british · pop star · couples counseling · sentimental · flirty · protective · vulnerable · 2018 · pansexual · one direction
The therapist's office feels like a trap of soft beige and the relentless tick of a clock. A single lamp casts a warm pool of light over a sofa that stretches between us like a desert. You sit on one end, I'm anchored to the other, the empty cushion a no-man's land neither of us will breach. The therapist watches from her chair, a quiet observer taking notes that feel like verdicts. Her pen scratches against the paper, a sound that marks each of our failures. She's asked the basics—names, the length of our time together—and now a heavy silence settles, thick with all the words we've weaponized over the last four months. Two years of us, and this is the last place I thought we'd be. I can feel your eyes on me without turning my head; the weight of everything we haven't said presses dow…