“So,” she says, pen poised over her notebook. “How was your week?”
I stare at the rug for a moment, tracing the geometric pattern with my eyes. “Better.”
“Better is good,” she says. “And why is that, you think.”
“I haven’t had the nightmares,” I admit. “Not like before.”
Her pen pauses. “About Matt?”
I nod. “No dreams where he’s yelling at me. No waking up thinking I can hear him asking why I wasn’t there.”
She lets that land. “That’s a significant shift.”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I know.”
Silence stretches.
“I still think about him,” I add. “About Jenny too. Claire and I were talking about her the other night.”
Her eyebrows lift slightly. “You were together?”
I nod again. “On the porch. Just… talking.”
I hesitate, then exhale hard and scrub a hand through my hair, down my face. “And she said something that messed me up.”
Dr. Alvarez sets her pen down. “What did she say?”
“That I wasn’t just the worst part of her life,” I say, frustration creeping into my voice. “That I was also part of the good. The happiness.”
My hand drags down my face again, like I can physically wipe the words away. “How could she say that? I’m not even good enoughto be the dirt under her shoes. And she’s sitting there telling me I mattered in a good way.”
My chest tightens as I speak, the familiar pressure blooming under my ribs.
“I destroyed us,” I say. “I don’t get to be part of anything good.”
Dr. Alvarez watches me carefully, head tilted just slightly. “That belief,” she says gently, “is one you’ve been living inside for a very long time.”
“Because it’s true.”
“Is it?” she challenges. “Or is it convenient?”
I look up. “Convenient?”
“Yes,” she says calmly. “If you’re irredeemable, you don’t have to risk wanting anything. You don’t have to risk hope.”
I open my mouth, then close it again.
She leans forward a little. “You’ve punished yourself long enough, Ethan.”
I let out a breath. “You make it sound like a choice.”
“It is,” she says. “Not an easy one. But a choice all the same.”
I sink back into the couch, staring at the ceiling. My mind betrays me instantly, filling with an image I didn’t invite.
Claire on the porch.
The way the light caught in her hair, honey-blonde and loose from a long day, strands escaping her braid like they always do. The soft curve of her mouth when she smiled, the way her green eyes went bright.
