I spent the rest of the morning trying to follow her advice.
Be aware of what I was feeling.
The problem was I knew exactly what I was feeling. I had the clinical vocabulary for all of it — the hypervigilance, the intrusive recall, the somatic arousal that the breathing exercises couldn't touch. I could have written the intake note myself. So many years of control, ninety minutes of surrender, and now my nervous system was filing the experience under something it had no existing category for.
That was the problem with the Praxis. It didn't give you new feelings. It gave you old ones back, the ones you'd been managing so long you'd forgotten they were supposed to move.
Because I could feel myself starting to conflate the methodology with the man. To believe that my response to the Praxis was somehow about Meric specifically, rather than the framework he represented.
That was transference. Basic psychology.
And knowing it didn't make it less powerful.
By early afternoon, I was restless again. I'd read. Meditated—badly. I ate lunch in my suite because I didn't want to risk running into anyone.
I needed to move.
I left the East Wing and crossed through the boundary doors into the Observation Wing, telling myself I was just exploring. Learning the Institute's layout. Perfectly reasonable.
The corridor was quiet. Sunlight streamed through the windows, the fjord below gone white and flat in the afternoon light, the kind of brightness that gives nothing back. I passed The Quiet Suite—door closed. Passed several unmarked doors that were likely administrative offices.
And then I saw Meric's office.
The frosted glass door. His name in small steel letters. Behind it, nothing visible — the glass was true frost, not decorative.
I stopped.
The handle was right there. The corridor was empty. No camera at this end — I'd already noted the placement of the ones I could see.
I stood there for what was probably forty seconds and felt the specific quality of wanting to know something you have no right to know. It was different from ordinary curiosity. It had weight. It pulled.
I didn't open the door.
I don't know what stopped me. Professional ethics, probably. Or the more uncomfortable possibility — that whatever was on the other side of that door would make this harder, not easier. That understanding Meric outside the sessions would not satisfy the want. It would only give it a more precise address.
I was still standing there when Vigdis appeared at the end of the corridor.
She looked at me. She looked at the door. She didn't say anything for a moment.
"The observation wing is staff access only," she said.
"The door at the boundary wasn't locked," I said.
"No," she agreed. "It isn't." She waited.
I understood the wait. She was letting me decide whether I was going to explain myself.
"I needed to move," I said. "I wasn't going to go in."
She studied me for exactly the amount of time it took to determine whether that was true. Then she turned and walked back toward the boundary. The implication was clear.
At the boundary doors, she stopped.
"I like you," Vigdis said. "You're smart, you're honest, and you're doing the work. But you need to stay in your lane. Don't go into Meric's office again. Don't ask questions about things that don't concern you. And don't confuse the Praxis with the Praxist."
"I'm not—"
"Yes, you are." Her gray eyes held mine — flat, measuring, giving nothing back. "Which is why you need to be careful."
"And Meric?" I asked before I could stop myself. "Is he—"
Vigdis took a step back. That was all — one step, deliberate, creating exactly the distance she wanted between us. "Meric Solvang-Lykke has guided over two hundred clients through the Praxis without incident, Dr. Kaelen. He adheres to Clause 7.3 without exception."
"That wasn't the question," I said, meeting her gaze.
"It was the only answer you need," Vigdis stated, her voice cold and final. "Your concern is your own surrender. His concern is the integrity of the methodology. Do not confuse the two."
She left me standing there, heart pounding, mind racing.
I stood there after she left and turned the answer over in my hands like something I'd found on the floor — not sure if it was mine, not sure I wanted it to be.
I spent the rest of the afternoon in my suite, pacing.
Forty-eight hours had sounded manageable yesterday.
Now it felt impossible.
I kept thinking about Vigdis's non-answer. About the way Meric had looked at me after removing the blindfold — like he'd seen something he hadn't expected. About whether those two things were connected or whether I was constructing a pattern because patterns were the only thing I knew how to build.
I was spiraling.
Obsessing.
Exactly what he'd warned me not to do.
At 6:00 PM, my tablet chimed.
A message appeared on the screen:
FROM: M. SOLVANG-LYKKE
SESSION TWO SCHEDULED: DAY 6, 8:00 PMREVIEW YOUR SESSION GUIDELINES BEFORE ARRIVAL.ARRIVE ON TIME.
I stared at the message for a moment, then opened the Session Guidelines.
Section 4.3 stopped me.
EXPOSURE PROTOCOLS:
Sessions focused on exposure require clients to verbalize desires, describe fantasies, and remain visually present (no blindfold). Clients may be required to observe themselves via mirror or video feed. The goal is to confront shame, inhibition, and self-perception distortions.
My pulse quickened.
No blindfold meant I'd see him touching me.
Verbalize desires meant I'd have to tell him exactly what I wanted.
And mirrors meant I'd have to watch myself surrendering.
The thought terrified me.
It also made me unbearably aroused.
I closed the tablet and pressed my forehead against the cold window glass.
Twenty-four hours.
I just had to survive twenty-four more hours.
And then I could have him again.
Not him. The Praxis. The methodology. The correction didn't hold.
Because what I wanted wasn't just the surrender.
It was Meric's hands on me while I surrendered.
His voice commanding me. His eyes watching me break apart.
I closed my eyes.
The methodology was working, I'd told myself this morning. I'd meant it as clinical observation.
I understood now that it had also been a warning.