“I don't know. Everyone.”
“Everyone,” she repeated. “But not yourself.”
I didn't answer.
“Soren, I'm going to say this as clearly as I can. The pattern you're in right now—the isolation, the self-neglect, the compulsive behaviors, the way you're treating yourself like you only matter if you're useful to other people—it's not sustainable. Something's going to give. And when it does, it's going to be bad.”
My throat tightened. “I know.”
“Do you? Because from where I'm sitting, you know it intellectually, but you're not letting yourself really understand what that means.”
“What do you want me to say? That I'm a mess? That I'm barely holding it together? Fine. I'm a mess. I'm barely holdingit together. But I don't have a choice. I can't just stop taking care of everyone else because I'm tired.”
“I'm not asking you to stop taking care of other people. I'm asking you to start taking care of yourself too. There's a difference.”
I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes, trying to hold back the pressure building behind them. “I don't know how to do that.”
“Then we figure it out together. But it starts with you being honest about what's going on.”
I wanted to tell her. Wanted to spill everything—about the thoughts that kept getting louder, about the nights I spent staring at the scars on my wrists and wondering if I still had it in me, about how sometimes I looked at the bracelet and wondered if Rook would even care if I was gone. But saying it out loud would make it real, would turn it into a thing I couldn't take back, and I wasn't ready for that.
“I'm trying,” I said instead. “I'm here, aren't I? I'm showing up. That's gotta count for something.”
“It does count for something,” she said gently. “But showing up isn't enough if you're still lying to me about how bad it is.”
“I'm not lying.”
“You're not telling me the whole truth, either. And we both know it.”
The silence stretched out between us, heavy and uncomfortable. I wanted to leave. Wanted to grab my bag and walk out and never come back. But I also knew she was right, and that was the part that made my chest ache.
“I want you to try something this week,” she said finally. “I want you to stop watching his games. Just for seven days. See if you can make it a week without seeking out information about him.”
“I can't?—”
“You can. It's going to be hard, and you're going to want to, but I need you to try. Because what you're doing is hurting you, and we need to start breaking that cycle.”
I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell her she didn't understand, that she couldn't ask me to do that. But the truth was she was right, and I knew it.
“Fine,” I said quietly. “I'll try.”
“That's all I'm asking. And I want you to check in with me this week. Can you do that?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean it, Soren.”
“I know. Okay.”
The rest of the session blurred together. She talked about coping strategies, about reaching out to my support system, about the importance of not isolating when I felt this way. I nodded in the right places, said the things I was supposed to say, and tried not to look at the clock too obviously.
When it was finally over, I grabbed my bag and headed for the door, feeling like I'd been scraped raw and left out in the sun to dry. The hallway outside was too bright, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead in a way that made my head ache. I took the stairs instead of the elevator, needing the movement to burn off some of the restless energy that was building under my skin again.
My car was parked at the far end of the lot, and I made it halfway there before my legs gave out and I had to sit down on the curb. My hands were shaking again, worse than before, and my chest was so tight I could barely breathe. I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes and tried to hold it together, but the cracks were spreading too fast.
I sat there for a long time, breathing through the tightness in my chest and trying to convince myself that I could do this. That I could go home, make it through another day, keep holdingeverything together just a little bit longer. But the truth was I didn't know how much longer I had left in me. Didn't know how many more times I could sit in Dr. Lin's office and lie about being okay.
Eventually, I made it to the car. Started the engine. Drove home on autopilot, replaying the session in my head and hating every second of it. When I got back to the apartment, I locked the door behind me, dropped my bag on the floor, and stood in the middle of the living room, staring at nothing.
