“I want to go home,” I whispered. My eyes burned, the tears threatening again. I could feel them pooling, heavy and inevitable.
“You can’t go home,” Austin said, and this time his voice cracked. “You need to do this.”
“My parents can’t afford this,” I said quickly, panic spilling over itself as I tried to reason with him. “I don’t need this, Austin. I don’t. I don’t need to go back into a program.” I shook my head, the words tumbling faster and faster. “I can fight it. I can. I don’t need this. I don’t.”
“Blair,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, “you do. You need help.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted, even as my chest tightened. “I’m fine. This will bankrupt my parents. I can’t let that happen. I can’t.”
He didn’t answer right away. His eyes dropped to his hands, to his knees, anywhere but my face.“Your parents aren’t paying for this,” he said quietly. “I am.”
The words hit me like cold water. He’s paying? No. No, no, no. “No,” I said immediately, shaking my head hard, like I could physically refuse the reality of it. “I don’t need this, Austin. I don’t.”
He looked back up at me then, his frown deep and unmistakable. “Blair—”
“Please don’t make me,” I panicked, my voice shattering as I reached for his hand, gripping it like it was the only solid thing left in the world. “Please don’t make me do this. Please. Please, Austin.” My breath came in sharp, uneven gasps. “I’ll stop. I swear I will. I’ll get better. I promise. Please.”
I was begging. And I hated myself for it. Austin looked back up at me, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe at the sight of tears spilling from his eyes.
“You need help,” he said, his voice breaking. “You need to be safe. It’s only two weeks, Blair, evaluation and stabilization. Just two weeks.”
“I’ll eat,” I gasped, the words tumbling out of me in a rush. “I’ll eat. I swear it. I will.”
“No, Blair,” Austin said softly, and he reached to open his door. Panic shot through me. I grabbed him, pulling him back toward me before he could move away.
“If you love me, you won’t do this to me,” I said, the words leaving my mouth before I could stop them. I watched them land, watched the way his face changed when he heard them. “You won’t make me. Please.”
Austin froze. Slowly, he turned back toward me. His eyes were so full of tears that I could see my own reflection in them, small and broken and desperate.
“I’m doing this because I love you,” he said quietly. “I would climb a thousand mountains for you. I would do anything. But it won’t mean anything if you can’t climb the mountains for yourself, Blair.”
I shook my head, my throat closing completely. I tried to speak, but no sound came out. My lips moved uselessly, shaping words that never made it into the air.
No.
Please.
No.
“Blair,” Austin said, and this time he was pleading too. He reached for my face, placing his hands gently against my cheeks, steadying me, forcing me to look at him. His thumbs brushed the tears from my skin, though they kept falling anyway. “Please,” he said, his voice hoarse with pain. “Trust me. Please, trust me. You have to do this. Trust me.”
I dragged a loud breath into my lungs, my whole body shaking as I tried to hold myself together.
“Trust me, Blair,” Austin whispered. “Even if it’s for the last time. Please. Trust me.”
I stared at him. The desperation in his eyes hurt more than anything else had. It cut into me, sharp and clean, like glass scattered across my skin. I didn’t want to hurt him. Not anymore.
The silence that followed was the heaviest thing I had ever felt. It wasn’t empty. It screamed. It pressed against my ears and filled my chest with every awful thing I was afraid of at once. It was the kind of silence that matters. The kind you don’t come back from unchanged.
And then I nodded.
20
“So, Blair,” Dr. Kahn said gently.
His voice pulled my attention upward, away from the light blue rug my eyes had been fixed on. I’d been tracing the pattern in it without really realizing I was doing it, following the loops and soft curves like they might lead me somewhere safer if I stayed focused long enough.
I let out a quiet breath as I looked at him. He looked exactly like what a psychologist was supposed to look like, at least in my mind. His brown hair had begun to grey, threading lighter strands through the wiry texture. Dark-rimmed glasses framed his eyes, which were kind but serious, observant without being invasive. He didn’t smile unnecessarily. He didn’t frown either. He just looked at me like he was actually seeing me.
