‘So, your anxiety has resurfaced has it?’

  Pip nodded.

  ‘It’s only natural. Considering what happened.’

  Pip was back in her psychologist’s office; the same blue carpet lined the floor, and she sat in the same red chair across from the same girl with beautiful curls and thick black glasses; her psychologist. Though the bookshelves had been rearranged, and the desk was in a different corner; but apart from that, everything was mostly the same is it had been for the three or so months she’d been going.

  ‘I’d almost forgotten it was there actually. My anxiety. Things seemed to have been getting back to normal. I hadn’t thought about him for… a while. And then…well…yeah; the thing happened.’

  ‘Let’s figure out how to move forward with this. There’s no point dwelling on the past. I think part of the problem for you is, obviously, knowing this could happen again. Would you agree?’

  ‘Yes. To a certain extent.’

  ‘Have you thought about taking things further? Legally I mean.’

  ‘No,’ Pip said firmly.

  ‘No as in you haven’t thought about it, or no as in you’re not going to.’

  Pip shook her head.

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  ‘I can’t take it further. If I do he’ll press charges against Jacob for hitting him.’

  ‘Aha. Jacob’s the one who hit him.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Loyalty is a good quality to have in a friend. And as admirable it may have been, what Jacob did to protect you, this is about your safety. I think the most important thing here. You could have a restraining order filed in the worst case scenario,’ the psychologist paused briefly as she began to sense Pip looking uncomfortable at the thought, but then she continued, altering her course of words carefully. ‘If he touched you before Jacob actually hit him, then what Jacob did was technically self defence. He might not get in as much trouble as you think. If he’s a good friend, he’ll understand.’

  ‘I…I can’t. He did something good for me. I can’t throw that in his face.’

  ‘And I can’t make you go to the police, though I’ll always encourage it.’

  Pip smiled warmly.

  ‘I understand. But no. I’m going to have to deal with this without the police.’

  ‘Is it possible that you have feelings for Jacob. It may be clouding your judgement?’

  ‘No!’ Pip said, ‘that’s not the case at all. Besides, he has a girlfriend.’

  ‘Girlfriend or not. That doesn’t change the fact that there may indeed be feelings there, even if you aren’t acknowledged them, and it isn’t a crime to feel a certain way about someone, either.’

  ‘I suppose we don’t live in Orwell’s 1984 just yet, do we.’

  ‘No. We don’t. And remember, that what gets said in this room stays in this room. We’re here to work through your feelings; whatever they may be.’

  ‘Look,’ Pip shook her head, ‘I can’t deny that there’s something about him that is attractive. And that I like being around him. And he makes me feel safe. He’s also pretty funny, in a dorky kind of way. But the fact is that I’m not going to get in between a relationship. I’m not that sort of person. I’m not in denial. There are feelings, but they’re going to stay hidden away. We’re just friends, and that’s how it will always be. It was bad timing, but it is what it is. As you said, there’s no point dwelling on the past now, is there.’

  ‘You’re right,’ her psychologist agreed, ‘there isn’t.’