The cause of the alarms, as is revealed once we're released from the room, was a fight that broke out in the courtyard involving some kind of contraband. Though I'm not privy to any more information regarding the incident, I know that it hadn't resulted in any deaths as Camila had suggested, and that the inmates involved are now locked in solitary. Even so, there's an uncomfortably tense atmosphere growing within the facility. A week later, there still seem to be more guards scattered around the prison, posted on each corner to keep watch over even the empty halls. One insists on standing in front of the door in the interrogation room during my sessions with Camila, claiming it is a necessary precaution now that she is almost consistently out of her handcuffs in my presence. She sighs as she glances towards him before casting her eyes back down to the table as I set my tablet up.

"Hello, Camila," I greet, watching as her eyes flit up for a moment. She takes a deep breath and straightens her back some, leaning on her forearms on the table. "How are you today?"

Her fingers tap against the table gently and she looks first to the officer, then to the table before laying her eyes on me. "Better than yesterday," She responds, "I, um, got a little more sleep last night."

"I'm glad," I assure her, though I can sense that there's still something going on with her. I recall how she'd been the day before, sniffling all through our session and reluctant to talk much about her past. Somehow, she'd managed to alter the topic of conversation until we were talking about happenings outside of the prison, some new movie releases and the drama between my downstairs neighbours who can't seem to decide where to get married and bicker loudly about it every night. It'd felt more like a conversation between friends than a doctor and her patient. While I enjoyed it, I know that I have to keep on top of her treatment, and must resume it in some way today.

"How are you?" She then asks, reaching up to toy with her lips. I watch the motion for a moment before reconnecting our eyes.

"I'm good," I smile softly, and she mirrors it lopsidedly. Choosing my words carefully, I continue, "Do you think you'd be alright if we retry what we tried yesterday, or would you like to do something else? It's entirely up to you."

"It'll help, right?"

I nod. "And the more you do it, the easier it'll get."

She hesitates, but eventually nods too. "I can try."

Grinning, I spin my pencil in my hand. "Alright. Would you like me to go over it again or do you remember what I said last time?"

"Again, please," she mumbles, casting yet another look to the guard. God, I wish I could ask him to leave.

"Okay. We're going to try a treatment called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, also known as EMDR. It involves you going back into a memory, taking the distress away from it, and turning it into something positive. To do that, you'll receive different stimulation— we'll try eye movement first, if that doesn't work, there are a couple of other methods we can try, okay?"

She gulps, but agrees. I give her a reassuring nod in return.

"Which memory would you like to work on, Camila?"

Her attention falls to the floor beside the table as she shifts in her seat. The officer tenses at her movement, hand moving to his side. When she only pulls her legs up to wrap her arms around them, he tries to disguise the motion as simply letting his hand rest on his hip by bringing the other to join it. I withhold a scoff, turning back to my patient whose eyes are already flicking around, though randomly. Before I can gently prompt her again, she speaks.

"When I was 17... um, when I was 17, they took him away."

"Who?"

"I haven't told you about him before," she whispers. I watch as she slowly slips away, becoming distant as ever. "I haven't told anyone."

My brows furrow, but I quickly regain my composure before she witnesses the momentary lapse. "Camila, who are you talking about?"

"My ex." Her placid eyes meet mine. "I buried him."

Something takes ahold of my throat, tightening their grasp until I have to resist the urge to reach up and scratch it away. "Did you...?"

She scoffs quietly. "No. No, no, it wasn't me. It was Mami."

Pulling the inside of my lip between my teeth, I look down to the paper before me. I'd prepared it before yesterday's session. It was a simple—to me, though likely jargon to anyone else—way to keep track of our results with EMDR, to see if it's something that we need to explore further. It also contains some prompts for myself here and there, to make sure I don't lose track of the rhythm I need to keep for my patient's sake.

"Can you revisit th—"

"Can I keep my eyes open?" She asks before I have the chance to finish. I look up and find her pleading desperately, jaw and fists clenched tight. I almost don't want to put her through this, but I know that it's necessary if we're ever going to get anywhere.

After a moment's thought, I nod. "Just try to soften your gaze so you can focus," I offer. She smiles in gratitude and looks down to her hands.

"Should I tell you about it?" She whispers.

"If you'd like."

For a moment, she remains silent. Then, her lips part, allowing her words to tumble out. "He was good. He was some of the only good I ever knew. He, um... his name was Thiago." She sniffles, reaching up and wiping at the corner of her eye. I purse my lips to avoid a reaction. She needs this time to simply talk about what happened to her, to put it into words and send it out into the world so that it's no longer trapped within her chest. Once she's done, I can help her with the remains. "He was older than me, but not by much. Taller. Heavier. Old enough that Mami and Papi trusted him to keep watch over us. That's how I met him. He-" She gulps, blinking harshly for a moment. "He was good, Lauren. He used to let us play princesses and never ever told on us. We kinda grew up together and when I got old enough, he made me his girlfriend. He was good for that, too. He wasn't like- like my friends' boyfriends. He was more like a TV boyfriend. Kinder. He..." She drawls off, glances up at me. Her gaze falls only slightly from my eyes, and she freezes for a second. "Papi took me out of the basement one day and he was in the living room. The sofa was green, but where he sat was red, so red, there was so much blood, I-" A small sob escapes her before she can clasp her hand over her mouth.

"It's alright, Camila," I whisper in hopes that it'll reassure her at least somewhat.

She takes a deep breath, shaking her hand out as she slowly lowered it. "I- I'm sorry, I-"

"It's okay," I repeat, keeping my voice calm even as my chest aches.

She nods, jaw twitching. "I- He was still alive but I couldn't- I couldn't bare to see him like that, so I ran to him, and I hugged him, and then... they realised we were together. Papi took me away. Mami stayed behind. I cried. I cried so hard my chest burned because I knew I'd fucked it all up. The one good thing I had was gone because I couldn't stay in control for one fucking minute." Another deep breath, and she somehow seems to gather herself, tone falling from desperation to vacant monotony. "When Mami came to get me, she had blood all over her hands. She gave me a shovel. Told me to bury whatever made me think I deserved a man, whatever made me need one. I put him under the tree."

A moment of silence passes between us. My focus dances over her face as I attempt to come to terms with the story she told me, with the feelings it so evidently stirs up within her, with the blame and the loss and the unfelt grief that still nags at her enough that this is the memory she wants to change first. The officer shifts on his feet, and I inhale sharply, looking back down to the paper.

"I'm sorry, Camila. That must have been so difficult," I comment, though it sounds more like a throwaway phrase than I'd intended.

She clears her throat, nodding again.

I look back up, watching as she continues to steel herself against the onslaught of emotions slipping through the cracks in her expression.

"What emotions do you feel now, Camila? Does the memory bring up any negative thoughts about yourself?"

"Guilt, obviously," she whispers, as if scared her voice will break if she speaks any louder. "It's my fault he's gone."

"And what positive thought would you like to replace that with?" I ask while noting down her prior response. I give her a moment to think. When she doesn't answer, I add, "The opposite is a good start."

Her sentence is broken, hesitant, but she gets through it. "That it's... not my fault?"

"That's a good one," I praise, and she seems to relax a little. "When you think of that time, where do you feel it in your body?"

Her brows twitch, and she tips her head slightly. "My throat," she responds, though it sounds more like a question.

I nod. "One last question," she cracks her knuckles and clasps her hands atop the table, "On a scale of zero-to-ten, with zero being no disturbance and ten being the greatest disturbance imaginable, how disturbing is the memory to you now?"

She hesitates, gaping a few times, before finally answering, "Nine... and a half.

"Okay. Good job, Camila." A hint of a smile passes over her lips, though it seems half-hearted. "I want you to focus on the memory again, and notice that negative feeling of self-blame. Pay attention to where you can feel it in your body. Can you watch my hand for me?" She looks up, and I raise my hand, two fingers outstretched to create a point of focus. I begin to sway my hand from side to side. She frowns to me, but soon begins to flick her glistening eyes back and forth to follow the movement, slow at first but steadily speeding up. Her eyes keep up with ease, so I don't slow down. When she sniffles, I offer gentle words of encouragement.

That's good.

It's all old memories.

Keep going.

"I don't think this is working," she huffs, meeting my gaze as she brings a hand to her forehead. "It just hurts."

I look her over for a moment, pursing my lips, before offering to try another method. She agrees, and I gently ease her hands onto the table, explaining that I'll use taps instead, and again allowing her to keep her eyes open so long as she softens her gaze.

...

"How did you do that?" She breathes, subtly reaching out to brush my pinky with hers as we walk back to her cell. The process had been quite messy, as is expected. Her face is still stained with dried tear tracks, and she still sniffs every now and then, but after just over an hour of the EMDR, she'd broken through. The distress was lessening, slowing moving down her scale as we repeated the process. Eventually, I at least got her to pass the blame from herself onto 'unfortunate circumstances'. She'd been reluctant to admit that it wasn't her fault, but when she started to yawn and rub at her eyes between questions to rid them both of tears and exhaustion, I knew it was best to leave the session there for now.

"It stimulates the brain in the same way as REM sleep, allowing your amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex to-"

She bumps her shoulder with mine, but tenses when she spots an officer watches us from afar. "Sorry," she apologises a little too loudly, "I tripped."

I withhold a smile, mimicking her earlier, craftier means of touch. Then, I turn serious again. "Thank you for being brave today."

She looks over with a frown, pausing to let me through the door leading into the staircase.

"You told me something you've never told anyone else," I explain, "Trusted me with something that hurt you. That takes bravery."

She tries to suppress her grin, but it doesn't go all too well. "Bravery," she repeats as if tasting the word. "Huh. I guess I'll add that one to the list."