Free An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen Page B

intoyourself and look down at your feet, shielding your face.
    The silence is permitted to linger.
    Then:
    Tell me.
    Your head jerks up. Your eyes are wide. You suddenly look much younger than twenty-eight; it is as if a glimpse of your thirteen-year-old self briefly emerges.
    That is the age when everything changed for you.
    Every lifetime contains pivot points—sometimes flukesof destiny, sometimes seemingly preordained—that shape and eventually cement one’s path.
    These moments, as unique to each individual as strands of DNA, can at their best cause the sensation of a catapult into the shimmer of stars. At the opposite extreme, they can feel like a descent into quicksand.
    The day you were watching your younger sister, the day she fell from a second-story window,was perhaps the most elemental demarcation for you thus far.
    As you describe running toward her limp figure on the asphalt driveway, tears stream down your face. You begin to hyperventilate, gulping air between your words. Your body is retreating with your mind into this emotional chasm. You release one more anguished sentence,
It was all my fault,
before you succumb to violent trembling.

    When the warm cashmere wrap is gently tucked around you and smoothed over your shoulders, it has the desired calming effect.
    You take in a shuddering breath.
    You are told what you need to hear:
    It was not your fault.
    There is more for you to share, but this is enough for today. You are nearing exhaustion.
    You are rewarded through words of praise. Not everyone is brave enoughto face their demons.
    You absently stroke the taupe-colored wool draped across your shoulders as you listen. This is self-soothing, a signal that you are now in the recovery phase. A new, gentler conversational rhythm eases you into safer terrain.
    When your breathing has steadied and your cheeks are no longer flushed, you are given subtle clues that the session will soon end.
    Thankyou,
you are told.
    Then a small reward:
    It’s so chilly out. Why don’t you keep the wrap?
    You are walked to the door, and when you leave, you feel the brief pressure of a hand squeezing your shoulder. The gesture is one that conveys comfort. It is also used to express approval.
    As you exit the building, you are visible from three stories above. You hesitate on the sidewalk, thenyou reach for the wrap and loop it so that it hangs like a scarf, flipping one end over your shoulder.
    Though you have physically departed, you linger in the office for the rest of the day, through the final client scheduled for twenty minutes after your departure. Maintaining focus to assist him on reining in a gambling addiction is more of a challenge than usual.
    You are still thereas the taxi weaves through congested Midtown traffic, and in Dean & DeLuca while the cashier rings up a single medallion of beef tenderloin and seven spears of white asparagus.
    You don’t award confidences easily, yet you yearn for the relief that comes with the release of a secret.
    Presenting an unremarkable facade to the outside world is the norm; superficial conversations comprise themajority of social encounters. When an individual trusts another sufficiently to expose the true self—the deepest fears, the hidden desires—a powerful intimacy is born.
    You invited me in today, Jessica.
    Your secret will be kept in confidence . . . if all goes well.
    The front door to the town house is unlocked and the bag from Dean & DeLuca deposited on the white marbled kitchen counter.

    Then the new, ecru cashmere wrap that was purchased only hours before your session today is removed from its bag and placed on a side shelf in the coat closet.
    It is identical to the one you are now wearing.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
    Tuesday, December 4
    The air is sharp and gray; during the short time I’ve been in Dr. Shields’s office, the sun has dropped beneath the skyline.
    I should have worn my heavy peacoat rather than my thinner leather jacket, but Dr. shields’s wrap keeps