Maybe because it’s easier than feeling my own mess today.
Maybe because looking inward is still too raw.
Maybe because I’m not ready to admit that I still think about him.
That the warmth of his hands is something I miss when mine go cold.
The therapist finally speaks.
“Let’s assume I don’t think about you at all,” she says, pen hovering, calm as can be. “Let’s go back to the beginning. Ohio?”
She says it like a question, like it’s some place on a map instead of the crater where my life used to be.
I raise an eyebrow. “I thought you knewnothingabout me?”
She shrugs. “Your parents did have to sign the intake form.”
Of course they did.
I sigh and lean back, arms crossed, still refusing to meet her eyes. My gaze lands on the edge of a chipped bookshelf and a cracked spine of something about trauma resilience.
“Ohio feels like a lifetime ago,” I say, almost to myself. “Like I was another girl. Someone I barely recognize now.”
I clear my throat and keep going, because if I don’t, I’ll stop and never start again.
“She was this… girl who just got good grades, played travel soccer, trained her heart out. She believed in things. Believed hard work and being a good person would get you somewhere. Maybe not thetop, but far enough. You know, with a little luck and some late-night studying, you make it.”
My voice cracks.
“That was before.”
The therapist doesn’t interrupt. She doesn’t nod. She just waits.
“Before someone decided I was funny.” My voice sharpens. “Before they deepfaked my face on topless girls. Made fake OnlyFans accounts. Made me a joke. A meme. A hashtag.”
I’m gripping the couch now.
“It wasn’t funny,” I whisper. “Not when I walked into school and people wouldn’t look at me. Or worse—onlylooked at me. Like I was what they said. Like I deserved it.”
I swallow hard, blinking away the fog in my eyes.
“Itreallywasn’t funny when I woke up one night to hear my mom sobbing behind her bedroom door. When I realized they didn’t have the money to fight the school board, the press,the platforms. We were just... powerless. Watching everything crumble while people laughed online and moved on.”
I finally glance up at the therapist. Her eyes are on me now—not judging, just steady. But she’s not writing. Her hands are folded on her lap.
“That wasn’t funny at all,” I finish, my voice flat. Hollow.
The silence that follows is heavier than the one before.
And for the first time since walking in, I think maybe—just maybe—this isn’t a complete waste of time.
“I didn’t even want to come here,” I murmur, still looking at anything but her. “Rhode Island wasn’t the plan. It was just... the escape route.”
I rub my palms together. The skin’s dry from the cold, the heat in the building not quite cutting through the chill I’ve carried for months.
“After Ohio, after the scandal, the school board circus, the cops brushing it off like teen drama... My aunt offered me an out. My parents took it before I could even pack a bag. They said it was ‘a fresh start.’” I scoff quietly. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye to anyone. Not that I had anyone left worth saying goodbye to.”
My voice trails off as the sound of the ticking clock seems to get louder. And louder.
