The response didn't come from the people who stayed.
It came from the ones who left.
Not immediately.
Not directly.
But pressure has a way of traveling.
He felt it in the days that followed.
A few people stopped making eye contact.
A few others became overly polite.
The kind of politeness that signals distance.
Someone he barely knew asked, "So what exactly are you doing over there now?"
Not curious.
Cautious.
He answered honestly.
"I'm hosting a space for people to talk about what's actually going on for them."
The person nodded slowly.
"That sounds… intense."
Not a compliment.
Not an insult.
A label.
At work, a rumor reached him before a conversation did.
Someone mentioned that he was "running a kind of emotional group."
The words weren't cruel.
They were flattening.
Reducing something complex into something manageable.
Something safe to dismiss.
His manager asked him into her office.
Not angry.
Concerned.
"I'm hearing things," she said.
"About what?"
"That you're getting… involved in people's personal stuff."
He held her gaze.
"I'm not advising anyone. I'm not directing anyone. I'm just hosting a space."
She nodded slowly.
"I believe you," she said.
Then, after a pause:
"But you should be careful."
Careful of what?
Of risk.
Of liability.
Of being seen as something outside the frame of what the organization could name and control.
The backlash wasn't a push.
It was a tightening.
Boundaries appearing where there hadn't been any before.
That night, someone didn't show up.
Then another.
Then another.
The room was smaller.
Not empty.
Focused.
But he felt the narrowing.
He didn't know if it was pruning or damage.
The record finally spoke.
External resistance consolidated.
He exhaled.
"So now it has a shape too."
Backlash wasn't attack.
It was organization.
The world rearranging itself around what he had made.
Not to destroy it.
To contain it.
He lay in bed staring at the ceiling, feeling the familiar tension.
Not fear.
Weight.
The weight of having made something visible.
And visibility, he was learning, always has a cost.