My breath hitched as the memory surfaced—Nico’s hoodie, the one that had gotten me sent away to begin with, the one my mother had thrown away in a fit of rage. This was the same thing. The same sickness. The same need to hold onto something that didn’t belong to me.
I backed away from the wall, shaking my head. “No,” I whispered, the word barely audible. But the truth was already there, raw and undeniable.
I hadn’t changed. I’d just found someone new to break myself over.
I stared at the pictures, my chest tightening until I couldn’t breathe. His smile stared back at me from a dozen angles. His arms raised in victory. His eyes, always looking past me, never at me.
Something inside me cracked.
A sound tore from my throat, half sob, half scream, and I launched myself at the wall. My hands hit first, then my fists. I ripped at the photos, shredded them, tore the edges of the paper until my fingertips burned. I yanked down everything I could reach, the tape snapping, the glossy pages crumpling in my fists.
“Stop,” I gasped out, though I didn’t even know who I was talking to. Him. Myself. Both.
Pictures fluttered to the floor, scattering around me like broken glass. I sank to my knees in the middle of them, surrounded by pieces of him I couldn’t seem to let go of, my chest heaving as I whispered his name again and again until it stopped sounding like a person at all.
My gaze landed on the journal half hidden beneath a pile of torn notes. I knew which one it was before I even reached for it—the one with the bent spine and the ink that had long since bled through the pages. I’d written in it for months. Letters to him. Fantasies. My name paired with his.Mrs. Adler. Over and over and over until the words had stopped looking strange and had started to feel like something that could be real.
I flipped through a few pages, my breath hitching as I read lines I didn’t remember writing.He smiled at me today. He doesn’t know it yet, but we’re meant to be.The handwriting blurred through my tears. The sound that left me this time wasn’t a scream…it was smaller, broken.
Then I tore it.
Page after page. Rip after rip. Until the air was full of shredded paper, and my hands were raw. The notebook fell apart in my lap, the pieces raining down around me like ashes.
I told myself I was done. That it was over. That I could let go.
But then I saw it, a picture lying facedown near my foot. I picked it up with shaking fingers, and flipped it over. It was him, mid-game, helmet in hand, that grin splitting his face wide open. He looked so alive. Untouchable. The kind of person the world revolved around.
I gripped the photo at the edges, ready to tear it in two. My hands wouldn’t move. They just shook harder, the glossy paper bending but not breaking. I tried again, but my fingers wouldn’t obey.
And then I crumpled.
I fell forward, the picture clutched to my chest, sobs ripping through me until my whole body shook. I pressed my forehead to the floor, surrounded by the wreckage of everything I’d built, and I finally understood…this wasn’t love. It was sickness. It had always been sickness.
And no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t know how to make it stop.
The knock of my heartbeat filled my ears long after the crying stopped. I didn’t remember crawling into bed, only the dull ache in my hands and the torn scraps of paper stuck to my skin. My pillow was damp, my throat raw. I stared at the ceiling until the world blurred and went soft around the edges, until exhaustion finally pulled me under.
When I woke again, the room was dark. My phone buzzed on the nightstand, dragging me up from sleep that felt more like sinking. I blinked at the screen until the name came into focus.
Mom.
I swallowed, my tongue heavy. “Hey,” I croaked in a sandpaper-thin voice as I answered the call.
“Ophelia,” she said, her tone sharp with irritation. “Do you have any idea what time it is? Dr. Whitaker’s office called me. You missed your session this afternoon.”
My gaze shifted to the clock. 6:37 p.m. For a second, I couldn’t process the numbers. Then it hit all at once. Afternoon. Appointment. Hours gone. “What?”
“They said you didn’t answer your phone. Are you trying to get yourself put on an observation report?”
My throat went tight. “No, I—I took a nap…and I must’ve overslept.”
“Youoversleptan entire afternoon?” she snapped. “Do you understand how that looks? Dr. Whitaker has to keep progress documentation for your program. If the university thinks you’re backsliding, they could pull your independent status. You’ll have to come home, Ophelia. You know this.”
Her words hit harder than I wanted them to, mostly because they weren’t empty threats. After I got into Tennessee, my mother had tried to have my acceptance withdrawn. She’d called the university herself, told them I was unstable, that I’d been hospitalized, that I wasn’t ready to live on my own. They hadn’t revoked my offer, but the school had made it clear. I was allowed to stay under supervision, with mandatory therapy and progress reports filed through Dr. Whitaker every month. If those reports ever hinted that I was slipping, I’d lose my “independent status.” Which meant my mother would get exactly what she wanted—me back under her roof, back where she could watch me.
The idea made my stomach twist. I couldn’t go home.
Her words blurred in my head as the panic started to creep in. My eyes darted toward the window, where the sky was bruised orange with sunset, and that’s when I realized what else I’d missed.
