“It doesn’t feel like growth,” Maggie said. “It feels like standing still while everything around me moves. It feels like helplessness dressed up as trust.”
“But you’re doing it anyway.”
“I’m trying to.”
Kim set down her tablet. “Let me ask you something. What scares you most about this relationship?”
Maggie didn’t hesitate. “That she’ll realize I’m not worth the trouble. That the woman she fell in love with doesn’t actually exist. That I’ll revert to my old patterns and push her away and she’ll finally have enough sense to leave.”
“So you’re afraid she’ll leave,” Kim said.
“Yes.”
“But, Maggie, she hasn’t left. Despite the investigation. Despite the transfer. Despite you literally pushing her away. She came back. She’s still here. What does that tell you?”
Maggie’s throat tightened. “That she’s stubborn?”
Kim smiled. “Or that maybe—just maybe—you’re worth loving. Even with all your patterns and fears and desperate need for control. Maybe you’re worth the mess. You deserve love too. You’re a human.”
The words hit harder than Maggie expected.
“I don’t know how to believe that,” she said, voice rough.
“I know,” Kim said gently. “But that’s the work. Not learning to control less. Learning to accept that you’re worthy of love even when you can’t control the outcome.”
Maggie closed her eyes, feeling tears prick at her lids.
“Sarah used to say the same thing,” she whispered. “That I confused love with crisis management. That I needed to learn that love wasn’t something I didtosomeone—it was something I experiencedwiththem.”
“She sounds wise.”
“She was,” Maggie said, opening her eyes. “And I didn’t listen. I was too busy trying to save her to hear what she was actually saying.”
“Which was?”
“That she didn’t need saving. She needed presence. She needed me to just... be with her. Instead of always being three steps ahead, planning for contingencies, trying to prevent the inevitable.”
Kim leaned forward slightly. “And are you hearing it now? With Evie?”
Maggie nodded slowly. “I’m trying to. But it’s hard. Every time things feel good, my brain immediately starts cataloging all the ways it could go wrong. All the threats. All the potential losses.”
“That’s trauma,” Kim said. “Your nervous system learned that good things don’t last. That love equals loss. So it stays hypervigilant, looking for danger even when there isn’t any.”
“So how do I stop?”
“You don’t stop the thoughts,” Kim said. “You notice them. You name them. ‘This is my fear talking. This is my trauma response. This is not reality.’ And then you choose differently anyway.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is,” Doctor Kim agreed. “But it gets easier. The more you practice choosing trust over fear, the more natural it becomes. The neural pathways change. The patterns shift.”
Maggie absorbed that, feeling the weight of it settle over her.
“I have homework for you,” Kim continued. “This week, every time you want to fix something or manage Evie or protect her from consequences—I want you to pause. Take a breath. Ask yourself: Is this about her needs or my fear?”
“And if it’s my fear?”
“Then you tell her, ‘I’m scared right now. I want to fix this. But I’m going to sit with the discomfort instead.’ You make the fear transparent instead of acting on it.”
