Chapter 3 #3
Dr. Lin was quiet for a moment, just watching me with that steady, patient look. “What would happen if you did stop? If you actually let yourself move forward instead of staying stuck in this pattern?”
“I don't know.”
“You do know. That's why you can't stop. So tell me—what scares you about moving on?”
The question hit harder than I expected.
I stared at the floor, at the pattern in the rug I'd traced a hundred times before.
“If I stop watching, if I stop checking on him, then it's really over.
Then I have to accept that he's not part of my life anymore.
That I don't get to know how he's doing or if he's happy or if he ever thinks about me.”
“And that feels like losing him all over again.”
“Yeah.”
“But Soren, you already lost him. What you're doing now isn't keeping him in your life. It's just keeping the wound open.”
I couldn't argue with that. Didn't even try.
“Let me ask you another question,” she said, leaning forward slightly.
“When was the last time you did anything just because it made you happy? Not because your siblings needed you to, not because the band depended on you, not to numb out or distract yourself. When did you last do anything for yourself?”
I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it again because I genuinely couldn't think of anything.
“That's what I thought,” she said gently. “You're running on empty, Soren. You've been running on empty for a long time. And now you're using alcohol and compulsive behaviors and sleep deprivation to keep yourself too busy to notice how bad it's gotten.”
“I'm fine.”
“You're not fine. You just told me you're barely sleeping, you're not eating, you're drinking too much, and you're spending hours watching footage of someone you lost thirteen years ago because you can't let yourself grieve properly. That's not fine. That's survival mode.”
“Yeah, well. I've been in survival mode for years. I'm good at it.”
“Being good at survival doesn't mean you should have to keep doing it forever.”
I didn't have an answer for that.
“What are you afraid will happen if you let yourself feel all of this?” she asked. “If you stop numbing out and just sit with the grief and the longing and the shame you're carrying?”
“I'm afraid I won't be able to get back up,” I said, and my voice came out rougher than I meant it to. “I'm afraid if I let myself feel all of it, I'll fall apart, and I can't afford to fall apart. Too many people need me to keep it together.”
“Your siblings.”
“Yeah.”
“The band.”
“Yeah.”
“Who else?”
“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 holding it 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 holding everything 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.
The silence was worse now. Louder, if that made any sense. Full of all the things I hadn't said.
I pulled out my phone, opened the browser, and stared at the search bar for a long time.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard, ready to type in the same search I'd done a hundred times before.
“Rook Wolves highlights.” But Dr. Lin's voice was still in my head, asking me to try.
Just for a week. Just to see if I could.
I closed the browser. Put the phone face down on the coffee table. Turned on the TV to fill the silence, but I couldn't focus on what was playing. Couldn't focus on anything except the ache in my chest and the weight of all the things I'd never said.
I was still sitting there when the sun came up, staring at the wall and wondering how long I could keep this up before I finally broke.