FADE IN: INT. MAYA'S THERAPY OFFICE, CAPITOL HILL, SEATTLE, 10:00 AM The room is designed around the absence of distraction. Neutral walls. Two chairs angled toward each other at precisely the degree that feels casual rather than confrontational. A low table between them with nothing on it. One window to the left, gauze curtain diffusing the October light into something warm and without edges. A bookshelf behind one chair. A notepad on the other. DR. MAYA CROSS (38) sits in the chair with the notepad. She is composed in the way that a landscape is composed: nothing accidental. Dark hair pulled back from her face. Professional attire in the specific register of a person who wants her clothing to make no impression. Her eyes are the room's most precise instrument. Across from her, PATIENT A (52) is speaking. Maya is listening the way you listen when you do this for a living. Not just to the words. To the structure the words make. To the gaps. Her pen moves at intervals. The notepad is on her knee, tilted away from the patient. PATIENT A I keep thinking it was my fault. Not the break-in itself. The part after. I keep thinking I should have been more afraid, and the fact that I wasn't means something is wrong with me. Maya does not answer immediately. She lets the sentence settle. MAYA What does being afraid look like, in your mind? What should it have looked like? 1