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The office doesn’t smell like a hospital or a crisis center. It smells like a house in the Hamptons where the linens are changed every day and someone is always baking something with real vanilla just out of sight. It’s the kind of warmth that feels engineered to make a person stop vibrating. It’s soft and golden and the air is thick with the scent of old books and something that might be cedar. It is supposed to be welcoming. It is supposed to tell Adrian that he can sit down and stop being a disaster for forty-five minutes.
He’s sitting on a velvet armchair that feels like a hug from a very rich relative. He has no idea what it cost but it’s the kind of furniture that exists to make people feel safe enough to ruin their own lives out loud. He crosses his legs and pulls at the fabric of his trousers. There is a mirror on the wall framed in tarnished gold and he can see that his hair is still perfect and his eyeliner hasn't smudged. He looks like a man who belongs in a room this nice. He doesn't look like a man who is currently tracking a signal tower that is screaming at a frequency only he can hear.
This is psychiatrist number four or maybe five. The last one was Dr. Landon. Landon lasted three weeks before he started looking at Adrian like he was a leak in a dam. They always start with the same soft smiles and the way they lean forward to show they’re listening to the shipping heir with the vivid imagination. Then Adrian starts talking. He tells them about the roadside. He tells them about the tower that is always right there on the horizon.
Then the doctors stop sleeping. They start canceling appointments. They realize he isn't just a rich kid who needs a hobby and they get quiet because the logic of the place he’s describing is too solid to be a dream.
The receptionist is named Marta. She offered him tea three minutes ago and he tried to pay her for it because he wasn't sure if the hospitality was part of the bill or just a courtesy. He slid a hundred dollar bill across the desk and she just pushed it back with a smile that was actually kind. She didn't look at him like he was crazy. She looked at him like he was just a person who had been running for a long time. The lighting is amber and the art on the walls is all landscapes and soft edges. It is a very gentle place to fall apart.
It makes him sweat through his Dior shirt. The fear is a cold weight in his gut because if Dr. @Gedeón Solís | Gideon can’t find the signal in the noise then there is no signal. It means the tower isn't a gateway or a glitch in the world's programming and he's just broken in a way that trust funds and charisma and self-medication can't fix.
The silence in the office is the worst part because it lets the hum back in. If he stays quiet he can feel the asphalt of that roadside under his boots and hear the dry wind whistling through the transmission lines of a place that shouldn't exist.
He taps a nail against his phone screen. 2:00 PM.
Adrian fixes a smile onto his face. It’s the one he uses for Instagram, paparazzi, and the people who want to be him. He’s ready to play the role of the charmingly troubled eccentric right up until the moment the world, the other world, starts to intrude again.
He hears a door click open down the hall. Footsteps. They are solid and rhythmic, muffled by the plush carpet. Adrian doesn't look up yet. He watches his own hand and notices the slight tremor in his thumb. He decides to clasp his hands together in front of him to hide the fact.
Maybe this time it will work, he tells himself. Maybe this time he will find out what the fuck is actually going on in his head.