Chapter 54
Ethan
Dr. Nora Alvarez’s office smells faintly of citrus and old books. The light this afternoon is soft, filtered through linen curtains that move slightly with the hum of the building’s old ventilation system.
I sit on the couch I’ve started thinking of as mine, hands clasped, one ankle hooked over the other. My knee still bounces, but less than it used to.
“That’s new,” Dr. Alvarez says, noticing anyway.
“What?”
“The stillness,” she replies. “You’re not very anxious today.”
I huff a laugh. “Give it time.”
She smiles, small and knowing, and crosses one long leg over the other.
She’s tall, elegant in an effortless way, olive skin warm against the neutral tones of the room.
Her dark curls are pulled back loosely today, a few escaping to frame her face, and her brown eyes, sharp and expressive, stay on me.
“So,” she says, pen poised over her notebook. “How was your week?”
I stare at the rug for a moment, tracing the geometric pattern with my eyes. “Better.”
“Better is good,” she says. “And why is that, you think.”
“I haven’t had the nightmares,” I admit. “Not like before.”
Her pen pauses. “About Matt?”
I nod. “No dreams where he’s yelling at me. No waking up thinking I can hear him asking why I wasn’t there.”
She lets that land. “That’s a significant shift.”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I know.”
Silence stretches.
“I still think about him,” I add. “About Jenny too. Claire and I were talking about her the other night.”
Her eyebrows lift slightly. “You were together?”
I nod again. “On the porch. Just… talking.”
I hesitate, then exhale hard and scrub a hand through my hair, down my face. “And she said something that messed me up.”
Dr. Alvarez sets her pen down. “What did she say?”
“That I wasn’t just the worst part of her life,” I say, frustration creeping into my voice. “That I was also part of the good. The happiness.”
My hand drags down my face again, like I can physically wipe the words away. “How could she say that? I’m not even good enough to be the dirt under her shoes. And she’s sitting there telling me I mattered in a good way.”
My chest tightens as I speak, the familiar pressure blooming under my ribs.
“I destroyed us,” I say. “I don’t get to be part of anything good.”
Dr. Alvarez watches me carefully, head tilted just slightly. “That belief,” she says gently, “is one you’ve been living inside for a very long time.”
“Because it’s true.”
“Is it?” she challenges. “Or is it convenient?”
I look up. “Convenient?”
“Yes,” she says calmly. “If you’re irredeemable, you don’t have to risk wanting anything. You don’t have to risk hope.”
I open my mouth, then close it again.
She leans forward a little. “You’ve punished yourself long enough, Ethan.”
I let out a breath. “You make it sound like a choice.”
“It is,” she says. “Not an easy one. But a choice all the same.”
I sink back into the couch, staring at the ceiling. My mind betrays me instantly, filling with an image I didn’t invite.
Claire on the porch.
The way the light caught in her hair, honey-blonde and loose from a long day, strands escaping her braid like they always do. The soft curve of her mouth when she smiled, the way her green eyes went bright.
My chest aches with it.
“I still want things,” I admit before I can stop myself.
Dr. Alvarez’s gaze sharpens. “What things?”
I swallow. The word everything lodges in my throat.
“A family,” I say instead, the confession quiet but seismic. “A real one. Not the idea of it. The work of it. Lily. Claire—if she ever… if she ever forgives me.”
Saying her name out loud like that feels dangerous.
Dr. Alvarez doesn’t interrupt.
“I want to wake up and make breakfast for someone,” I continue, voice rough. “Pack lunches. Argue about stupid stuff like whose turn it is to do bedtime. I want a house that feels lived in. Loud. Messy. I want to be there.”
My hands curl into fists. “And I hate myself for wanting it. Because wanting it feels cheap. Like pretending I didn’t already ruin my chance.”
“You wanting a family,” she says carefully, “does not erase what you did.”
“I know.”
“But denying yourself happiness doesn’t atone for it either.”
I breathe out slowly, my pulse loud in my ears.
“You’ve been living as if the worst thing you’ve ever done is the only thing that defines you,” she continues. “Claire’s comment challenged that narrative. That’s why it feels destabilizing.”
“It feels wrong,” I say.
“It feels unfamiliar,” she corrects.
I look down at my hands. “I don’t know how to want something without feeling like I’m betraying the past.”
“That’s because there’s something you’re still avoiding,” she says gently. “Something you’ve never allowed yourself to fully confront.”
My jaw tightens instinctively.
She notices. Of course she does.
“There’s a day,” she says, choosing her words with care, “that you circle around every session. You reference everything before it and everything after it, but never that day itself.”
I know exactly what she means.
The room feels smaller, and I just want to claw at my rapidly closing throat.
“I want you to write about it,” she says. “Just for you. You don’t have to show anyone. You don’t even have to bring it here if you don’t want to.”
I shake my head slowly. “I don’t think I can.”
“You can,” she says softly. “And you should. Because you’ve spent years avoiding it, and avoidance can never lead to healing.”
My throat burns.
“That day,” she continues, “is where you’ve buried most of your shame. Until you face it, it will keep deciding things for you, what you’re allowed to want, what you think you deserve.”
I stare at the floor, images threatening to surface if I let them.
My chest tightens painfully.
“I don’t deserve her,” I whisper.
“No,” Dr. Alvarez agrees. “You don’t get to decide that.”
I flinch.
Silence stretches between us.
“I want you to keep a journal,” she says. “Write about what you want. And write about that day. Not to punish yourself, but to understand it. To stop letting it define you.”
I nod slowly.
As I stand to leave a few minutes later, my body feels strangely lighter and unbearably exposed at the same time.
Outside, the late afternoon sun warms my face. I pull my jacket tighter and start walking, Dr. Alvarez’s words echoing in my head.
Allow yourself to want.
Claire’s smile flashes through my mind again.
For the first time, instead of shoving the feeling down, I let it sit there.
Longing. Hope. Fear.
And the terrifying, fragile possibility that wanting something doesn’t make me evil.
It just makes me human.