TWELVE
olivia
It’s beenweeks since I’ve spent a night here, and the room feels smaller than I remember.
The heat doesn’t quite reach the corners, and the air carries that faint chemical scent of old carpet and communal bathrooms. I stand just inside the door for a moment, arms crossed like a shield, before I set my bag down at the foot of the bed. The window is cracked open, letting in the slightest evening chill. Outside, the sun is already retreating, tucking itself behind the rooftops and leaving the sky streaked with pale blue and dull orange.
I sit down slowly, the mattress creaking beneath me, and press the heel of my hand to my chest. It still aches there—a dull, echoing pressure. A bruise beneath the skin.
Nathaniel meant well. That’s what unsettles me most. His insistence on taking me away for spring break wasn’t a power play or a trap—it was him trying to care for me the only way he knows how. He wanted to give me rest. To spare me another decision when I’m already stretched thin.
And yet, the moment the words left his mouth, I felt myself recoil.
Because I know that feeling too well—the ground slipping out from under me, my choices vanishing before I even get the chance to make them. It’s what my parents engrained in me: to be useful before I was ever allowed to be whole, to take responsibility for everyone else while forgetting how to take care of myself. For years, I was nothing more than a set of hands to fill a gap at the diner, a body to carry the weight they didn’t want to bear. Even when I dreamed of more, there was always another demand waiting to smother it.
So when Nathaniel, with all his love and certainty, tells me he’s already decided for us, something inside me bristles. Even his tenderness can feel like a threat to the fragile autonomy I’ve been fighting to keep. I want him, I love him, but I can’t give up the part of me that still needs to stand on her own.
My phone buzzes once in my coat pocket. I don’t look. I don’t have to.
Instead, I slide it out, power it off, and set it face-down on the desk across the room. Far enough to keep me from reaching for it. Close enough that I still feel its weight pressing at the back of my mind.
The hours drag.I go down to the dining hall when my stomach growls, but the food tastes like paste in my mouth. I pick at a slice of dry turkey on white bread, the crusts curling at the corners. Someone I vaguely recognize from class says hi in passing. I smile and nod—pretend I’m present.
Back in my room, I brush my teeth. Pull the covers back. Fold a sweatshirt. Go through the motions.
I turn off the lights.
And then the dark starts to speak.
“You think playing house with some rich boy makes you better than us?”
I flinch automatically, the echo of her voice slicing through the silence of the room around me. My jaw clenches. I rub at the tight muscle as if I can knead the memory out of it. It’s old pain—well-worn, rehearsed. Muscle memory.
My mother never yells… But she doesn’t need to raise her voice to draw blood.
“Good daughters don’t abandon their families. They show up. They keep the lights on.”
She’s been texting more often lately, each message a little sharper than the last. This week, she’s resorted to phone calls. I ignored the first two, but I couldn’t ignore the third.
She asked again when I’m coming home for spring break. I said I’m not sure—again. That answer’s starting to wear thin.
She reminded me, like always, of the things that needed doing. Bills. Paperwork. Errands. It’s not really a question anymore. It’s a summons.
I know what I want. I just haven’t figured out how to say it. So I keep circling, hoping indecision will sound like consideration.
“You’re a novelty to him. Boys like that don’t marry girls like you. They marry their own kind.”
I turn over in bed, press my cheek to the pillow. The fabric is cold against my skin. My eyes burn, but I don’t cry. I won’t allow myself to.
She doesn’t know Nathaniel at all. But that never stops her from reminding me where she thinks I belong.
“Maybe you think you’re too good for us now. But when he leaves—and he will—we’re all you’ll have left. The people you turned your back on.”
I close my eyes and breathe. In. Out. Try to quiet the noise.
I know Nathaniel loves me. I see it every time he looks at me. In the way his hand always finds mine, even when I pull away.
But love like that is heavy, and I don’t know if I can bear the weight.
