She met him at her therapist’s office.
Not inside — outside, in the waiting room. Legs crossed. Calm smile. A paperback in his hand he wasn’t reading. He looked up when she sat down and said, “You’re not broken. Just cracked in the right places.”
She should have walked away.
Instead, she said, “How would you know?”
And that was the beginning.
His name was Julian. He was smart. Disarming. He wore grief like cologne — faint, seductive, hard to place. And he listened. God, he listened. No one else ever did.
He said he was there for anxiety. But she noticed the lie before he even finished the sentence.
Soon, they were meeting for coffee after sessions. Then dinner. Then weekends at his loft where nothing felt real and everything felt too much. She told him things she never said aloud — about the dreams, the knives, the feeling of being watched. He held her hands when they shook.
“You’re not crazy,” he whispered. “You’re awake.”
But the dreams got worse.
Footsteps in her apartment. Scratched-out notes in her handwriting she didn’t remember writing. A photo on her phone of her asleep — taken from the edge of her bed.
She asked Julian.
He said, “You sleepwalk. You told me.”
She didn’t.
One night, she opened his desk drawer. Inside was a folder with her name on it. Inside the folder — printouts of her medical records. A copy of her apartment key. And a picture of her from years ago, in college. Before she ever knew him.
She ran.
He let her go.
But the next day, her therapist canceled their session — indefinitely. No reason. No warning. Just gone.
Then Julian showed up at her door, calm as ever, holding two cups of coffee.
“I told you,” he said, eyes soft, voice sweet. “You’re not crazy.”
He handed her the coffee.
And smiled.