He was not what I expected.
I'd built an image in my head over the past four months—an amalgamation of every dominant archetype I'd ever encountered in research or fiction. Tall, yes. Dark hair, probably. Sharp features. Cold eyes. The kind of man who walked into a room and made it smaller just by existing.
Meric Solvang-Lykke was tall. The rest was wrong.
He was beautiful in the way a theorem is beautiful—elegant, precise, inevitable. Dark hair, sharp jawline, the kind of symmetry that suggested control extended even to genetics. But his eyes weren't cold. They were observational. Pale gray, the color of fog over water, and just as impossible to read. The eyes of someone who saw patterns in chaos.
He wore black, simple trousers, a fitted shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. No tie. No pretense. He looked like he'd stepped out of an architecture journal: Scandinavian minimalism made flesh.
"Dr. Kaelen." His voice was low, controlled, with the faintest trace of Norwegian softened by years elsewhere. "Thank you for your patience. The weather delayed your arrival by thirty minutes."
Patience? I'd just signed away three months of my life to a stranger.
"It's fine," I said, wishing I sounded less uncertain.
He gestured to a chair—white leather, low-backed, positioned across from a matching one—and waited until I sat before taking his own seat. The distance between us was calculated. Close enough to feel intimate. Far enough to maintain formality.
"You've read The Protocol," he said. Not a question.
"Twice," I replied.
A flicker of something crossed his face. Approval, maybe. Or amusement. "Then you understand the structure of the twelve weeks. The first four weeks are diagnostic. I observe your baseline responses—physical, emotional, and psychological. Sessions are scheduled three times per week, increasing in intensity according to your Cadence."
There it was. The first Praxis term, used aloud. Cadence. The rhythm of my unraveling.
"I understand," I said.
"Do you?" He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees, fingers steepled. "Understanding intellectually is different from understanding viscerally. You're a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist. You know this better than most."
Heat crawled up my neck. He was right, of course. I'd spent years teaching patients the difference between cognitive insight and emotional integration. Knowing why you were anxious didn't make the panic attacks stop. Knowing why you self-sabotaged didn't prevent you from doing it again.
"That's why I'm here," I said, meeting his gaze. "Because intellectual understanding hasn't been enough."
He studied me for a long moment, and I forced myself not to look away. This was a test. Everything here would be a test.
"Tell me," he said finally, "what you hope to achieve."
I'd rehearsed this answer on the flight. I'd written it in my application. But sitting across from him now, the practiced phrases felt hollow.
"I want to understand surrender," I said slowly. "Real surrender. Not the performative kind. Not the kind that's just another form of control."
His expression didn't change.
"And why do you believe you need to understand that?" He asked.
The question landed like a scalpel between my ribs. Clean. Precise. Painful.
"Because I'm tired," I said, and the honesty surprised me. "I'm tired of being the one who holds everything together. I'm tired of managing, analyzing, and fixing. I'm successful. I'm respected. I have a career I built myself. And I feel nothing. Absolutely nothing!"
The last word came out raw, stripped of the professional veneer I usually wore like armor.
Meric nodded slowly. "The paradox of control. The more you refine it, the more it isolates you. The stronger your walls become, the emptier the space they protect."
My throat tightened. He'd articulated in two sentences what I'd been circling for years.
"Yes," I whispered.
"Then we have a foundation," he said, sitting back. "But you need to understand something, Dr. Kaelen. The Praxis is not therapy. It is not a safe space where you process feelings at your own pace. It is a methodology designed to break through the structures you've built and force you to confront what lies beneath. It will be uncomfortable. It may be frightening. And if you cannot commit to the full twelve weeks, you should leave now."
The ultimatum hung between us.
I thought about the helicopter on the landing pad. I thought about my empty apartment in Boston, the calendar on my desk filled with patients' names, the dinner invitations I'd declined because I couldn't bear another evening of pretending to be present.
I thought about the hollowness.
"I'm not leaving," I said.
His eyes held mine for three long seconds. Then he reached to the side table and retrieved a slim black folder.
"The Protocol," he said, opening it. "Clause 4.2: You surrender all personal communication devices. Clause 7.3: I maintain clinical objectivity. Emotional attachment is prohibited. Clause 12.1: Upon contract completion, all contact ceases for thirty days." He paused. "Do you have questions?"
"Just one," I said. "Clause 7.3. If emotional attachment is prohibited, what happens if it occurs anyway?"
For the first time, something flickered across his face. Not annoyance or surprise.
It looked more like vulnerability.
"Then the contract is terminated immediately," he said, voice quieter now. "The methodology fails if boundaries are compromised."
The air between us shifted—became heavier, more charged. The rule existed not just to protect the client, but to protect him. Which meant he'd seen it happen before. And maybe he knew exactly how dangerous it could become.
And I'd just asked him about it in the first five minutes.
His eyes held mine a beat too long. "Any other questions, Dr. Kaelen?"
I should have said no. Instead, I heard myself say: "Not yet."
He produced a pen—black, expensive—and slid it across the table along with the signature page.
I picked it up. The weight of it felt absurd. A pen shouldn't feel this heavy.
"Once you sign," Meric said, his voice quieter now, "you belong to the Praxis. Not to me. To the process. I am simply the facilitator. Do you consent?"
The word belong should have triggered every alarm in my psychologist's brain. It should have made me think of coercion, manipulation, and unhealthy power dynamics.
Instead, it made me feel something I hadn't felt in years.
Anticipation.
I signed.
Meric took the folder, closed it, and stood. "Vigdis will show you to your suite. You have forty-eight hours before our first session. Use that time to settle in. Read the Session Guidelines in your welcome packet. Rest."
He extended his hand.
I stood and took it. His grip was firm, warm, and deliberately measured. But when our palms touched, my pulse kicked—a sharp, unmistakable acceleration that had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with the way his thumb pressed against the inside of my wrist.
He felt it. I knew he did. The slight pause before he released me confirmed it.
Professional. Clinical. And yet.
"Welcome to the Praxis Institute, Dr. Kaelen," he said.
And then he let go.
Vigdis led me through a series of corridors, each one as pristine and impersonal as the last, until we reached a door marked with a small brass number: 3.
"Your suite," Vigdis said, pressing her palm to a biometric panel. The door clicked open. "Meals are delivered at seven, noon, and six. If you need anything, use the intercom. Do not attempt to leave the East Wing without permission."
"Understood," I said.
She studied me for a moment—the same assessing look she'd given me on the landing pad—and I wondered what she saw. A woman who'd made a brave choice? Or a fool who'd walked into a cage and locked it herself?
"Good luck, Dr. Kaelen," she said, and left.
I stepped inside.
The suite was beautiful in the same austere way as the rest of the Institute. A large window overlooked the fjord. A bed with white linens. A desk. A chair. A door that presumably led to a bathroom. Everything I needed. Nothing I didn't.
On the desk sat a black binder labeled SESSION GUIDELINES and a sealed envelope with my name written in precise handwriting.
I opened the envelope first.
Inside was a single card.
The first rule of Praxis: You will learn that control is not power. Power is the choice to surrender it.
— M.S.L.
I read it three times.
Then I walked to the window and stared out at the black water, the mist rolling in like a living thing, and I let myself feel the full weight of what I'd done.
I was here. I'd signed the contract. In forty-eight hours, I would sit across from Meric Solvang-Lykke in whatever space he'd chosen for our first session, and I would begin the process of dismantling everything I'd ever believed about myself.
And the terrifying part—the part that made my pulse race and my hands shake—was that I wanted it.
I wanted to be unmade.
Because maybe, just maybe, on the other side of that unmaking was something real.
I pressed my forehead against the cold glass, staring at the black water below.
What have I done?
The fjord had no answer. But the card on my desk did.
I turned, picked it up again, and read Meric's words one more time:
The first rule of Praxis: You will learn that control is not power. Power is the choice to surrender it.
My hands were shaking.
Not from fear.
From wanting.