Chapter 3 #2
I didn't sleep that night. Just lay in bed staring at the ceiling, touching the bracelet on my wrist and feeling the old ache settle back into my chest like it had never left.
Dr. Lin's office smelled like lavender and old books, which should've been calming but mostly just made me feel trapped.
I'd been coming here for a few months now—long enough to know which chair was mine, which tea she'd offer me before we started, and what questions she was going to ask before she opened her mouth.
Long enough to get decent at deflecting, even if I wasn't great at it yet.
I dropped into the chair across from her and tried to look like I hadn't spent the last two days feeling like my skin was on backwards.
She was already watching me with that expression therapists always had—the one that said she could see straight through whatever bullshit I was about to throw at her.
“Rough week?” she asked, setting her notebook on her lap.
I shrugged, aiming for casual and probably missing by a mile. “No worse than usual.”
“You look tired.”
“Yeah, well. Gigs run late. Hard to sleep after.”
She didn't buy it. I could tell by the way her eyes narrowed just slightly, the way she tilted her head like she was deciding which thread to pull first. “How many hours did you sleep last night?”
“I don't know. A few.”
“How many is a few?”
I shifted in the chair, already feeling cornered. “Maybe two. Three, if I'm being generous.”
“And the night before?”
“About the same.”
She wrote that down, and I hated watching her pen move across the page. “Are you eating?”
“Sure. When I have time.”
“Soren, I need you to actually answer the question.”
I sighed, leaning back and letting my head tip against the cushion. “I had toast yesterday morning. And I think I ate half a sandwich at some point. I don't remember.”
“That's not eating. That's surviving.”
“Yeah, well. Been doing a lot of that lately.”
She set the notebook aside and leaned forward a little, her voice getting softer but not in a way that made me feel better. “You seem more activated than usual today. Your leg's been bouncing since you sat down. Your hands keep moving. You smell like a bar. What happened?”
The observation landed like a punch, and I felt my jaw tighten defensively. “Nothing happened.”
“Soren.”
“I watched another one of his games,” I said finally, the words coming out flat and bitter. “Rook. The replay was on at the bar last night.”
She didn't react visibly, but I saw the shift in her posture—the way she settled back into her chair like she was preparing for a longer conversation. “Tell me about that. What was it like, watching him?”
“What do you think it was like? It sucked.”
“I'm asking you to tell me. Not what you think I want to hear. What did it actually feel like?”
I dragged a hand through my hair, trying to find words that didn't make me sound completely pathetic. “It felt like getting hit in the chest. Like I couldn't breathe right. Like I was watching this whole life he built without me and realizing I don't belong anywhere near it.”
“Do you want to belong near it?”
The question caught me off guard. I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it again because I didn't actually know how to explain it. “I don't know. Maybe. But it doesn't matter, does it? I left. I made that choice.”
“You were in crisis,” she said gently. “You were trying to survive. That's different than making a choice.”
“Yeah, well. He doesn't know that. He just knows I disappeared and never came back.”
“Have you thought about reaching out to him? Telling him what happened?”
I laughed, but it came out harsh and broken. “And say what? 'Hey, sorry I ghosted you for thirteen years, but my life was falling apart and I didn't want you to see me like that'? That's gonna go over real well.”
“You're assuming he'd react badly.”
“I'm assuming he moved on. Found better people. People who don't bail when things get hard.”
She was quiet for a moment, just watching me with that steady patience that made it impossible to hide. “How often are you watching his games?”
My jaw tightened. I didn't want to answer, didn't want to admit how obsessive I'd gotten about this. “I don't know. Sometimes.”
“Soren, we've talked about this. I need specifics. Once a month? Once a week?”
“More than that,” I admitted, staring at the floor instead of looking at her. “I watch whenever they're playing. Check the highlights if I miss a game. Follow the sports blogs to see what people are saying about him. Read the comment sections. All of it.”
The silence after that admission felt heavy, and I could feel her processing what I'd just said. When she spoke again, her voice was careful but direct. “That's a lot of time spent on someone you say you've moved on from.”
“I didn't say I moved on.”
“No, you didn't. But you're acting like watching him from a distance is somehow keeping you connected to him. Is that what it feels like?”
I didn't answer right away. Couldn't answer without making it sound worse than it already was. “I just need to know he's okay. That he's doing well. That leaving him was the right thing to do.”
“And has it convinced you? Has watching him be successful made you feel better about your choice to leave?”
“No,” I said, and my voice came out rougher than I meant it to. “It makes me feel worse. Every single time.”
“Then why do you keep doing it?”
“Because I can't stop!” The words came out louder than I intended, and I had to take a breath to get myself under control.
“I've tried. I've deleted the apps, blocked the sports sites, told myself I'm done.
And then I'm lying in bed at two in the morning and I'm pulling up his stats on my phone because I need to know if he played well.
If he got hurt. If he's happy. I can't stop.”
Dr. Lin leaned forward again, and her voice was gentle but firm. “What you're describing isn't just interest. It's compulsion. You're using this to hurt yourself, Soren. You're seeking out pain because on some level, you think you deserve it.”
My throat tightened. “That's not—”
“Isn't it? You're watching the life you think you should've had, the person you think you should've been with, and you're using it to punish yourself for leaving. For surviving.”
I couldn't look at her anymore. Couldn't do anything except stare at the bracelet on my wrist and feel the weight of every word she'd just said settling into my chest like stones.
“When you watch him,” she said quietly, “what do you feel? Not what you think you should feel. What actually comes up for you?”
I had to swallow hard before I could answer.
“Pride. Grief. Longing. Shame. All of it at once, and I can't separate any of it out.
I see him doing well and I'm proud of him, and then I'm grieving what we could've been, and then I'm ashamed that I'm even thinking about it because I gave up any right to feel this way when I left.”
“You didn't give up your right to have feelings, Soren. You're allowed to miss him. You're allowed to grieve what you lost.”
“But I'm not allowed to keep torturing myself with it, right? That's what you're gonna say.”
“I'm going to say that what you're doing isn't helping you heal. It's keeping the wound open. And I'm worried about what that's doing to you.”
The room felt too small suddenly, too quiet except for the sound of my own breathing.
“He was the one good thing I had before everything went to hell,” I said, and the words came out softer than I meant them to.
“The one person who made me feel like I mattered. And I left him standing in a parking lot with no explanation because I was too much of a coward to tell him the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That I was falling apart. That my parents were tearing us all to pieces.
That I didn't know how to keep my siblings safe and keep myself alive at the same time.
That I was so tired I couldn't see straight, and I knew if I stayed, if I let him see how bad it had gotten, he'd try to help. And I couldn't let him do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because he had a future!” The words burst out of me before I could stop them. “He had scouts looking at him, had a real shot at making it, and I wasn't gonna be the reason he gave that up. I wasn't gonna be the anchor that dragged him down with me.”
Dr. Lin was quiet for a long moment, just letting that sit between us. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. “So you left to protect him.”
“Yeah.”
“And now you're punishing yourself for making that choice.”
I didn't answer. Couldn't answer without my voice breaking.
“Soren,” she said gently. “I need to ask you some hard questions, and I need you to be honest with me. Can you do that?”
I nodded, even though I already knew I probably wasn't going to be.
“When you watch these games, when you follow all the updates about him—what are you looking for?”
“I told you. I just need to know he's okay.”
“But you're not just checking once in a while to see if he's doing well. You're seeking it out multiple times a week. You're reading comment sections. You're watching replays of games you've already seen. That's not casual concern. So what are you really looking for?”
I didn't answer right away. Couldn't find words that didn't make me sound completely pathetic. “I don't know.”
“I think you do know. I think you're just not ready to say it out loud yet.”
My jaw tightened. “Maybe I'm looking for proof that I made the right choice. That he's better off without me.”
“And has it given you that proof?”
“No.”
“So what does it give you?”
I dragged a hand through my hair, frustration building in my chest. “I don't know. Pain, I guess. Proof that I fucked up. That I lost the one good thing I had and I can't get it back.”
“And you think you deserve that pain.”
It wasn't a question. It was a statement, and it landed like a punch.
“Maybe I do,” I said quietly.