Unethical

Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Sarah

I get in the shower after another long day of sessions. Steam engulfs me, and I breathe it in through my nose and out through my mouth, just like I teach my overly anxious patients. Behind closed doors, I’m one of them. I’m just as anxious and unsure. Just as nervous about the monster hiding under the bed.

The breathing exercise works, and soon I’m centered once more. It’s been a trying day. With certain patients, the hour flies by and I enjoy the productivity of our conversations. With others, the hour drags and we get nowhere. I’m forced to sift through the different methods we learned in school to draw a useful sentence out of them. Today was more of the latter, and it’s been exhausting.

Maxim’s sessions are like that. I find the end of a string and pull, but there’s no give from his side. I sigh as I remember that I have to meet with him tomorrow. It’s been a week already? How?

My gaze drifts to the gap at the edge of the shower curtain, and I peer into the darkness beyond the window. Sometimes I feel watched, as if I’m not alone in my own home. But I am. In fact, I haven’t had someone in my house in a long time.

I’m a workaholic, which means I don’t have much time for relationships. Hell, I hardly make time for myself. At the end of the day, I barely have the energy to stand in the shower or brush my teeth, let alone something as frivolous as reading, painting my nails, or indulging in a hobby. Self-care isn’t in my vocabulary.

How strange that I don’t take the time to find my happiness, yet I’m expected to help others find theirs.

I’ve considered getting a pet to break up the monotony. It might not be so bad to come home and vent my frustrations to another living being, especially when that living being can’t speak back. Then I think of all the care an animal requires, and I’m just not up for that right now. I can barely take care of my own needs.

I’m tired of carrying my clients’ problems and horrific pasts like a weight around my neck. No one should be expected to cart around their own baggage along with everyone else’s. They don’t teach you how to deal with these things in school—the burnout and fatigue.

The mental illnesses you inherit.

Warm water washes away today’s efforts. I drop my head to the wall, letting the spray focus on the back of my neck, where my tension is carried. I want to call out tomorrow. It’s my damn business, and I should be able to take a mental-health day. I’m allowed to be weak sometimes.

But then I remember my client tomorrow. I’m under pressure because of Maxim’s mandated status, which makes me feel mandated, too. I groan. I’ll never make any progress with him. Instead of speaking the truth, he just vomits some convoluted version of events, and I can’t help him if he can’t be honest with me. Or himself.

Worst of all, his presence sucks the air out of the room, leaving me in a silent void that slowly suffocates me. I’ve never met a human more capable of applying pressure with a mere look.

I think about how he watched me through the blinds of my office, peering through me in a way no one ever has.

My hand rides down my body and hangs up on every imperfection that I become acutely aware of. What does he see when he looks at me? The slight weight gain? The bags under my eyes? Or something more?

I imagine someone touching me. Not Maxim, though. Anyone but him. I dip my hand between my legs and run my fingertips along the fine hairs that cover my mound. My touch pries apart my lips, and I circle my fingers until it starts to feel good.

I lean against the shower wall and arch my back as I drag the showerhead lower. The spray of water works my body, and I pretend strong, manly hands grip my hips as some stranger drops to his knees and licks me.

My eyes close, and I tilt my pelvis as moans grip my throat. When I imagine the hands on me, I realize I’m not envisioning a stranger. Those are Maxim’s hands. I recognize the artwork that runs up his forearms.

I open my eyes, rip the showerhead away, and slam my hand against the wall. Goddamn it. I just wanted to enjoy one thing. One. I want to forget about my job for a minute so I can get off and release the tension that ripples beneath every inch of my skin.

So why am I thinking about him?

There’s a draw to learn more about him, even though I know I won’t like what I discover. When I peel back the layers of others, I usually find a soft inner core that needs nurturing. No matter how I peel Maxim, what lies beneath will surely be hard and toxic. Dangerous. I’m inclined to leave his layers untouched and make it through this mandated course of therapy as best I can. But it doesn’t help that he’s infiltrating my thoughts and interrupting my life by existing in the same fucking world as me.

I get out of the shower, grab my towel, and rub it through my hair. When I drag the brush through the wet strands, I leave too much hair behind. It’s the stress. The eating takeout almost every night. The long hours spent at a desk. It’s not giving myself grace.

I wrap the towel around my waist and wipe the fog from the mirror. I lift my shoulder and smile, remembering the lesson I was taught to tell others: Smiling at yourself can release the feel-good hormones we need to be happy.

So does getting yourself off, but that isn’t happening for me now. So I smile at myself like a fucking idiot, as if a facial expression can fix all of this.

And like a big, shitty cherry on top, I have to meet with Maxim tomorrow. I have to wear this smile and sit in front of him while he analyzes me as much as I try to analyze him.

There’s a darkness in him that I don’t want to shed light on. It’s safer for me to leave him in the shadows.

But it’s my job to hold a flashlight inside these dark spaces. To look around until something skitters from the recesses and steps into the beam of truth. What hides within Maxim is more likely to charge forward instead of skittering, though, and instead of stepping toward truth, I have a sinking feeling it will go straight for my throat.

I’ll need to be more cautious moving forward.