The room blurred, and suddenly I was somewhere else again.
I stole Nico’s hoodie once.
He left it in the locker room during gym, and I snuck in during lunch and slipped it into my bag. It smelled like his shampoo, minty and clean, and I wore it to bed for a week straight.
Every night, I pretended he gave it to me.
That he whispered I looked pretty in it.
That he missed me when I wasn’t around.
But one day, Laura saw me wearing it. She was a girl in his friend group. She pointed and laughed and said, “Why are you wearing Nico’s hoodie?”
I said, “He gave it to me.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re such a freak.”
I sucked in a breath like surfacing too fast, the pain in my chest blooming so violently I thought it might split me open.
Iwasa freak.
A broken, twisted, obsessive freak.
And I hated myself for it.
Not because I didn’t believe in love…I did. I still did, even now, sitting outside this horrible office with my whole life exploding inside. But because I knew deep down he had never looked at me the way I looked at him.
He never would.
“I want to be clear,” the therapist said then. “This isn’t her fault. These are the symptoms of deeply rooted mental health disorders. With the right therapy, medication, and structure, she can learn to manage the impulses. But she’s going to need support. And patience. And for you both to stop reacting with disgust.”
There was a pause.
“Right,” my mom said flatly. “Support. Patience. For the daughter who makes up imaginary relationships with boys and calls it love.”
That word again.
Love.
It made me feel like I’d swallowed glass.
Because what I felt…it wasn’t cute.
It wasn’t butterflies or blushes or locker notes.
It was hunger.
It was loneliness with teeth.
And now they were talking aboutmedsandstructureand maybe evenfacilities, like I was a problem to be managed. A bomb they were scared might go off again.
The therapist kept talking, and my mom’s tone turned cold, precise. “We’ll do whatever we need to,” she said. “We can’t live like this anymore.”
My dad sighed, the sound of a man who was already done with the situation, and wanted to leave.
But I didn’t hear the rest.
Not really.
