PROLOGUE
OPHELIA
FOURTEEN YEARS OLD
Isat on the scratchy carpet just outside the door, my knees hugged to my chest so tightly they ached. The hall smelled like burnt coffee, and the air conditioner kicked on every eight minutes like clockwork, loud enough to almost drown out the voices behind the half-cracked door.
Almost.
“She says sheloveshim.” My mother’s voice sliced through the white noise, all edge and tension, like she was trying to cut the word out of her own mouth. “And not in a silly, teenage crush way. She says it like she means it. Like she’ddiefor him.”
My stomach clenched so hard I thought I might throw up right there on the beige carpet.
“Fourteen-year-olds have crushes all the time,” the therapist commented gently.
“She doesn’t just say she loves him,” Dad cut in, his voice tight, like he hated being here but hated what I’d done even more. “She followed him home. She wrote him letters. She got into his locker somehow. This isn’t a schoolgirl crush…It’s obsession.”
I wanted to disappear.
My fingers dug into the fabric of my jeans, trying to rip something—anything—to stop the memories from crawling out.
But they came anyway.
It was last Tuesday. I’d stayed late after class because I knew he always started his walk home fifteen minutes after the final bell. I waited behind the vending machine, pretending to dig around for a dollar I didn’t have. When he finally walked out, alone and laughing at something on his phone, I followed.
Just a few steps behind.
He never noticed me. I made sure of it.
I knew where he lived. Of course I did. I’d memorized the map the first time I looked him up online. But that day…I just wanted to see if he went straight home. If he smiled when he walked in. If his mom hugged him.
Because I wanted to be that. The one he smiled at. The one he let in.
When he opened the door and turned around like he sensed me…I ran.
“Her behavior is escalating,” Dr. Whitaker said then. Calm. Measured. Like she was reciting a grocery list instead of dissecting my soul. “We’ve spoken before about her diagnoses, but I think it’s time to review. Obsessive love disorder is not officially recognized by the DSM-4, but the pattern is clear. She’s exhibiting signs of borderline personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and an attachment disorder.”
The worddisorderlingered in the air like the smell of antiseptic. I couldn’t see them from where I sat in the hallway, but I could picture it—the way my mother would fold her hands in her lap, nodding too quickly, eager to prove she understood. My father’s jaw tight, his eyes on the floor. Both pretending they hadn’t already failed whatever test this was.
They would be acting as if they knew exactly what she meant, as if there was a neat bullet point in my file that could sum it up:Age six, began exhibiting symptoms.
Disorder.
They made it sound so small. Contained. A thing that could be boxed up, labeled, and filed away.
They called it when I first exhibited symptoms.
I called it the moment everything started leaking through the cracks.
I dug my nails into my palms, wishing I could claw the words out of the air before they reached me, before they reminded me of what I already knew…I was broken.
“She manipulates people to feel close to them,” the therapist continued. “She imagines entire relationships that don’t exist. It’s not about the boy, really. It’s about control. About filling the hole inside her.”
I covered my ears…but it didn’t work.
“I found her notebook,” my mom said, and I could hear the sound of paper being shoved across a table. “Pages and pages of their name together. ‘Ophelia + Nico. Mrs. Nico Alvarez.’ His schedule, his mom’s phone number, even his little sister’s birthday.”
A tear slipped down my face as I pictured their hands on those pages, touching the parts of me I never meant to show.
