Page 30 of Never After Us
Alec
The building holding Dr.Bennet’s office isn’t glamorous.It’s one of those old brick structures in Capitol Hill that looks like it’s housed twelve different businesses over the last twenty years—architects, chiropractors, a weird tax guy who probably still uses a typewriter.The kind of place you walk past a hundred times and never actually see.
But as soon as I’m inside, something in my lungs loosens.Not a lot.Just enough to keep me moving.
The hallway smells faintly of old carpet and eucalyptus from whatever candle his receptionist insists on burning.Her desk sits under a buzzing fluorescent light, a stack of neatly labeled folders beside her elbow.She looks up the second I enter.
“You can go right in, Mr.Horvath.”
I nod and head toward the half-open door at the end of the hallway.
Inside, the office is exactly how I remember it.A soft gray rug.A sagging bookshelf against the wall, overflowing with titles about grief, attachment, trauma, and something called “radical empathy” that he once tried to make me read.A small couch that looks deceptively comfortable but has a way of making you say shit you didn’t plan on saying.
And there he is.
Dr.Bennet stands from his chair, smoothing a hand down the front of his sweater vest because he’s precisely the kind of man who wears a sweater vest unironically.His hair is a little grayer than the last time I saw him.Or maybe I’m just noticing differently.
“Alec,” he says gently.“Come in.Please, sit.”
I do.The cushion dips under me just enough that I have to steady myself.My fingers lace together in my lap before I can stop them.
He settles into the armchair across from me, elbows on his knees, giving me his full attention.No clipboard.No pen.Just presence—calm, patient, infuriatingly grounded.
“Well,” he says after a moment, “last night you called about your loss.Please, tell me more.”
I swallow.The words claw at my throat.“My neighbor.Lina Lafferty.”
He nods slowly, encouraging me to continue.
“She wasn’t ...family.”I stare at my hands.“But she mattered.Not just to me.To everyone in the building.She had this way of showing up when people didn’t know they needed someone.”
“You admired her.”
“I—” My jaw flexes.“Yeah.I guess I did.”
Silence stretches, it’s not tense, just ...there.
“And this loss feels bigger than you expected,” he says.
A muscle in my neck tightens.“It feels wrong.Like I didn’t have the right to be hit this hard by it.”
He studies me for a moment.“Loss doesn’t ask permission, Alec.Also, sometimes we care more about some people than we want to admit.”
I exhale shakily.“I keep thinking ...I was gone.And she died.And I didn’t know.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“That’s the thing.”I run a hand through my hair.“I keep pushing people out.Choosing to be alone so no one expects anything from me.And now she’s gone, and somehow it feels connected.”
“How so?”
I force myself to meet his eyes.“Her niece moved in.With a kid.”
“A child?”he repeats gently.
“Yeah.And they’re—” I breathe out.“They’re everything I’m not.Bright.Loud.Living.”
He tilts his head.“Does that scare you?”
