Chapter 32 Théo
I had my first therapy appointment with Alice.
Sabrina had sent me a list of five therapists.
I’d interviewed three of them and Alice was the one I clicked with the most. She had kind eyes and a calm, unhurried way of speaking that didn’t make me want to crawl out of my skin.
She’d agreed to meet with me bi-weekly via Zoom, which meant I didn’t have to deal with the added anxiety of navigating to a new office in an unfamiliar city.
Small mercies.
Derek was technically still paying me to watch Aspen, which felt a little weird now that we were sleeping together. But that was probably somewhere lower on the list of things we needed to discuss. Somewhere below “what are we” and “are you planning on coming out” and “how do we tell my brother.”
I tried not to think about it.
I set up in Derek’s living room with my iPad propped on the coffee table, sitting on the floor in front of the couch.
Aspen was dozing in his bed next to the fireplace, exhausted from the extra long walk I’d taken him on this afternoon.
A tired dog meant a quiet dog and I didn’t need him whining in the background while I excavated my trauma for a stranger.
Was it ironic that therapy gave me anxiety?
Probably something about spilling my deepest darkest secrets to someone I’d met once over a video call. My palms were sweating. I wiped them on my joggers.
The Zoom room opened promptly at 2 p.m. Alice appeared on screen, her greying hair pulled back in a loose bun, reading glasses perched on her nose. She smiled warmly.
“Théo. Good to see you again. How are you settling in?”
“Fine.” The word came out automatically. I caught myself. “I mean—it’s an adjustment. But I’m managing.”
“That’s good to hear.” She made a note on something off screen. “I thought today we could start by talking a bit more about what brought you to Chicago. You mentioned in our initial call that you were looking for a fresh start. Can you tell me more about that?”
I picked at a thread on my sleeve. “I needed to get out of Toronto. Too many... bad memories. I was the worst version of myself there.”
“And Chicago? Why here specifically?”
“My brother lives here.” I paused. “He offered to let me stay with him. Free rent. It seemed like the easiest option.”
“That was generous of him.”
“Yeah.” I let out a breath. “It’s weird, actually. We weren’t close growing up. We were—antagonistic, I guess. He was the popular jock. I was the quiet, artistic one. We didn’t really... get each other.”
“And now?”
I thought about Avery massaging Hana’s feet while she watched a movie with us. About the way he’d unloaded Sabrina’s suitcase at the airport, awkward and earnest. About how he never asked me to talk about Toronto but always made sure there was healthy food in the fridge.
“Now it’s different. I think our time apart helped. And...” I swallowed. “I think what happened to me scared him. He doesn’t say it but I can tell he’s worried.”
“How does that feel? Having him worry about you?”
“Uncomfortable.” The word came out before I could filter it. “I’m supposed to be someone who has it together. I’ve competed at the international level. Won gold medals. I was finally a star in my own right. And now I’m living in his guest room, borrowing his car, eating his food. It’s humiliating.”
“You said ‘supposed to be.’ That’s an interesting phrase.” Alice tilted her head. “Who decided you were supposed to have it together?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Me, I guess. My parents. Coaches. Everyone.”
“That’s a lot of pressure for one person to carry.”
I didn’t have an answer for that. I looked at Aspen, still sleeping peacefully, his paws twitching in some dream.
“I’m trying,” I said finally. “To let go of some of it. I found a new coach here. Someone different from what I’m used to. He’s... patient. Doesn’t push.”
“That sounds like a positive step.”
“It is. I think.” I pulled at the thread again. “It’s just hard. Accepting help. Depending on people. I’m not good at it.”
“Most people aren’t,” Alice said gently. “Especially people who’ve learned that depending on others leads to disappointment.”
The words landed somewhere soft and bruised in my chest.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Something like that.”
We talked for another 40 minutes. About my mom, who loved me but didn’t understand me. About the pressure of competing at the elite level. About the part of me that still felt like a fraud, even when I was landing quads and standing on podiums.
“You’ve mentioned your mom a few times,” Alice said. “I’m curious where your dad fits into the picture for you.”
I shifted on the floor, my tailbone starting to ache. “They divorced when I was 13.”
“That must have been difficult.”
“It was.” I stared at a spot on the wall above the iPad. “And I know I’m not supposed to blame myself for it. That’s like Therapy 101. But...”
“But?”
“It was about me. The divorce. At least partly.” I exhaled slowly.
“My dad’s obsessed with Avery’s hockey career.
He’d been a player himself—nothing major, college level—but he had all these hockey dreams for us when we were kids and then I quit playing.
But Avery… he was a little superstar from an early age.
Dad drove him to every practice, every game, every tournament.
They’d watch tape together. It was their thing. ”
“And you?”
“I was figure skating.” I huffed out a humourless laugh. “Which, in my dad’s mind, was not a real sport. Too feminine. Too artistic. He wanted me to play hockey like Avery. I tried until I was seven. Hated every second.”
“What did you hate about it?”
“The chaos. The aggression. Constantly being compared to my brother who was a superior player in every way. I wanted—” I paused, trying to find the words. “I wanted something for myself. I loved the skating part but I wanted precision. Control. I wanted to fly.”
“That’s a beautiful way to put it.”
“My mom understood. She’s the one who signed me up for figure skating lessons.
She fought for me to keep going when my dad wanted to pull me out.
They used to scream at each other about it.
” I picked at my sleeve again. “She thought they should be spending equal energy on both of us. He thought she was wasting money on a pipe dream.”
“That sounds like a lot for a child to witness.”
“It was.” My throat felt tight. “And then they split up and I knew—I knew—it was because of me. Because she chose me and my skating over keeping the peace with him.”
Alice was quiet for a moment. “Did she ever say that?”
“No. She would never. But I could do the math.”
“Sometimes the math we do in our heads doesn’t add up to reality.”
“Maybe.” I didn’t believe it. “Anyway. When I started winning—like, really winning—it felt like a big ‘fuck you’ to my dad. Proof that he was wrong. That figure skating wasn’t a waste. That I wasn’t a waste.”
“And now?”
The question hung in the air. I watched Aspen’s ribcage rise and fall with his slow, sleeping breaths.
“Now I crashed out,” I said flatly. “I was on the brink of greatness—the Olympics were within my grasp… then I passed out after a competition. In front of my teammates, my coaches, my mom.” I didn’t even remember blacking out.
I just remembered feeling dizzy and needing to sit down and the next thing I knew, I was waking up on a stretcher.
“They took me to the hospital and my levels were... bad. Really bad. I wasn’t eating.
I was taking too much Adderall to keep going. My body just... gave up.”
“That sounds terrifying.”
“It was embarrassing.” The word came out sharp. “I was supposed to be at the top of my game. I was supposed to prove everyone wrong. And instead I collapsed like some fragile little—” I stopped myself. Took a breath. “I ended up in a treatment facility in Montréal. Ninety days.”
“That’s a significant commitment. How was that experience?”
“Hell.” I laughed but there was no humour in it. “And also... necessary, I guess. I had to relearn how to eat. How to cope with stress and anxiety without leaning on bad habits. How to exist in my own body without punishing it.”
Alice nodded slowly. “It sounds like you’ve done a lot of work to get where you are now.”
“It doesn’t feel like enough.” I swallowed hard. “I’m 21 and I feel like I’ve lost everything I worked so hard for. No competitions. No sponsors. Living off my brother’s charity in a city I don’t know. And it feels like my dad was right all along. This was just a pipe dream.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“I don’t know what I believe anymore.” My voice came out smaller than I intended. “I just know that everything I sacrificed—everything my mom sacrificed—it was all for nothing. I’ve already peaked. Some cautionary tale.”
“Théo.” Alice’s voice was gentle but firm. “You’re only 21. There are many chapters left to be written. You’re a person who went through something incredibly difficult and is trying to find their way forward. That’s not failure. That’s survival.”
I didn’t trust myself to speak.
“We unpacked a lot today,” she continued.
“But I want you to sit with one thought before our next session. The story you’re telling yourself about your parents’ divorce—about being responsible, about being a burden—that’s a child’s interpretation of adult problems. It may feel true but feelings aren’t always facts. ”
“Okay,” I managed.
“Can you do that? Just sit with it?”
“I can try.”
“That’s all I ask.”
◆◆◆
When Derek FaceTimed me that evening, I was still awake, lying on his pillow that smelled like him.
I hadn’t changed the sheets. They smelled like us—like sex and bergamot and something warm underneath that was just Derek. I had been ignoring my half-hard cock for the better part of an hour, knowing he would be calling any minute.