Chapter 42
Chapter
Forty-Two
“Sometimes, we have to say goodbye to the love we wish could stay forever.”
― Manisha Manjari
Jade
23 years old
Seven years ago
“Why the drugs, Jade?”
I scoffed, my legs on the couch, my arms crossed tight. “Why the twenty questions?”
Dr. Morano sipped her coffee, her face calm, steady—unshakable. “It’s my job to ask questions, to get past whatever wall you’ve built around yourself. The more I know?—”
“The better the diagnosis?” I cut in, my voice biting. “Pretty sure we already agreed I’m crazy.”
Her smile was soft, infuriatingly patient. “We agreed you weren’t crazy, Jade. You’re just?—”
“Weak? Selfish? Stupid? A mess of bad decisions, wrapped in guilt?”
“Hurt.”
That single word hung in the air, too heavy, too simple, and yet impossible to argue with.
“Ah, pain,” I muttered, letting out a bitter laugh as my eyes drifted to that awful painting on her wall. A picture-perfect family walking through a field of sunflowers. It was insulting, really. “My one and only constant companion.”
It had been two years now.
Two years since Stella and Thomas had died.
A year and a half since I’d crawled out of the psych ward and started wandering through life like a ghost, hollow and aimless.
Three months ago, I tried to fill the void—or drown it—with ink on my skin.
That tattoo set off the spiral. Cocaine. Alcohol. Nights I could barely piece together.
For the first time in two years, I thought I cracked the code and found the answer to the pain.
I overdosed.
But instead of rotting away in the bathroom of my favorite bar, I woke up in a hospital bed. They couldn’t even let me die right. The ER doctor handed me two choices, like I had any say in my own fate: rehab or therapy.
I chose therapy. Not because I wanted to. Rehab just sounded worse.
And that’s how I’d ended up here again, in Dr. Morano’s office, after over a year of avoiding it.
When she opened the door and saw me, her eyes flickered—sadness, pity, maybe even a flash of disappointment. She didn’t say a word, just motioned me inside.
I didn’t hesitate to throw myself onto the couch, shutting my eyes.
In a way, facing her was harder than facing myself.
Dr. Morano didn’t push—not yet.
She let me stew, probably waiting for me to crack first.
I stared at the ceiling, letting out a dry laugh. “What’s the plan here? Sit there all day until I finally break down and bare my soul?”
“Only if that’s what you need, Jade.”
I rolled onto my side, my eyes landing on that sunflower painting again.
God, I hated that thing. It was too bright, too happy, too… wrong.
“I don’t even know why I’m here.”
“You’re here because you don’t want to be dead.”
The words hit like a gut punch, knocking the air out of me.
I turned my head just enough to glare at her. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.” Her voice softened, but it didn’t lose that edge of truth I loathed so much. “You could’ve chosen rehab. Or you could’ve vanished entirely. But you didn’t. You came here. That means something, Jade.”
My throat felt tight. “Or maybe I just suck at making decisions. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Or maybe,” she countered, her eyes locking on mine, “there’s a part of you that still wants to fight. Even if you don’t see it right now.”
I sat up, crossing my arms over my chest, like it could shield me from her words. “Fight for what? There’s nothing left, Doc. Nothing worth saving.”
Joy had long since abandoned my life, leaving nothing but an empty shell.
And maybe that was a mercy.
Happiness—so bright, so intoxicating—was nothing more than a cruel mirage.
It lifted you high only to send you crashing down. And the fall? The fall tore through you, leaving scars so deep they never truly healed.
The wreckage it left behind was never worth the fleeting light.
“That’s not true, Jade.”
I scoffed, shaking my head as I looked away. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You don’t know what it’s like to lose everything, to watch the people you love—” My voice cracked, and I bit down on the words, swallowing the lump in my throat.
Dr. Morano stayed quiet for a moment, letting the weight of my outburst settle. “You’re right. I don’t know exactly what you’ve been through. But I know pain, Jade. And I know it doesn’t have to define you.”
“Feels like it already has, Doc.”
I’d tried everything—every trick, every lie, every distraction. Drowning in work, chasing highs, numbing myself to the point of oblivion. I clawed at normalcy like it was some lifeline I could hold on to, tried to keep the monsters in my head chained up tight. But no matter what I did, I always ended up back here. Back at square fucking one.
Because that’s all I was—a goddamn failure.
I wasn’t able to save my mom from falling apart after she’d lost the love of her life.
I wasn’t able to stop my sister from stepping onto that mine.
I wasn’t even able to pretend that I was fine. Not for anyone. Not even for myself.
Failure is all I’d known.
And maybe it was time I stopped fighting it. Maybe it was time to let it win.
Dr. Morano studied me with that maddening calm, the kind that made me feel exposed.
She leaned forward. “Maybe the missing piece isn’t about forgetting or pretending, Jade. Maybe it’s about finding a real purpose again. Something that matters. Something worth living for.”
“Purpose?” I shot back, the word tasting bitter on my tongue. “What’s the purpose of dragging around a body that feels like a corpse?”
“That’s the thing about ashes, Jade,” she whispered. “They’re not the end of the story. They’re the roots of it. Ashes feed the soil. They’re where things grow. Where life starts over.”
The air felt heavy, thick with something I couldn’t name.
Hope? No, that wasn’t it. Hope was dangerous, like a flame you couldn’t control.
This was different.
This was something raw, something I wasn’t sure I was ready to touch.
But her words lingered, their weight settling in the cracks I thought were too far gone to hold anything.
Ashes weren’t the end. They were a beginning.
They were now the dawn of my revenge, and the dusk of my pain.
A twisted rebirth, where every burn, every scar, fed the fire that would burn down everything in its path.