The thought made my chest ache. Miserable didn’t even begin to cover it.
Panic clawed up my throat. What if he thought I’d done it on purpose? What if he was angry, really angry, and decided he was done with me?
A small, reasonable part of me tried to cut through the noise.Matty’s not like that, it whispered.He wouldn’t just give up on you over this.
But reason had never been my strong suit. Not when it came to him. Not when the thought of losing him made my chest seize and my vision blur. Logic didn’t stand a chance against the spiral already building in my head.
I pressed a hand over my chest, trying to breathe, but the ache there only deepened. I’d already been quiet yesterday, distracted after my mom’s call. The sound of her voice, that cold mixture of disappointment and exhaustion, rang in my ears all day.
I’d spent the entire day jumping through hoops for her. Phone calls. Promises. Another appointment with Dr. Whitaker that I didn’t want but couldn’t refuse. By the time it was over, shame sat so thick in my stomach I could barely stand to look at myself in the mirror.
“You’re not being honest with yourself, Ophelia.” Dr. Whitaker’s voice crackled through my laptop speakers—calm, clinical, unshakable. On the screen, she adjusted her glasses and tapped her pen against her notebook, the sound loud even through the mic.
“You keep saying you’re fine, that you’re managing,” she went on. “But you’ve replaced one fixation with another, haven’t you? You’re tying your sense of safety to him.”
I stared at the little square that held her face, at the tidy office behind her with its framed diplomas and neutral walls. I couldn’t look her in the eye.
“That’s not true,” I whispered, though my voice wavered enough to make it sound like a question.
“Isn’t it?” she asked softly. “When you talk about him, your breath spikes. Your hands tremble. You describe him like he’s oxygen. That isn’t love, Ophelia. That’s dependency. And you know where that road leads.”
The video lagged for a second, her face freezing mid-sentence, but the words had still crawled under my skin like a burn I couldn’t scrub off, replaying over and over in my head long after the call ended.
Now, sitting in the dark stacks, her voice still echoed in my head.Dependency.Fixation. The words she’d used like diagnoses instead of feelings.
I’d told Matty I needed to study. That I’d come by later.
And that was true.
But I’d also needed some space. Time to gather myself…to stop hearing my mother’s voice in my head, the one that said I was broken and dangerous and lucky anyone loved me at all.
I hadn’t wanted him to see that version of me. Not when he looked at me like I was something he’d never let go of.
My throat tightened. I pulled my dead phone to my chest, whispering to the dark stacks, “Please don’t leave me.”
I scrambled to my feet and started shoving my books and notes into my bag with shaking hands. A few papers fluttered to the floor, but I didn’t stop to grab them. I just needed to get out of here—now.
The metal stairs groaned under my boots as I climbed, the air growing warmer with each step until the door at the top burst open into blinding light streaming in from the floor-to-ceiling windows of the library’s main floor.
I winced, throwing a hand up to shield my eyes. It was morning. Actual morning. I slept through the entire night.
“Shit,” I breathed as I speed-walked through the library. The fluorescent lights were on, and students were already hunched over their laptops. I could feel every tick of panic crawling under my skin as I realized how late it was.
Matty was going to think I’d ignored him. Or worse, that I didn’t want to see him.
I moved faster, heading for the exit, thumbing the power button like it might suddenly wake up, even though I knew it was useless. I tried shaking it, rubbing it against my sleeve…anything to coax a flicker of life from the black screen. I wasn’t even watching where I was going until I slammed into something solid.
No—not something. Someone.
My breath hitched as my bag slipped from my shoulder and crashed to the floor, books and papers scattering across the tile. I froze, my pulse roaring in my ears, and slowly looked up at the broad chest I’d just run straight into.
“Whoa—Shit, I’m so sorry!”
The voice was deep, startled. I stumbled back a step. My stomach dropped when I saw I’d run into Garrett, Matty’s teammate. The one who’d walked up to the car that day.
For a second, I couldn’t move.
He crouched immediately, scooping up loose papers, muttering apologies under his breath. “Didn’t even see you there,” he said, his tone rough with guilt. “My fault, totally my fault.”
