"Before we start," Ariana said, turning away from the screen and crossing back toward her desk, "I need you to understand something about how this is going to work from here."
"That sounds ominous."
"It's not ominous, it's procedural, which is somehow worse to most people." She pulled open a drawer and retrieved a fresh stack of blank forms, setting them down with a precise little tap. "Yesterday was baseline. Today, if you're agreeing to actually find out what's happening to you, we move into controlled testing. That means deliberate exposure to specific stimuli, in small, monitored doses, so I can chart your reactions properly instead of guessing from secondhand reports about fights you got into before I ever met you."
"You want to recreate the conditions that triggered my growth spurts."
