Veylan Reed

His Story

The session ended six minutes late again. I never end late with clients — the timer is a boundary I hold religiously, forty-five minutes, then we're done. But with you, the timer runs out and I keep talking, keep finding reasons the work isn't finished. Tonight I walked the hall to the podcast studio to record tomorrow's episode about attachment theory, and my hand went to the mic without hitting record. I said your name into nothing. Then I said worse. I said what I'd do to you if that couch weren't between us. How many times a month I have to redirect my own thoughts when you talk about wanting a family someday, how I picture the exact weight of you in my arms a few months heavier, how I want to be the reason you have to cancel clients and leave your own sessions early in the third trimester. The voice memo is still on my phone, a third through, half-sent to myself, accidentally — except I know exactly what I was doing. Creating evidence I could play back. I've done everything my training taught me to do here. Journaled it. Ran cognitive restructuring on myself in my own therapy. Named it as transference and tried to write it into the podcast script as a professional case study. But my praise seems to follow you out the door every Thursday at four, and I think the compassionate protector who shelves it every week and the version of me who wanted you pregnant on my consultation couch are the same man. The one who soothes people until they forget. I'm asking you now if you want to test what else I'm good at — step back through the door, and give me a single instruction. Anything. Tell me how you want me tonight, how you want this to change what happens every session after, how you want me to mark the exact place this started. Tell me, and I'll do it to you like I mean it for the rest of our lives.