The female survivor group was supposed to be bigger.

It was my new sex therapist, his wife for “female presence” and “moral support” and two other women.

My screen felt too small for it.
The lighting was bad. I looked tired.
I kept shifting my chair, adjusting the angle, trying to look a little more put together.

It didn’t really work.

Then he asked,

“Can everyone share what brought them here?”

Something in my chest tightened.

I’d met these people maybe ten minutes ago.

I don’t usually say things like this out loud.

So I start with the version that comes out automatically.

The one that doesn’t make anything shift too much.

“My brother started abusing me when I was seven.”

It comes out clean.

Almost too clean.

He doesn’t look away.

“Say more.”

I flinch.

How much more do I need to say?
Doesn’t that answer his question?

I look down.

At my hands.
At the space between my knees.

My vision starts to blur.
The tears come before anything else.
My mouth opens anyway.

I’m used to being seen.
Not heard.

But this time, I don’t fix it.

I don’t soften it.
I don’t make it easier to hear.
I don’t shape it into something that holds together.

And while I’m saying it, I’m also trying to piece it together in real time.

I say what happened.

And it just… stays there.

I brace for the pity.
For the soft voices.
For something to smooth it over.

But no one does.

No one interrupts.
No one rushes in.

They just let it be there.

Time stretches.

I can feel it in my body.

Heat in my chest.

For a moment, it feels like I’m floating in the ocean.
Part safe.
Part not.

I don’t rush to fill the silence.

Eventually, someone nods.

Recognition.

Then she says,

“I’m sorry.”

Gently.

That it wasn’t my fault.
That I wasn’t protected.

I hear it.

But it doesn’t fully land.

There’s something about the way she says it,
steady, calm, safe.

It feels unfamiliar.

I just sit with it.

It doesn’t change what happened.

But the part of me that keeps reshaping it… loosens a little.

The room stays the same.

No one leaves.

The words are still there too.

Unedited.

My throat feels raw.

Not tight in the same way.

Just… open.

Then I tell them,
I’m going to call my family after this.
And say it the same way.

Not on paper.