Page 3 of The Last Session

“Stop.” I said it loudly, but no one paid attention.

“Maybe Iwillslit your goddamn throat,” Lydia yelled, her shout bouncing around the small room.

“Whatis going on in here?”

We all turned. My boss, Diane, stood in the doorway, eyebrows near her hairline.

“Nothing.” As if a switch had been flipped, Lydia calmly plopped back in her seat. Ace and Lonnie went back to coloring, docile as schoolboys.

“Well, it doesn’t sound like nothing.” Diane strode in, her trademark block-heeled pumps clicking on the floor. Diane was only a little over five foot two, but the power she held here was incredible. I’d brought it up once with Amani.Transference.She’d shrugged.Everyone sees Diane as Mommy.

“Hi, Diane.” Guilt and embarrassment flooded my system. I felt like my teacher had asked me to monitor the classroom and returned to find that I’d completely lost control.

Diane stood behind Ben’s chair, peering down at the scribbles. Lonnie had deftly flipped his paper over and was now drawing a large tree.

Lydia offered Diane a rare grin. Several of her lower teeth were stubs, melted by meth use. She’d been brought in after having a psychotic break at her inpatient rehab program, where she’d punched her roommate. We were hoping the program would take her back.

“We’re just talking about our greatest fears.” Lydia tapped her paper. “I was going to draw a clown. They freak me out.”

“Mine is intimacy,” Ace jumped in smoothly. He pointed to his paper, where he’d quickly drawn two stick people next to each other.

“Oh yeah?” Diane peered down. She’d been unsure about the art group to begin with.

“Ben’s fear is failure,” Ace went on, unable to keep an amused smile off his face.

“That’s a pretty… intense prompt.” Diane looked over at me.

“Our idea,” Lydia said quickly. “Not hers. She wanted us to draw our favorite animal.”

Now they were protecting me. The hangover headache resurged.

“Sorry if we were getting loud,” I said. “People were feeling real passion for the topic.”

“Okay. Well.” Diane stepped back.Clack.“Thea, can you come to my office when you’re done here? There’s something we need to talk about.”

“Ooh,” Ace murmured under his breath, like I was getting called to the principal’s office.

“Sure,” I said breezily.

Diane left and the rest of the hour passed slowly. Ace, Lydia, and Lonnie continued to quibble, but the dangerous tension of earlier had dissipated. At the end I gathered up the crayons as the others threw their papers away.

“What’s that?” Lydia pointed to the paper I’d mindlessly scribbled at. Before I could look down, she snatched it and held it aloft.

“Is this acunt?” Her voice was gleeful.

And I guess you could see it that way: a scribbled space, becoming darker in the center.

“Something on your mind?” Ace winked. “You know, I could give you some tips.”

“Caves.” I said it quickly, willing the incoming blush down. If I blushed in front of them, I was done for. “I have a fear of caves.”

“Scary,” Lonnie agreed in a rare moment of solidarity. Maybe he was just glad I’d let him draw breasts the whole time. They walked out together, chattering, Lydia taking Ben’s arm to lead him back to the TV room. I was reminded ridiculously ofThe Breakfast Club.

I stared at my paper for a moment. I hadn’t really been thinking of it—I’d mostly been pondering what Diane wanted to talk to me about, and where to get lunch—but Ihaddreamed about a cave last night. I’d been trapped in a tiny space. I didn’t remember the dream, just the setting: cold, damp, wet.

The memory triggered a curl of terror in my chest. I crumpled the paper up and tossed it in the trash with the others.

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