The word hit harder than I expected. Leave. My chest tightened. My fingers curled unconsciously into the fabric of my jeans.
“It means…” I hesitated. “It means quiet. It means everything gets bigger. Louder. I stop… existing properly. I feel forgotten. Not worthy.”
She leaned forward just slightly. “What happens in your body when that quiet shows up?”
I looked down at myself like the answer might be written there. “My chest hurts,” I said. “All the time. I stop breathing right. I feel like I’m taking up too much space just by being alive.”
Nora nodded slowly. “And how long have you felt that way?”
The question cracked something open. Images surfaced without permission—hospital corridors that smelled like antiseptic and grief. A bedroom door that stayed closed too long. A phone that didn’t ring. A house that didn’t feel like a home anymore.
“Since my mum died,” I said quietly. The words sat between us, fragile and heavy.
“How old were you?” she asked.
“Twenty one.”
Her breath softened, just slightly. Not sympathy—recognition. “And after she died,” Nora continued, “Who helped hold you together?”
This time the silence felt sharper.
“No one,” I said. My voice barely made it across the space. Heat burned behind my eyes. “M-my dad… he shut down. Locked me out.”
She didn’t contradict me. That mattered more than I realized.
“Grief,” Nora said gently, “changes the way your brain measures worth. Especially when it arrives before you’ve learned how to feel safe on your own.”
I frowned faintly. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” she said, “your nervous system learned early that love disappears without warning. That if you aren’t useful, or quiet, or good enough, you’ll be left alone with the pain.”
My chest tightened like she’d reached inside and pressed directly on something raw. Made a bruise bleed.
“And when someone does stay?” she continued. “When someone feels like shelter?”
My pulse kicked up. My mouth went dry. “I…” I hesitated. “I cling. Or I disappear. Sometimes both.”
She watched me carefully. “Because losing them would feel like losing yourself.”
The words landed with brutal precision. I nodded once. Scrubbed sweaty palm on my jeans and fiddled with a thread on the cuff. I felt like she was picking me apart layer by layer under a microscope.
“I think,” Nora said softly, “you learned to believe that love has no edges. That it consumes, or it vanishes.”
My breath hitched.
“We’re not here to relive that,” she added quickly, noticing the shift in my posture, the way my shoulders had begun to cave inward. “We’re here to teach your body something new.”
I looked up at her, eyes burning. “What?”
“That you can feel deeply without being destroyed,” she said. “That rooms have edges. That people can leave the room without leavingyou.”
I swallowed hard. My hands trembled slightly in my lap so I wedged the one I could between my legs to hide it.
“Right now,” she said, grounding us again, “you’re sitting on a couch. In a room. With someone whose job it is to stay with you in this moment.”
The clock ticked. The plant didn’t disappear. The walls stayed where they were. For the first time in a long time, my chest didn’t feel like it was caving in—it felt like it was beingheld apart, just enough to breathe.
“I don’t know how to want things that don’t hurt,” I admitted, the confession slipping out before I could stop it.
