Chapter 5 - Emory

As soon as Vlad left my office and I could no longer see him in the hall, I sagged with relief. Meeting with him had been…interesting, to say the least. He was just as gorgeous and funny in his own sarcastic way as he had been last night. Still, the layers of complications were blurring in my head to the point that even I had difficulty compartmentalizing.

He was such an interesting case. I could tell that there were years of trauma locked behind his fortress-like mental walls, and it was clear that the guy had quite the past. Not that any of it was any more transparent than it had been when we started. He was so closed off, and I'd noticed that a bit last night, but this was something else.

"He's just so…"

I didn't let myself finish the sentence. Instead, I pulled myself away from my open door and returned to my desk to take down more notes after the intro session. I input the handwritten accounts into my computer, adding more details as I went over them to provide for the referral.

Still, it was odd to think that even if he was with someone else, I'd see him in the office every now and then.

You're an adult, Emory. You can stow the attraction. It's not like you're a walking "id" or something.

I laughed lightly at my little psychology joke and went back to my notes. Vlad was dealing with distancing behavior related to trauma. I'd already figured out that much from talking to him. Though, I had to admit I was a little surprised that he'd opened up just that crack of space when I asked him point-blank why he didn't speak.

That trick didn't work with everyone—because, of course, it didn't. No two people were alike, and I'd take a bit of an educated risk when I'd tried it. I just wanted to see what he'd say. I hadn't really expected him to give me anything concrete, but he'd admitted that something happened to him when he was a child.

The options were too vast to narrow anything down from that, but I knew from my studies that it had to be something pretty damn serious. Kids don't just decide not to talk because they had a nightmare or saw a spooky clown.

I also wouldn't judge what it could be based on his behavior today. People behave very differently when they are in different situations. Everyone wears a mask to meet the needs of any given moment. There are roles to play, and today, Vlad wanted to play the role of an uninterested patient. He didn't want to be in therapy; that much was abundantly clear.

Still, he'd come into the office even though he was not obligated to. His brother had set up the appointment, meaning he could've just walked out or not shown up. But he didn't.

I was curious whether or not that was because of some other code of conduct that he operated by—the first being you don't let women get drugged—or if he'd felt something for me, some connection that made him hesitant to do something "rude" to me because he knew me on a more personal level than he would just another therapist.

The golden yellow of his eyes shone in my memory, and I found myself slipping into a realm of fantasy. I needed to shake that off. I had work to do here, and we'd both agreed to pretend like last night had never happened.

I refocused on my computer screen, logging in the other details of the session and making sure everything got input into our database where it could use that data to find another therapist. The system was all strictly confidential unless extreme circumstances called for it. Still, you could never guarantee that they wouldn't come up, so record-keeping is one of the most valuable skills of a counselor, and right now, it would help Vlad to get someone assigned to his case as it were.

You took an oath, Emory. Honor that oath.

True, it wasn't the same as a surgeon's or an ER doctor's, but I had still been certified by the board in Illinois and had given my word to practice ethically and responsibly.

Reaching for my coffee, which was now cold—another usual outcome of the morning—I took a sip regardless of the temperature, and my brain churned over what Vlad had said during the session.

He'd called himself an asshole. He'd said that he and his brothers were all assholes, and yet, he was also apparently the one to break up their fights. Quite the feat, considering he didn't speak. It was hard to imagine that someone who'd stopped me from getting drugged, kept his brothers from killing each other, and felt compelled to go through with the session despite his discomfort with it was an asshole.

I could deduce a few things about his situation, but not much. When it came to Vlad himself, though, I could think of several better ways to describe him. My fingers flew over the keyboard as I noted his key character traits.

Sarcastic, uses humor as a defense mechanism, smart, moral code, seems to love his family while understanding they have flaws, purposefully rough around the edges, likely does not want to be considered weak, potentially relocated from another country based on his slight accent and last name, traumatic childhood response a reaction to something that occurred prior to that relocation (?), mentioned something about his brother having "settled down," guessing he's the first of the three of them to get married or something similar.

I saved the notes into my system and the personal records I kept for each client. That nagging pang in my chest that had cropped up during the session hadn't backed off. While it was typical for me, my empathy for my patients made me both a good therapist and one who needed to be careful.

Becoming attached to my patients wasn't wise, and he wouldn't be mine any longer. Still, there was something about Vlad and how he'd said something had happened. I could tell that it wasn't the first time he'd said that to anybody, but it was the first time he had let himself feel shitty about what had happened in front of anyone.

Vlad came across as extremely proud. I could guess that looking like he needed help or ever admitting that he did would be a massive blow to the persona he'd crafted around himself.

That reality seemed exhausting, and I truly wanted to help Vlad find a life where he wasn't so fortified.

Being strong all the time is tiring. Being someone you're not on top of that? Worse.

The next alarm bell chirped on my computer, and I knew that the allotted time I'd given myself to take notes was over. I needed to prepare for the next patient that was going to come in.

I was seeing two more people today, and they'd both be solo sessions. At least I knew that I wouldn't have slept with either of them.