Chapter 3Stripped of My Safety Net

I shot up from my chair with such violent force that my knee slammed into the heavy wooden table, knocking my water glass over.

The red wine sitting next to it tipped, splashing directly across Ethan’s crisp white dress shirt.

The private dining room went dead silent.

Ethan looked down at the dark crimson stain spreading across his chest. He pulled a napkin and began methodically dabbing at it, the veins in the back of his hand bulging aggressively against his skin.

I couldn’t draw a breath. My lungs were completely blocked. I collapsed into a crouch on the floor, digging my fingers desperately into the carpet.

“Take me home, Ethan. Please, take me home.”

In the past, when an attack hit me in public, he would instantly strip off his jacket, drape it over my head to block the sensory overload, scoop me into his arms, and carry me out.

But this time, he just stared down at me with absolute, freezing contempt.

“Are you done throwing this tantrum?”

Chloe reached out and gently touched his cuff, her voice soft and soothing.

“Don't get angry with her, it's just a withdrawal response. If you pull her out of the environment now, the exposure therapy fails entirely, and we're back to square one.”

Ethan closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and sat back down in his chair.

He picked up his water glass, his voice dropping to a low, lethal register.

“Mia. Stand up. Walk back to your seat.”

I tilted my head back, looking up at him from the floor.

My vision was completely blurred with tears. All I could see was him and Chloe, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, incredibly close.

Chloe handed him a fresh napkin, her fingertips lingering against his palm for a fraction of a second.

He didn't pull away.

I stared at him in absolute, suffocating despair. My tears hit the carpet.

“And if I can't stand up?”

Ethan looked at me, his eyes entirely devoid of anything except exhausted apathy.

“Then you stay on the floor. I am not helping you up.”

Someone at the table muttered softly, “Damn, Ethan finally grew a spine.”

Chloe picked up her wine glass and lightly clinked it against Ethan’s.

“You’re doing amazing, Ethan.”

The table erupted back into loud, boisterous laughter and conversation. Not a single person bothered to check if I was actually suffocating to death on the floor.

Ethan even joined in the laughter.

The tether that had kept my sanity anchored for three years violently snapped.

My fingers were still dug into the carpet, my nails scraped raw and bleeding, but I literally couldn't feel the pain.

I slowly forced myself to stand up.

Ethan let out an audible sigh of relief.

“See? That’s exactly how you do it. Stop demanding that the entire universe revolves around your anxiety.”

I leaned heavily against the wall, pushed the heavy door of the private room open, and walked out into the pouring rain.

Ethan didn't follow me.

The torrential rain instantly soaked through my dress, the freezing water clinging to my skin like ice.

With trembling hands, I dug my phone out of my pocket, desperately trying to call my actual psychiatrist.

But before my thumb could even press the call button, my vision went completely black, and a catastrophic wave of suffocation pulled me under.

When I woke up, Ethan was standing next to my hospital bed, holding a small plastic medication cup, staring down at me like a warden.

“Acute pneumonia. You’ve had a massive fever for two days.”

I instinctively reached for my nightstand to grab my phone.

It wasn't there.

“Give me my phone.”

Ethan intentionally avoided making eye contact.

“Chloe reviewed your search history. You’re constantly reading toxic support group forums, and you’ve been contacting your old doctor to solicit psychiatric narcotics. It's completely sabotaging your desensitization protocol.”

“You are past the point where you should be relying on conservative, chemical-dependent treatments.”

Chloe walked into the room, holding her clinical clipboard.

“I already spoke with Dr. Evans. Her methodology relies way too heavily on chemical suppression. It’s entirely inappropriate for your current phase of recovery.”

“To eliminate any interference with the new treatment plan, I deleted her contact information.”

Ethan held the medication cup out to me.

“Take this. And stop glaring at her.”

I didn't take the cup.

His patience instantly evaporated. He slammed the cup down onto the bedside table.

“Whenever you decide you're ready to start living like a normal, functioning human being, you'll get your phone back.”

I didn't beg him. I just stared at the wall, my eyes completely, utterly hollow.

My dead-eyed silence clearly unsettled Ethan. He turned around and grabbed his jacket.

“Once you're dressed, I'm taking you somewhere.”

Half an hour later, he led me into the dark, damp basement level of an abandoned industrial warehouse complex.

When he pushed the heavy steel doors open, the overwhelming, sickening stench of rust and rotting metal hit me like a physical blow.

Sitting dead center under a flickering, broken fluorescent bulb was the crushed, mangled husk of a totaled sedan.

The front end was completely caved in, the windshield shattered into a million spiderwebs of glass.