‘Hi,’ I called out, waving to Ashray as he walked out of the clinic. I’d spent the forty-five minutes he was in his session sitting on a bench in the shade, updating my feed and sending messages back and forth to Kavya to try and arrange shoots for the week. My numbers were slowly starting to recover, which was good, but I would admit that I found myself a little distracted again. The fact that Kavya and I wanted to move into a new apartment seemed to drive me further into my need to control every aspect of my life. She was so strong in supporting me, I simply couldn’t let her down, and my apartment really was too small for both of us.

Ashray walked towards me, irritation on his face. It took me a moment to understand that his expression wasn’t one of fighting another panic attack. He truly was annoyed. Perhaps
Dr Shyam had pushed his buttons today as well. ‘Tough session?’ I asked, genuinely concerned, but unable to pull my face from my screen until I had a screenshot of my statistics.

‘You could say that.’ He hovered over me, his brown briefcase in hand. I put my phone away.

‘Me too,’ I said.

‘There are just some things I’m not ready to talk about,’ he said, clearly still annoyed with the doctor’s line of questioning.

‘I know, right?’ I said, relieved that someone finally understood that as much as these sessions were working, helping me come back from the brink of self-destruction, they were also tough and often took me to a place I wasn’t comfortable with. ‘So, what button did he push?’ I asked, and then immediately wondered whether I was overstepping the line. I shrugged, trying to dismiss my last sentence, but instead of being offended, he laughed at my awkwardness.

‘He wants me to deal with my abandonment issues,’ he said and rolled his eyes.

‘Fantastic. I’m a control freak who is manipulating my best friend.’ He stared at me wide-eyed. I burst out laughing, knowing how ridiculously juvenile I sounded.

‘So, my Maa died, and I ended up in the same hospital on the same day as she died because of a panic attack,’ he continued, ‘but I blame my ex.’

‘What did she do?’

‘Strung me along. Waited for me to fall in love with her and then told me that our relationship was over because she had to marry someone chosen for her.’

‘What?’ I was genuinely surprised.

‘Yup. So, now, I am alone with abandonment issues and a tendency to fixate on anyone that pays me any attention.’

‘And your dad?’

‘I don’t have one. I’m an orphan. My Maa adopted me, so there is no one else.’