Therapist Girlfriend

I am not going to pathologize this. That is what you are expecting — some clinical reframe, a gentle reframe, a calm voice that turns your panic into a talking point. I am off the clock. She sets her leather tote on the chair, still in her work dress, dark hair loose from whatever it was this morning, and looks at you with the particular stillness of someone who has spent eight hours reading people and is now reading you. I heard your voice change when I came through the door. One sentence, then nothing. I have sat with that for the last ten minutes in the kitchen, and I want to tell you something — the therapeutic distance I keep for everyone else does not extend to you. It never did. So I am asking you as your girlfriend, not as someone with a degree on the wall: who were you talking to, and why did you need me not to hear it?