Chapter 51
51
BLAKE, 2000
19 years old
“You’re quiet today,” Dr. Lemkin said. “That’s unlike you.”
“Maybe I’m just tired.”
She waited. That’s what she did best—let the silence stretch until I got uncomfortable enough to fill it.
“Alright,” she said, flipping her notebook shut as if she’d finally cracked the code of me. “How’s Stanford treating you?”
I shrugged, shifting in my seat. “It’s fine. A little overrated, though.”
“Overrated in what way?”
“In the way where everything costs five thousand dollars, professors don’t make eye contact, and the only decent food is whatever Jamal’s mom mails me in Tupperware.”
“You’re lucky to have that support system.”
I didn’t respond. My gaze dropped to the clock behind her, ticking way too loudly for someone allegedly trained in mental stability. Her office had that sterile kind of warmth people tried to manufacture—books arranged by color, some framed print of a forest trail that was supposed to inspire peace, a Himalayan salt lamp that hadn’t been turned on since I started coming here. It was cluttered with plants she talked to like coworkers. One of them was named Diane. I’d made the mistake of asking once.
I ran a hand over my chin, feeling the roughness of the stubble that had begun to grow thicker over the past few days. I needed a decent shave. “It’s fine,” I repeated, dragging my gaze back to her. “Stanford, I mean. Big campus. Ridiculously smart people. Everyone’s acting like they’ve got something to prove. And I’m passing my classes, so there’s that.”
“That is something,” she said. “Give yourself some credit.”
“I’d rather give myself a lobotomy.”
She didn’t laugh at that. She never did.
That was one of the things I liked about her.
“And you? Do you feel like you have something to prove?”
I didn’t answer right away. My jaw clenched involuntarily as I searched for the right words.Sweat began to bead along my temple; the June heat spilled through the cracked window, thick and heavy, clinging to the room like a second skin.
“It’s not so much about proving something to others,” I said eventually, “but to myself. Subconsciously, I’m constantly trying to prove to myself that I’m not him. My father,” I clarified.
“Do you still dream about him?”
“Sometimes,” I admitted. “Less than before. More about the house and the…the blood.” I swallowed. “My mom.”
“And Beverly?”
My throat tightened.
There it was.
The name I’d been trying not to say for months.
“She shows up in dreams I don’t want to wake up from,” I said quietly. “Sometimes she’s thirteen, sometimes she’s seventeen. She’s always angry, or crying, or walking away.”
Dr. Lemkin didn’t say anything.
I hated that she let silence be a mirror.
“She wore my sweatshirt the last time I caught a glimpse of her,” I added after an awkward pause. “I think about that more than anything. Not the cuffs. Not the cops. Just…that. Her, hiding in my clothes, probably crying. Probably hating me.”
“I don’t think she hated you, Blake.”
“She didn’t run after me either,” I muttered under my breath. I leaned back, my spine touching the couch for the first time in the hour. “You think she was scared of me?”
She looked at me for a long moment. Then she shook her head, her gaze softening. “I think she was scared of what it meant to love you that much.”
Letting out a frustrated sigh, I looked up at the white ceiling. “She was the first person I ever trusted. You know that?”
“I do.”
“Beverly was the first place I felt safe,” I said, more to myself than to her. “Not a house. Not a bed. Not even Arthur or Jenna.” The words tasted bitter as they left my mouth. “Just her.”
“And you think you ruined it.”
I gave a bitter laugh. “Didn’t I?”
Dr. Lemkin tilted her head. “You’ve been through a lot, Blake. Your foster history, the loss of your father figure?—”
“I thought I’d be over it by now,” I cut in. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “I used to be able to calculate everything. I’d memorize systems, patterns, routines. That’s how I survived the foster care system. Predict, adapt, survive. But with her, it was like trying to write equations in water. Everything changed too fast. And still, I couldn’t walk away.”
“You did walk away, though.”
“Yeah, well,” I muttered, the bitterness creeping into my voice. “I thought it was the right thing. I grieved like a moron and thought pushing her away would protect her.”
“Classic trauma response.”
“You don’t say,” I replied dryly.
Her lips twitched. “Do you still believe that?”
“Some days, yeah. I convince myself it was the right choice. Other days...I’d give anything to take it back.” A hollow laugh escaped me. “But I saw her face when they put me in that car. She didn’t come out. Nothing. That’s how I knew it was over.”
Dr. Lemkin’s eyes softened, but I couldn’t tell if it was pity or something else. “You still wear her hair tie,” she pointed out, nodding toward my wrist.
I glanced down at the pink fabric, stretched out but still clinging to my skin. “I guess it’s all I have left of her. I miss her,” I blurted. “And Arthur.”
She nodded slowly. “Missing doesn’t mean you’re broken, remember? It just means you cared. Losing people always hurts.”
“It didn’t feel like losing her. It felt like I took her heart out, smashed it, and then had the audacity to leave the mess on her porch. In a box. With a bow.”
“You were grieving, Blake,” she said, her voice softer now. “Your dad, your sense of safety, your idea of a future with her. You didn’t mean to hurt anyone. You know that deep down, don’t you? The thing is, if you don’t take the time to heal your wounds, you’ll always risk bleeding on those who had nothing to do with the cuts.”
I clenched my jaw and looked away. The words felt like they should be comforting, but they only made my chest tighten.
“What’s the hardest part right now?”
I hesitated. Then gave her the truth I hadn’t said out loud yet. “Feeling like I’m not supposed to be here. That if I actually start to enjoy any of this, I’m betraying everything I left behind.”
“Everything like...?”
“Home,” I said. “Beverly. Jenna.”
“Do you want to talk about her today?”
I shook my head.
“Fair. But you’ve been talking more, which tells me something is shifting.” Then she gave me that look—the one that meant she was watching closely, not with judgment, but with that quiet, unnerving therapist x-ray vision. “I’m glad you’ve kept showing up these last five months,” she added, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “That counts for something.”
I shrugged. “My best friend said if I bailed one more time, he was going to start mailing me motivational cat posters.”
Dr. Lemkin scribbled something down.
Probably: Patient still deflecting with sarcasm.
“I’m just saying, don’t read too much into my attendance.”
“Mmm,” she hummed, unconvinced.
I gave a dry half-smile.
Then I asked the question that had been gnawing at the back of my throat for weeks. “Do you think I’m depressed?”
She didn’t rush the answer, which made it worse somehow.
She folded her hands in her lap, leaned forward just slightly. “No,” she said finally. “I don’t think you’re clinically depressed.”
I stared at her, waiting for more.
“I think your life has been objectively hard, Blake,” she added. “And you’re having a very reasonable reaction to that.”
I blinked. “That’s it? No long diagnostic term? No syndrome or acronym?”
She raised a brow. “You want a syndrome?”
“I… I just thought there’d be a name for how shitty I’ve felt.”
“There is. It’s called being human.”
“Jesus. You’re so annoyingly calm about everything.”
“It’s in the job description. Here’s what I’ll say… You’ve been through more than most people your age, and instead of numbing yourself, you’re here. You’re trying. You’re at Stanford. One of the best schools in the country. You got there on your own merit. That’s not nothing.”
“Feels like nothing most days,” I admitted.
“Then we keep going. Keep showing up. Keep doing the work. Because you can achieve great things. And not because you have something to prove to the world, or to Beverly, but because there’s more to you than the boy who survived hell. There’s the man who’s going to build something with it. And your future self, twenty years from now, is begging you to enjoy your life while you have the chance.”
I didn’t roll my eyes like I normally do.
Because for the first time in a long time, I almost believed her.
“And what about her?” I asked. “What if I never get to explain? What if she never wants to see me again?”
She glanced at my wrist, then slowly met my eyes. “Then you hold her with grace,” she said. “You let the love live in your heart, not your guilt. You don’t have to stop loving someone just because they’re not beside you.”
I nodded slowly, even though it felt like swallowing glass.
I realized too late that love wasn’t universal. It wasn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of thing—and that’s what made it so complicated. What might have felt like a grand gesture to one person could go unnoticed by another. It’s not just about having love in your heart; it’s about ensuring the other person feels it too. Because what’s the point of giving all the love in your heart if it doesn’t reach theirs?
Love was always portrayed as gentle; a seed of warmth that takes root in your chest and slowly unfurls into something beautiful when nurtured with care and patience.
It was something soft, something comforting.
It was meant to heal, to hold, to shelter.
But for me, love was a beast that tore at the fabric of my soul. Where others saw tenderness, I saw a hunger that never seemed to be satisfied. My hunger for love seethed and writhed inside me. I didn’t love gently because my heart didn’t allow me to, because it didn’t know any better. I didn’t love gently because I grew up starved for the kind of love that could heal.
In my desperation for gentleness, I became full of rage.
The session wrapped up soon after. The sun was already starting to fade outside the windows, and I still thought about her. Not in the bleeding, ragged way I used to—it was different now. Quieter. Softer. A dull ache instead of a constant, searing pain.
I thought about the way she used to doodle little stars next to the grocery lists, as if that made “buy milk” more important. The way her nose scrunched when she was mad. The way she always left a little bite of her dessert, even if she loved it, as if she couldn’t stand the finality of the last taste.
Beverly was still woven into the fabric of my thoughts, intricately stitched into the deepest corners of my heart—into parts of me I hadn’t realized had been shaped by her.
I’d keep her tucked away in my heart, just like Dr. Lemkin said. Tucked away in that quiet, sacred place where memories don’t fade and hope refuses to die. Until I could rebuild the bridge I burned to the ground, praying she was still standing on the other side.