“Did the voice come back?”
I let out a shaky breath. “Four days ago, Chase kissed me.” I pause, remembering how his mouth felt on mine. He was gentle, kissing me in a way that felt more like a promise than a lip lock. “And I heard a voice.”
“What did it say?”
“‘Good job, Erin. I’m proud of you.’”
The waterworks start before I can contain them.
“That night, I realized, it wasn’t her voice in my head. It was mine.” The thing I’ve been running from wasn’t a ghost of her; it was an echo of me. My scared voice wore my mother’s tone like a mask.
Roberta stays still, eyes never leaving mine. “What makes you so sure?”
“When I ran from Chase the first time, I heard,“‘You never learn, do you, Erin?’”My mother has never known me as Erin. Only Lucia. I just got so used to hearing her that when my own voice tried to protect Chase from me, I couldn’t tell the difference.” I dab my eyes with my sleeve.
The silence that stretches between us is an endless layer of fog, but for the first time in a long time, I’m beginning to see through it.
“The voice I heard before Chase—that was my mother’s. But since Chase, the person I’ve been afraid of isn’t her—it’s me.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“When I was seventeen and that guy grabbed me…” My fingers curl into the hem of my sleeve. “When Wess crossed the line a few months back.” The lavender diffuser hisses behind Roberta, grounding me. “Those were instances my mother would’ve blamed me for.” I let out a sigh. “But Chase, he’s different. I chose him. I felt a connection to him the minute I laid eyes on him at the bar. Part of me knew that If I hurt him, it would be my fault. Not hers. The other guys weren’t my choice. Chase was. So, I kept my walls up and told myself I still needed the mantras to keep her out. But I know now that they were keepingmeout. The parts of me that wanted to take a risk, the parts of me that wanted to fall.”
Roberta’s voice is inquisitive. “So when you heard yourself this time, after he kissed you…?”
“It was like I finally gave myself permission to stop running. To want him.”
Roberta folds her hands together, resting them on her lap. “Why do you think that fear runs so deep?”
“I’m afraid to love him.” The words land like a punch to my stomach. The emotions that circle are uplifting and terrifying all at the same time. I’m speaking a truth I’ve kept buried for too long.
“If I fall for him, that’s on me, not my mother. I’ve been avoiding anything to do with love and relationships because I thought staying away from it made me different from her. But now that I know her voice is really gone… I’m terrified that if I hurt him, it’ll prove I really am just like her.”
Roberta gets straight to the point. “How does this change things for you?”
“I told Chase I wouldn’t run. Yesterday, that voice said it was proud of me. But what if next week it tells me that I’m making a mistake? Now that I know it’smyvoice, I can’t silence it the way I used to. I think I have to learn to listen without believing.”
Roberta hums in acknowledgement. “That’s a big shift.”
“I think the voice that made me run from him was the scared part of me—the fear my mom left behind—but the one I heard when he kissed me? That was part of me, too. That part is ready to stop surviving and just live. I don’t want that voice to be drowned out by fear again. I don’t want the other voice to gain power, either.”
Roberta hums. “The voice you used to see as an enemy isn’t an enemy anymore. It’s a part of you. A scared version of you. It might always be there, but you can learn when it’s lying.”
“I think I’ve spent so long trying to fight it that when losing felt inevitable, I’d give up and retreat. Maybe what I need to do is stop fighting and just… listen? Figure out what’s true for myself.”
Her lips curve. “You’re starting to trust yourself, Erin.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever be able to,” I admit.
“You didn’t have enough confidence inside of you to be able to recognize your own voice without mistaking it for your mother’s. But now you do. That makes all the difference.”
“I want to do things differently. Chase told me he’d give me space to figure out why I was spiraling after the kiss. Now I know why. He told me I could come to him when I was ready.”
“And are you?”
“I want to be. I don’t want to hide anymore. I don’t want to be afraid to love him.” My fingers tremble around the tissue. “I want to try. Part of me believes the cycle is broken, that maybe that voice saying it was proud of me is the end of it. But if it’s not and it comes back, I don’t want to fear it. I don’t want to live my life waiting for it to return. Or question why it hasn’t. The moments I didn’t think about it, I was the happiest.”
“Maybe it’s the last time,” Roberta says softly. “Maybe it’s not. Over time, that voice might start to sound less like a threat you need to respond to and more like a memory you’ve outgrown.”
