I was thinking about her too much.

That was the first warning sign. The first indication that I was already losing the professional distance I'd maintained with every other patient for the past fifteen years.

It was Tuesday afternoon, twenty minutes before Jessa's second session, and I was sitting at my desk reviewing her file for the third time that day.

Jessa Hayes. Nineteen years old. Court-mandated therapy following a shoplifting arrest. History of acting out. Unstable home life. Absent father. Mother with a revolving door of inappropriate boyfriends.

Standard stuff. Nothing I hadn't seen before.

Except I couldn't stop thinking about the way she'd looked at me during that...