He waits outside the therapist's office without checking the time.
The building is plain.
Brick.
Quiet street.
Nothing remarkable.
When she comes out, she looks… lighter.
Not brighter.
Just less tightly held.
"Hi," she says.
"Hi."
They start walking.
Not toward the park.
Not aimlessly.
Just along the sidewalk.
He matches her pace without thinking.
"How was it?" he asks.
She considers.
"Incremental."
"That sounds accurate."
A small exhale.
"They think the sensory thing is tied to control," she says. "If you dull input, you dull unpredictability."
He nods.
"That makes sense."
She walks a few more steps.
"But it's shifting," she adds. "Slowly."
"The chocolate?" he asks.
She glances at him.
"Yes."
A pause.
"I don't know why that one."
He shrugs lightly.
"Sea salt's stronger than people expect."
She looks ahead again.
"It feels different with you."
The sentence lands without warning.
He doesn't react immediately.
"Different how?"
She hesitates.
"I'm not sure."
They cross a quiet intersection.
Cars pass distantly.
"I don't feel evaluated," she says finally. "Or managed."
He absorbs that.
"With Sunny, there's warmth. With Zane, there's momentum. With Amelia, there's energy. With Theo, there's structure."
She looks at him now.
"With you, there's… space."
He doesn't look away.
"I can say anything," she continues, "and you won't try to reshape it. You just… hold it."
He doesn't know what to do with that.
"That's listening," he says.
"Yes," she agrees. "You're a good listener."
They walk in silence for a few steps.
Then she adds, almost casually—
"Sometimes I wonder why you're always so steady."
He looks at her then.
"What do you mean?"
"You support everyone," she says. "You don't push. You don't compete. You don't withdraw."
She studies him carefully.
"But who supports you?"
The question doesn't sound accusatory.
It sounds observational.
It lands harder than the joke about him being gay.
Because this one sees him.
He doesn't answer right away.
He doesn't know if he has one.
Support.
He has Sunny.
Zane.
Laura.
But he rarely leans.
Rarely asks.
Rarely makes noise.
"I manage," he says eventually.
She stops walking.
That makes him stop too.
"That's not the same thing," she says.
The air feels cooler suddenly.
She isn't destabilized.
She isn't spiraling.
She's clear.
And that's what unsettles him.
Because she's not asking him to carry her.
She's asking who carries him.
And he doesn't have a practiced answer for that.
For the first time in a long while—
He feels the weight of his own steadiness.