after hearing the old wood door of Bradley’s office thud closed behind him. It always amused him, the uniquely theraputic switch from soul-shredding truths to the oh-so-curt “we have to stop now.”

Of course, this was the point — to have someone else, someone Other, help you navigate the rocks and crags and steep cliffs that comprised all that you remembered and all that repeatedly flashed into your consciousness. A psychoanalytic sherpa, taking from you the weight of guilt and shame and self-loathing; giving you the freedom to climb, breathe rarified air, look down upon the small smudge of landscape that, forty-eight minutes previously, had delineated your entire world.

How fucking poetic, Brandon thought. Better not repeat that, he’ll jack up his fee.

“We have to stop now.” On its face, it seemed so jarring; superficially, even cruel — and yet that phrase encapsulated what was probably the most profound measure of compassion Brandon could receive, or had ever received. Because alone, alone with his thoughts; alone with one too many drinks; alone in a crowd, there was no one to say “we have to stop now.” No one to gently lead him away from the jagged rocks below onto which his relentless hyper-focus would gladly fling him; no one to give him permission to not think, to not let his stomach twist in regrets impossibly chained to the past.

He snapped himself out of his reverie. The elevator pinged as it emptied a skinny, morosely texting man in a ski cap — it was January — onto the floor, and Brandon watched disconnectedly as he shambled to his apartment. He felt an odd sense of peace, and wished that there had been a large, soft couch to immediately welcome several hours of inaction.

He opened the doors to the stairway, and began a rapid descent, letting the echoes of his shoes on the worn marble stairs remind him that he was not yet home.