empathy I feel for Leah to wash over me. I hope she can feel that, in these moments, I am all hers, and that I stand beside her witnessing her distress and her pain.

‘You know I told you about my cabin? The one I bought in the mountains? Or, the forest really. With mountains nearby.’

‘Yes.’

‘I want to go there. I just want to go there and collect myself; it’s the only place I’ve really felt at peace. Ever. You know how we’ve spoken so much about my need for newness all the time? And the need to escape. It’s been like an itch, always. As a child, I always wanted to be someone else. It’s the same now. I just want to be away. Away. Faster, better, more. Away. I live my life wanting to be somewhere other than where I am. Except for at the cabin. It’s like that place is me, but me as a physical place, does that make sense?’ I nod. ‘It’s like it’s not only mine, but me.’

‘That sounds like a very good place to be.’

‘Yeah.’ She doesn’t embellish. I glance at the time, only twenty minutes left.

‘You mentioned earlier that there was something you needed to tell me.’

Leah nods. She avoids my gaze, lets her one seeing eye travel around the room until it comes to rest on the flowers. Then she closes it and tears rush from beneath her thick dark lashes, dropping off her chin and onto her wrung, red hands. I wait.

‘I…’ she begins, her voice scratchy and raw, like she’s been screaming at the top of her lungs. I feel deeply unsettled in her presence, she is so unlike herself, even the way she was at the very beginning. She stands up.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, her face twisted and grotesque.

‘We have some time left,’ I say, but she’s already crossing the room and reaching for the door.

‘I…’ she begins again. ‘It’s too late,’ she whispers.

‘What’s too late? Leah, talk to me. Tell me what’s on your mind.’

‘No, it’s too late.’

‘Why is it too late?’

‘Can… Can you come to my cabin?’

I sigh, we’ve had these kinds of conversations before. ‘Leah, you know that the therapy room is our meeting place.’

‘Please.’

‘I can’t come to your cabin. You know this.’