Session of Shadows
(Jane’s POV)
“How do I forgive a betrayal that keeps on bleeding?”
My voice cracked as I said it, words fragile as glass between my lips.
Dr. Victoria Green didn’t speak right away. She rarely did. That was one of her strengths–making silence feel like safety instead of judgment.
I sat across from her, perched stiffly on the velvet–lined settee, twisting a tissue into ribbons in my lap. The room around me smelled of lavender and sandalwood–comforting, ancient somehow. A low jazz record spun in the background, notes meandering like lost thoughts. The silence between us stretched, uncoiling the tension from my spine, letting the words begin to spill.
“You know what hurts the most?”
My voice trembled like a frayed violin string, nearly breaking with the weight of the words.
“It’s not just the cheating, Dr. Green–it’s who he did it with. Julia. My own sister. My identical twin.”
I kept my gaze set on the edge of her desk, reluctant to meet hers. The carved mahogany trim coiled like old vines, and for a little while, I let myself to become lost in its pattern–anything to calm the fury within me.
“What could he possibly be looking for in her body that he couldn’t find in mine?” I said, the words tasting harsh.
A silence fell between us. But it wasn’t empty. It was listening.
“I thought Julia was in another country, halfway across the world, living some drama–filled, whirlwind life. Four years. Four years without a single call, no birthday text, no check–in from the girl I once shared a womb. with. And then suddenly-”
I let out a shaky breath.
“Suddenly, she’s back. And I find out she’s the woman in my bed. With my husband. The same man I built my world around.”
Dr. Green didn’t interrupt. She sat there, the lovely creases on her face chiseled by compassion rather than pity. The silver bangles on her wrist caught the light as she grabbed for her notepad, but she did not write anything down. She simply held it tenderly in her lap, as if respecting the importance of what I was about to say.
Her office was more than a room. It was a sanctuary built with purpose- where history breathed from the shelves, where ancestors watched over you from carved statues and worn leather books. The walls bore maps of old kingdoms and sepia portraits of women who had survived worse and still found ways to sing. There was something grounding
about it all. A reminder that pain was not new. That it, too, could be survived.
“I remember the first time Nathan and I made love,” I said quietly, my voice suddenly far away. “It was raining. He lit candles even though the power was still on. He asked me what I was afraid of, and I said… ‘Being forgotten.‘ And he looked at me like that was the saddest thing he’d ever heard.”
I paused, tossing the twisted tissue in my hand on the side stool beside
- me.
“I thought–God, I believed–he saw me. Like, really saw me.”
I blinked rapidly, clearing the sting.
10 C
“He made me feel like I was the center of his world. I was always the priority—until I wasn’t. Until work got longer, his phone turned over more often, and those little kindnesses vanished. At first, I thought he was stressed. That maybe the intimacy faded because of pressure. Not because… because he was screwing my sister behind my back.”
I looked up at Dr. Green, finally meeting her eyes.
“But he didn’t just sleep with her, Victoria. He chose her. He proposed a divorce to me via a text message. And the worst part? He acted like he was the victim. Like he was the one being suffocated in our marriage. He asked for a divorce as if it were some casual business transaction. No remorse. No shame.”
Dr. Green leaned forward slightly. Her voice, when it came, was soft. Grounding.
“What do you believe hurts more–the betrayal or the erasure?”
I swallowed hard.
“The erasure,” I whispered. “Because now I’m wondering if he ever loved me at all. If Julia just waltzed in and unstitched everything we built that easily… then what was I to him? A placeholder?”
Dr. Green was silent for a moment, then asked, “And Julia? What do you feel when you think about her now?”
I didn’t answer immediately. My mind raced with childhood memories- matching Easter dresses, shared whispers under blankets, taking the blame for each other in school.
But then I saw her again. At Café Brago. Perfectly composed. Sipping her cappuccino with painted nails and lips that didn’t even twitch when she said it:
“I was the one in the house. That night. With Nathan.”
I felt the rage burn through my chest.
“She knew,” I said. “She knew I was married. She knew Nathan was my entire life. But she went there anyway. And now… now she gets to walk around with no consequences? Like I’m the one who was stupid enough not to see it coming?”
I stood up suddenly, the emotion too big for the chair to hold. I walked to the tall window behind Victoria, staring out at the city. Horns honked below. People bustled on sidewalks. Life kept moving, unaware of the silent wreckage inside me.
“I don’t even know who I am anymore,” I whispered. “I was someone’s wife. I was a sister. And now I’m just… the woman who had been left in the ditch of hurt and pain.”
“No,” Dr. Green said firmly. “You are a woman who is healing from betrayal. That’s not weakness, Jane. That’s survival.”
I closed my eyes and let her words sit. Breathe. Wrap around the hollow space in my ribs.
I turned from the window, heart still pounding, and reached into my coat pocket–the one I hadn’t washed or emptied since that night.
With trembling fingers, I pulled out the bracelet.
It glinted under the soft light of Dr. Green’s office, delicate yet bold. A silver chain with a single, unmistakable charm–a rose quartz stone nestled in a golden infinity loop. Feminine. Distinct.
Julia’s.
“I found this on the floor,” I said quietly, voice brittle as dry leaves. “The
night I walked in on them.”
I ran my thumb along the charm, the cool metal warming in my grip.
“I didn’t know it was hers then. I didn’t even see her face. Just… a shadow slipping out the back, clutching her heels. But this?” I held it out. “This told me everything.”
Dr. Green leaned forward, her eyes gentle and understanding.
“You’ve been carrying that with you all this time?”
I nodded, the anguish in my chest intensifying.
“I kept it like a wound I refused to clean. Like maybe… if I held on to it long enough, it would make sense. That it would hurt less. Or maybe–I don’t know–prove that it wasn’t just a nightmare. That it actually happened.”
Dr. Green did not respond promptly. She reached into a drawer and took out a small woven box. It appeared hand–carved, with West African Adinkra motifs inscribed onto the wood. It had a subtle scent of cedar and something older, wiser.
“I want you to place it in here,” she replied gently.
I paused. My fingers tightened around the bracelet.
“This isn’t about forgetting, Jane,” she said, her voice firm yet kind.
“It’s about releasing. When we hold on to pain like a relic, it becomes sacred in the wrong way. That bracelet… it’s not a memory. It’s a weapon. And every time you touch it, it reopens the wound.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“But it’s the only proof I had, Victoria. The only thing that made the betraval feel real.”
Dr. Green stood and crossed the little distance between us, her presence as steady and grounded as the earth itself. “You are the proof,” she murmured softly, placing her fingers on her heart. “You are still here.
Still breathing. Still fighting to heal. That bracelet doesn’t define the betrayal–and it certainly doesn’t define you.” My lip quivered. My body stiffened. But finally, slowly, I placed the bracelet in the box.
Dr. Green closed the lid with reverence, then set it on a high shelf behind her. between a bronze sculpture of a grieving woman and a photograph of her grandmother wrapped in traditional kente cloth.
A symbolic burial. A quiet good–bye.
The silence that followed was different now. Not empty. Not sharp. Just… still.
Then, my phone buzzed.
A single vibration that sliced through the quiet.
I frowned, wiping my cheeks, and picked it up from the armrest.
A new message.
From Nathan’s lawyer.
Dear Mrs. Frank, please be advised that the divorce papers are ready for signing. Kindly come by the firm tomorrow at 10 a.m. to finalize your agreement and collect your personal belongings.
I blinked at the screen. My heart heavy.
So that was it.
No attempt at reconciliation.
No call.
No apology.
Just a time slot and an address.
Did he ever really love me? Or was our two–year marriage just a game?
“Dr. Green,” I said, my voice trembling. “It’s from his lawyer. The divorce. papers… they’re ready.”
She watched me with quiet empathy but didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. Her silence let me process the blow.
But before I could even respond, another notification popped up.
An attachment.
I tapped it open without thinking. My throat tightened.
A scanned signature page. Nathan’s name was already signed in confident, looping strokes.
But beside it-
The witness signature.
Julia Peterson.
The air left my lungs.
My hands went cold. I stared at the screen, heart thrashing in my chest.
“She witnessed it.”
My voice was barely audible. “Julia… she signed off on the divorce. Like she’s part of this now. Officially.
My gaze shot to Dr. Green, wild and disbelieving.
“She’s not just the woman he cheated with–she’s helping him end our marriage.”
The weight of that truth settled over me like a storm cloud ready to burst.
Dr. Green stepped forward, her expression turning protective.
“Jane, I want you to listen to me very carefully,” she continued, her voice. low and forceful. “This is no longer simply betrayal. There’s something deeper going on. Something that needs to be uncovered.”
