I stepped inside Dr. Cuello's office, surprised to find it filled with warm sunlight and green plants, a large Dominican Republic flag and crammed bookshelves—and Sebastian perched on the arm of the sofa, the hint of a smile lingering on his lips.
The man smiled? Since when?
Out of pure reflex I smiled back, but he was quick to destroy the moment with a pointed glance at his smartwatch followed by a bent-eyebrowed stare. He raked that stare through my probably wild hair, over my white coat, and down to my lemon-lime sneakers.
What an asshole.
Just for that, I abandoned all discomfort over my late arrival and the state of my hair.
"Dr. Shapiro, you've found us," Dr. Cuello said, gesturing to the sofa. She was the kind of sixties-ish woman who could wear a poncho and make it look good, which was a true accomplishment in my book. Essentially, I wanted to be able to wear a blanket and call it fashion. Was that too much to ask? "Please make yourself comfortable. Dr. Stremmel and I were just trading Puerto Rican restaurant recommendations since we've made a habit of bumping into each other in line for the new Caribbean food truck. I miss the flavors of home even more when winter starts creeping in. Perhaps we could conduct one of our sessions over lunch?"
Oh, I hated that idea and I'd find a way to wiggle out of lunch without insulting Dr. Cuello and her food in the process, but those priorities were secondary to glaring at Sebastian as he pushed off the sofa's arm and stalked to the bookshelves.
I settled into the corner of the sofa closest to the door. "I was late finishing with the residents in my skills lab. Thank you for waiting."
It felt as strange to say that as it sounded. It would've been so much simpler to apologize for running late and it would've felt better too—until all the little concessions and apologies tightened and calcified inside me, a brittle organ that functioned only when fed a steady diet of shame.
I hadn't learned it was shame until the past few years. Before, I'd thought this was perfectionism, type A personality, oldest sister syndrome. What harm could come from always wanting to be the top of my class, look polished and put-together all the time, solve problems before they materialized? What was wrong with controlling everything?
The organ still ticked inside me. It sputtered in innocuous moments like these when I said thank you for waiting instead of I'm sorry, and it panged with hunger when I stood up to badass bully surgeons like Stremmel because it would be so, so much easier to stay quiet.
Dr. Cuello was asking him something about a restaurant and scribbling a note on the pad perched on her knee. "I love a good rice and pernil lunch plate too," she said. "Especially when it's made right."
He nodded in agreement. He wasn't smiling anymore. No, the relaxed, amenable version of him I'd found when stepping into this office was long gone, and since I was the only change in this dynamic, I earned the prize of being the stick up his ass today.
Awesome.
"If not all of us together, then you two should visit the food trucks. It would be a fine opportunity to learn something about each other outside your hospital roles," she said.
I gave a slow nod and lukewarm smile but there was absolutely no way that was happening. Lunch with Sebastian was out of the question, but also, I couldn't even walk past the area where food trucks regularly parked in this neighborhood without my stomach turning. It drove me crazy that so much of everyday adult life revolved around eating with people. This setup wasn't designed for those of us with confrontational digestive systems.
Dr. Cuello shifted in her modern-style red wingback chair to glance at Stremmel, her long silver hair gleaming in the sun as a smile tugged at her lips. "That's a defensive posture if I've ever seen one, Dr. Stremmel."
He stood with his shoulders against the shelf and his arms crossed over his chest. His scrubs were the darkest, most saturated navy blue I'd ever seen, the color one would receive if they asked for black with the barest pulse of life beating inside it.
When Sebastian replied with nothing more than a slow blink, Dr. Cuello continued, "Ah. Well. It is time for us to begin."
I reached into my coat pockets to check that all my devices were set to vibrate. From the corner of my eye, I watched Sebastian inspect the device clipped to his hip and the phone in his pocket.
"How's this going to go?" he asked. "Are we supposed to prove that we're not a danger to each other or hospital property? If that's the case, I can probably leave now, seeing as Shapiro is the one who likes to live dangerously."
"In this space, I'll encourage you to speak to each other using first names—"
"Shapiro is fine," I said. My whole life, I'd been Sara Shap, Shap, Shappie. No one ever called me Sara. I doubted I'd even respond to it.
"Or is this going to be naming feelings and exploring trauma and that whole dumpster fire? Because if so, can we just raw dog this thing and move it all along? My father hasn't been in my life on a consistent basis, my parents divorced when I was four, and I haven't felt anything since then. Shap, you're on deck."
I deposited my devices back into one pocket beside the color-coded notecards I used to prepare for my cases, and grabbed this afternoon's snack from the other. "I feel plenty of things but I'd rather intellectualize those feelings and bottle them up until they explode."
"See Exhibit A, the exam room I like for charting," he said.
Dr. Cuello hummed to herself as she steepled her fingertips under her chin. "I understand now."
"What?" Sebastian asked. "Why you, as the Associate Director of Behavioral Health, got stuck with us instead of shipping us off to a doctoral student?"
She inclined her head toward him with a generous smile. "Yes, and why I was promised I'd enjoy it so much."
I pinched my lips together to keep myself from shouting that this wasn't a game to me. That I'd been chastised for my behavior by my boss—which was the worst punishment in the world for any perfectionist, but especially this perfectionist, since it came coupled with a reminder that my fucking father would've been disappointed.
My entire professional life was spent defining myself as separate and distinct from my father and now…well, this wasn't a game to me. I wasn't going to let it be a game.
"I commend you both for being able to distill yourself down to, ahem, raw dog terms, as you say, though that's not how this is going to go, Sebastian," Dr. Cuello said. "If you're comfortable with it, you're welcome to call me Milana."
She glanced in my direction but I was too busy eating and organizing my pockets. Not for the first time, I observed that I could hide an entire kitten in one of these pockets.
"Our time together will be spent practicing de-escalation, social perspective-taking, and communication in high stress yet professional settings. I hope you'll view this as an opportunity rather than a punishment."
"It is a punishment," I said, mostly to myself.
"What—what the hell are you eating?" Sebastian asked.
I replied with the same amount of exasperation with which he'd asked the question. "Croutons."
"Why?"
"Why," I repeated. "What kind of question is that? Do you go up to people in the cafeteria and ask them why they chose that sandwich?"