His voice broke the silence between us.

There's actually something I've been hiding from you.

I looked up from the notepad on my knee, my pen resting between my fingers.

He sat with his spine drawn inward, shoulders slightly collapsed toward each other, and palms pressed

flat against the tops of his thighs. A man always trying to make himself smaller. His eyes,

shadowed by fatigue, were fixed on something on the ground. I didn't say anything right away.

I'd learned over time that interruptions could break fragile moments like these. I'd been his therapist for a little over a year.

From the very first session, I had sensed that his pain ran deeper than most.

He had peeled it back slowly, as if uncertain whether it was even worth sharing.

In that time, I'd come to know him as someone who had endured a kind of persistent misfortune

that no rational explanation could account for.

The world, it seemed, had made a project out of breaking him.

I leaned back slightly in my chair, careful not to make the movement abrupt. The window beside us

caught a thin wash of afternoon light spilling across the rug between us.

I folded my hands and asked, keeping my voice low.

What is it that you've been holding back?

He shifted in his seat, fingers tapping against his knee.

Whatever it was, it was hard for him to say. But something had changed.

There was a weight to the moment, attention in the room that hadn't been there before.

I've been able to see him for a long time, he said, but I didn't tell you because I thought you think it meant I was really losing it. I didn't want you to think I was crazy. There was a brief pause. Then, his name is

Mr. Grin. Oh, well, that's what I call him. I stayed quiet and nodded slowly to encourage him.

There had been no mention of him before, no allusions to a stalker or a delusion this specific.

...