Glass Heart [S1: Episode 1]
A Time Travel Romance
Thalia, a young psychologist with a troubled past is transported back in time, where she must navigate a kingdom ruled by a cunning lord and a melancholic king, all while confronting her own inner demons.
Episodes release every Thursday at 9:00 am EST. This is Episode 1 of 7.
CW: depression, suicide, violence, alcoholism
Thalia had committed her biggest crime yet. The crime of not doing enough. Faint memories of Nisa, the woman she failed to save, flitted in her scrambled mind. They were reminders, horrible reminders…
She remembered Nisa’s voice, her woeful tears during their counseling sessions, the stark emptiness that lay behind her dark, brown eyes. She remembered that Nisa was scared of going back to jail. That she was struggling to turn a new leaf, that she wanted to be “normal.” And last of all, she remembered that her patient had worked at a museum.
And now she stood before that dark gray building, a shadow of herself. Well, she had always lived among the shadows. Even when she had made her debut into the “light”; a life of honesty and social service as they called it.
It would be so easy to slip back. To fall back into the person she once was as if she were a doll returning to her original packaging. Thalia was used to a life of grit, deceit, and lawlessness. A life of crime. That was where she belonged. Not in a sterile office attempting to help people with their problems.
The old Thalia would not have been hurt by this death. But then, the old her would have never decided to become a psychologist. The old her would have never chosen “a life of service.”
Nisa was gone. And the world moved on. Thalia had tried to turn her life around but it was a failure. “Do good,” her probation officer had said. And she toiled at that for ten years, spending countless hours studying to become a psychologist so she could “do good.” Yet, it was all a failure.
She wanted to scream at the people bustling about the busy streets focused on their jobs, their families, their mundane lives. Did they not care that a person had chosen the finality of death? Did they not care that Thalia would have no choice but to unravel?
The sharp, piercing sound of a whistle dragged Thalia out from her thoughts. It was José with his usual toothy grin and baggy T-shirt, blue baseball cap hugging his balding head. He stood on the front steps of the museum, a silver bird whistle bound by twine hanging from his thick neck.
As she drew closer, she noticed the older man looked at her with suspicion. “You’re not thinking about that, are you? You’re not thinking about that…”
“Thinking about what?” Thalia asked, feigning ignorance.
“Thinking about going back.”
Thalia looked away, at the people filtering into the museum, at the cars as they honked down the streets, at the innocent, blue, cloudless sky. She had stopped stealing at the age of seventeen. Stealing was how she’d met José. She’d victimized the wrong person and he’d saved her; taught her how to be successful in the business, taught her how to not get caught. Until one day she had gotten caught and the fun was over.
Despite her “depravity” as the prosecutor put it, the court had been lenient due to her young age. Society had given her a second chance. She couldn’t fuck this up. Not if she didn’t want to end up in jail.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
José nodded and lit a cigarette, blowing out a white puff of smoke. “It’s not easy to give up this life.”
“I’m a psychologist now,” Thalia said matter-of-factly.
‘And psychologists don’t commit crimes,’ she thought to herself.
“I’m a mountain guide.” José grinned through the smoke. “And yet…”
Thalia grabbed his arm. “You’re not…”
José shrugged. “Just some light shoplifting. To get things out of my system.”
Thalia was silent, all too familiar with what these “things” were. The urges had been nagging at her mind, begging to be set free. Especially after Nisa’s death. She couldn’t live this professional life, this boring life. She had to return to where she belonged.
“I think I’ll be quitting,” said Thalia.
José raised a feathery eyebrow. “So ten years of schooling down the drain. Just like that.”
“I’ll have a new start,” said Thalia. “After I’ve left the museum. I’ll forget about her. I’ll forget about everything.”
“But what’s your plan?” asked José. “Will you be scamming people with that license of yours? Selling a miracle cure for schizophrenia?”
Thalia scowled and punched his arm. “Shut up!”
José laughed. “That’s no way to talk to your father.”
“You’re not my father.”
“Then what am I? Your friend?”
“Maybe an uncle, but definitely not a father. And definitely not a friend either.”
“So we’re family,” said José.
Family. It was a foreign word to her.
“Let’s look at the exhibit,” Thalia said, leaving the steps to open the museum’s majestic, glass doors.
“I’ve always wanted to rob a museum,” José said as they passed by paintings, statues, and endless, echoey halls. “I’d dress up like a spy. Contort every bone and ligament of my body, maneuvering through the booby traps like a game of twister.”
“You’re too old for that,” Thalia replied.
“You’re never too old for your passion,” said José with a smile.
They were now standing in front of the glass casing that held Nisa’s favorite artifact, an ancient book with a faded gold binding and black cover, its yellowed pages as fragile and powdery as a moth’s wings. Black ink adorned its open face with calligraphy so painfully intricate that the words seemed to dance off the page.
“Why did she die?” asked José gazing at the book with interest. The images that the museum had uploaded on their website had not done it justice.
“Depression.”
“I’m not asking for a diagnosis. What pushed her to it? Who pushed her?”
Thalia shrugged. She hoped feigning nonchalance would help keep her calm. “People were threatening her. She’d scammed them. Sold them fake artifacts. But she did her time. They should have left her alone.”
José nodded silently. “She was one of us.”
One of us.
He made it sound so grand when it was nothing special. They were people who society said lacked self-control. They had no care for others. They were murderers, thieves, and scammers. Just criminals.
But Thalia found herself slipping back. People had lauded her for discarding a life of crime. For choosing to go to college. For getting her doctorate despite having lived a life of shame and poverty. She had been a success story. And yet she’d failed. She’d failed to save her first patient. She’d failed Nisa. Nisa was her and she was Nisa. She’d failed herself.
One of us.
Had Nisa deserved to die? After all, she wasn’t a great person. But Thalia was not a great person either. Was Thalia better than Nisa? Was that why Nisa was dead when Thalia was still alive? Her first patient had deserved better. Nisa deserved the gift that Thalia had been granted. A second chance. Even though she was about to throw that chance away.
That was when Thalia made up her mind to steal the book. But she would have to get drunk first.
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Looking forward to reading more chapters!
The beginning was so gripping! Love the cliffhanger ✨✨