As I’m rushing out the door, Earnell yells behind me, “Hey. I’m sorry, but please gather yourself and fast.”

I smile at the bubbling brook of tenderness beneath his words. “I will, Earnell. Don’t worry.”

I stand at the threshold of Jennifer’s door for five minutes, trying to compel myself to knock. I know something is wrong. It doesn’t feel like the other two times I’ve been here: warm, safe, or inviting. Everything seems off, out of alignment. Maybe Earnell’s intensity threw me off more than I realized. Even my RWP sensor is beeping out of control, which never happens with her. I try to talk myself out of it, but I feel her presence from behind the door as if she’s standing there, waiting. Watching.

I quietly press my ear to the door to see if I can hear her moving around, but it’s eerily quiet. I don’t even hear the running water of the small fountain. I convince myself she’s not there, even though I know she is. I turn around, preparing to leave. As soon as I walk away, the door swings open. She is standing there. Waiting. Watching.

“I thought I heard someone,” she says. “Come in. Come in. I’ve been eager to hear how your trip went, how everything else is going.” I suddenly feel disoriented somehow. Out of place and confused. She stands aside and motions for me to enter.

I don’t move. “You good?” she asks. The way she says it, like how all the other shielded but loving Black people speak, hypnotizes me and pulls me forward. I walk in a daze, as if I’ve lost the ability to control my own body. It moves without my blessing. I enter her office. The room rotates on its axis right in front of me. The fountain moves to the opposite corner. The desk slides across the room.

The body, still moving without my permission, sits on the couch, which is now in front of the window, instead of by the door.

The hands accept the tea in a white mug that she gives me. It’s cold, which is strange, but the mind, which has stopped, cannot process. The mouth drinks. The throat swallows. Then the mouth smiles. The teeth glisten. The nose bleeds. Drip. Drip. Dripping. The hands wipe, pressing a white tissue under the nostrils. The bleeding stops.

She sits. Her eyes watch. The RWP sensor deactivates, so there is no way to protect her from what comes next. The mind is disarmed, so it cannot build a barrier in the space between. The exposure disquiets the emotions. They blare with fright.