Page 32 of The Last Session

But why hadn’t she just given it to Rachel or Diane to give to me?

Granted, the message was strange. What mistake had she made? The word was so ominous. Was this her explanation for leaving with the impostors? If so, why was she telling me?

And thanking me for using my phone—that was weird too. She’d used Amani’s phone; did she not remember? It also seemed like a random thing to mention.

At the end of the day, I knocked on Diane’s door. Her expression remained placid as I showed her the note and explained the situation. I was relieved when she pulled Catherine’s file so we could compare the handwriting in her discharge form. A match! Diane then opened the video footage of Catherine meeting the impostors.

“Yes!” I cried triumphantly at the sight of the supplies scattered on the table. “Can we rewind? To see when she wrote it?”

“We just saved this portion; the videos are taped over every twenty-four hours.”

“Oh.” I bit at my lower lip. “Well, should we call the police?”

“Why?” Diane frowned.

“Because…” I spread my hands. “It sounds fishy, right? Catherine having to deal with consequences? Maybe that’s something the police should know.”

Diane folded her hands on her desk. “Thea, I’m going to share something with you that Catherine’s parents shared with me.”

“Okay.” I didn’t like her pained expression.

“This isn’t the first time Catherine has run off like this. She disappeared right after COVID started. Turned off her phone. Stopped paying rent on her apartment. Her friends and family had no idea where she’d gone.”

This matched what Jonah the PI had told me.

“So she went missing?” I asked.

“Well, not exactly. Her bank account was still open, and they could see she was withdrawing large sums. Or maybe it was a trust. Anyway, they could somehow tell it was being drained. But not where she was withdrawing it from.”

“So what does that mean?” My brain whirred, trying to make sense of this new information.

“It means that whateverall thishas been”—Diane gestured in a circle—“it’s a pattern. But it’s not our job to figure it out.”

“Okay…” What was she saying?

“Look,” Diane went on. “Even the police coming here yesterday—that wasn’t actually necessary. Catherine is over eighteen and checked herself out. But her parents are powerful people, so…” She shrugged.

“But Diane.” I cleared my throat, attempting to sound reasonable. “You saw the state she was in when she came here. And we both sawwhat happened when she woke up. She went through somethingbad. What if she went back to that same situation?”

“She could. But that happens all the time. Think of women who return to their abusive partners. Of course, they’re caught up in a cycle of coercion. But we can’t physically stop them.”

I paused, at a loss. “So that’s it? We just forget about her?”

“There’re plenty of other patients who need your attention.” Diane sat back, her perceptive gaze holding me in place. “And that might be something to consider, Thea. Why you feel so invested inthiswoman, who just happens to be a movie star.”

“It’s not just because of that.” Indignance and embarrassment circled my chest.

“Look, I get it,” Diane went on in a softer tone. “Catherine might have characterological traits. And people with personality disorders can be very seductive in a clinical sense. They know how to read us, how to tap into our desires. They can make us want to save them. But that’s not your job. And regardless, Catherine is no longer under your care.”

“Fine.” I cleared my throat. “I get it.”

And intellectually, I did. I left Diane’s office feeling foolish, like Catherine had pulled one over on me. I’d worked with plenty of clients at my grad internships and at the hospital, those who ran the gamut from neurotic to borderline to psychotic. The neurotic ones were grounded in reality, the psychotic in unreality. And the borderline clients moved back and forth, setting foot in one world and then the other. They did a similar dance in their relationships: swinging back and forth between idealizing and devaluing. Young parts of their psyche craved connecting, but then, when others inevitably disappointed them, that urge might shift into an unconscious desire to destroy.

Of course, these borderline traits weren’t chosen; they usually came from intensive early trauma. A lack of solid connection to one’s caretakers, often due to the caretakers’owntrauma. That thread of agony and anguish unspooled through generations.

I hadn’t even considered Catherine in this realm, but maybe I’d been blinded by her celebrity and our—well, my—history with her. Maybe this was why I couldn’t stop thinking about her, wanting to help her.

Diane was right: this was classic borderline countertransference.

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