With Jessica. The rooftop seat gave me a view of the broken skyline, and the place where Jessica might have died. It made me uneasy. Powers had taken my body from me, they’d briefly taken my heart, and they’d almost taken my mind. They’d taken my forcefield and strength and given it over to something else.

Now they’d taken the sky, and with it, they’d taken the one person that I’d known in my life who could make things better without betraying me.

Maybe that was unfair to Crystal and Gilpatrick, to give them the unfair label of people who had helped me but who didn’t help, in that way that I couldn’t put words to.

“Thinking of Jessica?” he asked.

“Yeah. I don’t want to dwell on it too much,” I said. I put my iced tea down. “I’m here for therapy.”

“The therapy I provide is going to be different because I’m new to working with capes. My background is in cognitive-behavioral therapy, and in the past I worked with police officers, paramedics, firemen, doctors, and other rescue personnel.”

“It seems pretty relevant,” I said.

“I think so,” he said. “But powers are complicated and you might have to talk me through some things you take for granted. If you can be patient with me, I’d like to work with you on identifying problems and goals, then addressing your patterns of thought and action to change your emotional landscape, fix the problems, and reach the goals.”

“You might have a bit of an uphill battle, doctor.”

“Which part?” he asked.

“Thought, action, emotional landscape, problems and goals. All of the fucking above.”

“Do you want to try explaining it?” he asked. “A big part of what we would be doing is setting goals. A starting point in figuring out what to address or explaining yourself in totality could be starting off with where you’re coming from, where you are currently, and where you’re going.”

“I—” I started. It was hard to put things into words. “Currently I’m bothered. Because I feel like ambushing me at the courthouse, having me draw the image instead of writing out my feelings, leaving that image out where I can see it, and having this meeting on the rooftop, it’s… confrontational.”

“Confrontational,” he said. His eyebrows went up briefly. “Can you elaborate?”

“Pushing me, or testing my boundaries, trying to catch me off balance. It feels like little plays I’ve had to deal with for a long time. I don’t know if you’re doing it intentionally because you want to get past my guard or if it’s unintentional and you’re doing it because you’re insecure. Because I have experience dealing with people who do that.”

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s get back to that in a minute.”