I watch her quietly for a while, her eyes closed but flickering as tears push their way through; I observe the disconnect between her attempting to mask her sadness and the over-ride of her body.

She apologises, and I tell her that she can cry here, that she can come here and cry.

I tell her that she can bring that pain and confusion, and feelings of betrayal into my office, because this place is safe for her, and it is not representative of the life outside of this office, she can leave things here so that she doesn’t have to live with them present in other places in her life, so that her life can begin to be free of this suffering in other places.

She tells me she doesn’t want to carry this with her anymore, and she talks of death, of freedom; I point to a box on my desk and state she can leave pieces in there, leave facts and feelings; it will never fill up, and she can take them back out if she wishes, so we can both look at them again.

I tell her it is ok, that she can’t make sense of what happened, that she doesn’t need to have an answer, it might never make sense, but it won’t happen here, this is a safe space, it might never happen again outside of here, and that when she is ready she can shed pieces, reshape them, re-colour them, or exorcise them, into that box.

We practice breathing together, we even laugh a little at the sounds distracting us from mindfulness, and as she leaves she murmurs that she needed this.

I walk with her down the hall, and she asks for the first time how I hurt my arm, referencing that I have it in a sling.

I return to my office and sit, the box in front of me, and I think to myself I don’t know what to do with it, I look inside at its emptiness, and wonder how she feels when she wakes in the night; if she is full, or if it is the void that scares her.