It starts as a low ache in my chest, suspiciously close to wanting. This scene shouldn’t feel safe. This noise shouldn’t feel comforting. This family, his family, shouldn’t feel like a place my heart already understands. But it does, and that’s a problem.
Kyle’s knee bumps mine again, the lightest check-in, and my pulse trips. He isn’t asking for anything. He’s just there, showing up in a dozen small ways he probably thinks I will ignore.
I don’t because suddenly, it is clear. This fits dangerously too well, both to me and to the life I’ve built around not needing anyone. It feels like some deep part of me, the part I have kept locked tight for years, recognizes something in the boy sitting beside me. The boy who keeps trying to steady me without asking for anything in return.
This was supposed to be pretend. A story we wrote so the fallout from one impulsive outburst at a press conference would not swallow us. The lie is the only part that doesn’t feel real anymore. Not to me. And from the way his thumb lingered on my knee, not to him either.
The table erupts again at some ridiculous thing Cole says. The sound drifts around me like a tide. Isuddenly realize I don’t want to pull away from this house, from this warmth, from the way my name sounds in these walls. I don't want to leave and pretend none of it shifted something fundamental in me. That realization settles in my chest with a quiet finality.
I don’t want to give this up, and that might be the most dangerous truth of all.
Therapy Session
Kyle
Dr. Shah waits for me to sit. I drag a hand through my hair, force my knee to stop bouncing, and pretend I’m not vibrating out of my skin. She crosses one leg over the other, notebook resting lightly on her knee. “How are you feeling?”
“Loaded question.” I huff out a laugh that sounds wrong on the way out. “You want the short version or the honest one?”
Her mouth curves, just barely. “You usually do both.”
“Yeah. Fair.” I lean back and stare at a spot on the ceiling. “I brought Alycia home.”
She is quiet, and I can feel her giving that room to the words, like she always does when she knows something big is hiding in them.
“My mom invited her to family dinner.”
“How did that feel?”
“Like handing my heart to a grenade and hoping it decides it wants to be a paperweight instead.” A laugh slips out, softer this time. “I grew up in that house. Iknow which arguments are safe and which ones are about to tilt into something else. Alycia walked into it cold.”
“What did your body do when she walked in?” Dr. Shah asks.
“Got tight. Hyperaware.” I tap my chest with two fingers. “Right here, like a goalie watching a rush come down the ice and knowing one bad bounce changes everything.”
“What is everything, exactly?”
“Her opinion of me and my family. Whether she looks at my life and thinks,Nope, too much, I’m out.Whether my brothers say something stupid, and she realizes she wants no part of this circus. Whether Momma likes her too much, which would make it harder on her when this fake dating thing ends.” My voice roughens. “Whether she sees me the way I am there and decides she likes the other version better.”
“The other version?”
“At the rink, on the ice, and in the press room. I know those scripts. I know how to skate that game. At home, I’m not… I’m not the easy one.”
Dr. Shah watches me carefully. “Tell me about that.”
I rake a hand through my hair and let it fall. “Cooper is the leader. The coach. People move when he talks. Beau is steady, and everyone leans on him without realizing they’re doing it. Cole is chaos, but charming enough that he gets forgiven before anyone finishes beingmad. And I…”
The words stick, but I push them out anyway.
“I’m the one who makes too many jokes at the wrong time. The one who pushes back. The one who got in trouble the most. The kid everyone loves but also keeps an eye on, just in case.”
“And how does that feel in your body when you are home?” she asks.
“Like I’m shrinking. My shoulders pull up, my spine goes straight, and my mouth usually runs faster than my brain. If I can stay one joke ahead of everyone, maybe they won’t notice the parts of me I don’t want them to see.”
My lungs give up the air all at once, and it feels like I’ve run a sprint without moving.
“Last night, I felt all of that come back. One second, I’m walking in with Alycia, trying to be steady for her, and the next, I’m sixteen again and waiting for someone to ask what I messed up this time.”
