Sweet as Honey by Gwen Wells

Author:Gwen Wells [Wells, Gwen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

19

I’m back in the tub, or I’ve never left the tub. I yank off the goggles that cover my eyes, but it’s still pitch black in the enclosed space. The water has cooled slightly, and I feel goosebumps tingle across my skin. The cover allows very little space above the water’s surface, and I start to feel panicky. I’m not generally claustrophobic, but I’m also not generally trapped inside a water-filled coffin.

I lift a hand out of water and pound against the cover, yelling for someone to let me out. I pound until my fist is sore and my throat is raw, and finally, I sink back into the water, drawing my knees to my chest and tilting my head back to keep my face above the surface. I’m not sure what the goal of this session was supposed to be, but it feels like some type of torture. If breaking my spirit was on their agenda, I’m starting to think they succeeded.

I sit there for what feels like hours, sometimes crying, sometimes humming, just to break the oppressive silence. I can't hear anything from the room outside, so I have no idea if anyone is out there or if I'm totally alone.

I nearly scream when I hear a whooshing sound, but I realize it's just the cover being pulled back. The light in the room is dim — a deliberate choice, I think now — but it stabs through my eyes like daggers nonetheless. I blink against it, trying to see the figure materializing over me.

“Cici?” I’m so surprised I forget to be outraged.

Cici doesn't smile, but her dark eyes meet mine as she leans forward to take my arms and guide me out of the water.

“Hey,” she says softly. “Long time, no see.”

I'm unsure what to say or even how I feel. I'm so relieved to see Cici alive and — at least externally — well, but I'm still angry over her role in this whole mess.

"I'm really sorry to have left you in there so long," she says, helping me step out of the tub onto a fluffy white bath mat. "We usually bring you out of it pretty slowly, so it's not such a shock, but I guess you ended things on your own terms today." She smiles then, but I can't tell if it's genuine or chastising.

“I’ve done this before?” I ask, pulling the swim cap off my head and immediately feeling a chill.

Cici nods as she pulls a warm robe around my shoulders, helping me get my arms into the sleeves. “Yes, many times. It’s so overwhelming, though. Perhaps it was just too soon.”

“I saw them,” I say, before she can ask, if she even had been going to ask. “Des and Merrick. Just the two of them. In a garden. Was it real?”

Cici looks over her shoulder, her brow creasing. “You’ll discuss what you saw in your next session,” she says, giving me another smile — this one obviously artificial.

“I don’t want to discuss it in my next session,” I say, somewhat petulantly.

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