“And if I let it be real, I can’t laugh it off when it starts to hurt.”
Her expression softens. “Charm as armor.”
“Armor works. People like you and never ask what’s going on. They don’t see you drowning.”
“Did you feel like you were drowning on your last team?”
“It felt like the second I stopped performing, everyone started looking at me like I was a problem.”
“And how did that end?”
“Being benched with a mandatory referral.” The words taste metallic in my mouth, but I continue. “I started going to therapy in college after an altercation with a teammate landed me in anger management. It was supposed to be punishment, something to check off a list until the heat died down. But it stuck. Not the anger but the relief. Talking to someone who didn’t see the name Hendrix before they saw me. I kept going long after anyone stopped paying attention. No one knows I’m still coming, or at least I don’t think they do. Somehow, them not knowing makes it easier to breathe here than anywhere else.”
She hums under her breath and flips back a page. “When you think of Alycia now, what do you feel?”
I should dodge. Throw a joke. But the truth is already at the back of my teeth.
“Like I’m standing in the slot, waiting for a shot I know is coming,” I say, my voice pulled tight. “I can’t see it yet, but I can feel it.”
“Fear?”
“And anticipation.” The word hangs there between us. “And something else I haven’t felt in a long time.”
“What else?”
“She sees me.” My knee bounces harder, like it’strying to run away from what I just admitted. “And I don’t know what to do with that.”
Dr. Shah is quiet for a beat. “Here’s what I’m hearing: You’ve spent a long time being compared to your brothers. You learned to stay ‘on’ so that no one asks if you’re okay. When the world gets too loud, you look for something that quiets it. Her laugh did that once. Now she’s back, and being around her feels like fate and a threat at the same time.”
My breath leaves in a slow exhale. “Exactly.”
“And what are you hoping will happen?”
“I keep saying it is fake, but part of me wants it to be real.”
“And what scares you most?”
“That I’ll lose her the way I never really had her. Then she’ll look at me and only see whatever version of me the world has decided I am.”
She nods once, then sets her notepad aside, like she wants my full attention. “Here’s what I would like you to do this week. Pay attention to what happens in your body when you are around her. Notice what tightens. What softens. When you reach for a joke. When you go quiet. Just observe.”
“That’s it?”
“For now. But if you want to write it down, do. You don’t have to show me.”
“Homework,” I mutter.
“You didn’t graduate from being human. You’re just learning how to be one without losing yourself in the process.”
The clock ticks again. This time, it doesn’t dig quite as deep.
She glances at it, then back at me. “We’ll stop here today.”
I push up from the couch, rolling my shoulders until they crack. “Pay attention to my body, don’t create a scandal, and try not to fall for the girl I’m fake dating.”
“I didn’t say that last one,” she replies.
“No.” I give her my crooked grin, the one that hides more than it shows. “But I heard it.”
