20. Zoey #2
A small ache settled in my chest before I could stop it.
The flowers and chocolate were sitting on my kitchen counter, and a note rested between the stems.
I didn’t open it.
The chair sat quietly behind me at the desk, ready to use.
After a minute, I pulled out my phone and typed a message.
Hi, Dr. Ellie. Are you available Monday for an emergency session?
I hit send.
Something told me I was going to need the session.
Markie shuffled across the back of the couch and looked at me. “BAD DOG.”
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you for your continued commentary.”
“INTRUDER.”
“That situation has resolved.” I rubbed my face. The apartment felt too full and too empty at the same time.
The flowers made it feel that way. The chair made it worse. The quiet had a weight to it that I didn’t want to sit with any longer tonight.
I grabbed a travel mug from the cabinet and poured a generous amount of wine into it. Then I added a little more.
The moon was visible through the kitchen window, and the sidewalks around my building were quiet. The neighborhood had wide streets and tall trees, and the kind of calm that made a late walk feel reasonable even after a long day.
My ankle had been feeling better too.
Movement seemed like a good idea.
Fresh night air was even better.
I put on my tennis shoes and took my time tying them, deciding now would be a good time for some deep breaths. It was surprisingly effective.
Grabbing my jacket, I headed to the door. My phone started ringing before I reached it. I looked down at the screen.
Mom.
Of course. The fucking cherry on top of this fan-fucking-tastic day.
I leaned my head briefly against the door as I answered. “Hi, Mom.”
“Zoey!” she said brightly. The enthusiasm alone told me this conversation was going to require patience.
“Yes?”
“I left my debit card at the bar.”
I closed my eyes. “You what?”
“I think I left it there earlier tonight.”
“You think?”
“I was wondering if you could check my bank account for me and make sure nobody has used it.”
I stared at the wall. “Mom.”
“Yes?”
“You need to call the bank and have them cut off the card.”
“Well, I know that.”
“Then do that.”
“But I think it’s probably safe,” she said quickly. “It’s a small bar and the bartender knows me.”
“That’s not a security policy.”
“I just don’t have it right now,” she continued. “I thought maybe you could log into my account and see if there are any charges.”
I rubbed my forehead slowly. “Mom.”
“Yes.”
“It has taken you more time and more data to call me and ask me to do this than it would have taken for you to just open your banking app.”
She paused.
“Well, I just wanted to check in with my daughter. Is that so bad?”
That sentence had a tone to it—a slightly wounded tone.
It was familiar to me. It was the tone that took a practical problem and slid it, with disturbing efficiency, into a referendum on whether I loved her enough.
“You’re also better at that stuff anyway,” she added.
There it was.
I closed my eyes again.
Dr. Ellie’s voice appeared in the back of my mind.
Notice the pattern. Decide whether you want to participate in it.
The problem was that I could notice the pattern perfectly and still feel my body moving toward it like it had grooves carved in place.
My shoulders had already tightened. My stomach had already dropped.
Somewhere deep and old inside me, a very young version of myself had apparently sat up straight and said, Right. Emergency. We’re doing this.
My first instinct was to say no. My second instinct was to fix the problem.
The first instinct felt adult. The second felt automatic, one I’d been conditioned into.
The second instinct won.
“Fine,” I said. “Tell me your login.”
“Oh good!” Relief moved into her tone so fast it almost made me laugh. Not because it was funny, but because it was so predictable. Tension handed off. Problem transferred. System functioning exactly as designed.
Five minutes later, I had confirmed that no one had used her card.
Another three minutes after that, she located it in her purse.
“See,” she said cheerfully. “Everything worked out. You’re so good at these things.”
The compliment landed exactly where it always had, in the place where praise and resentment shared a wall.
I had been hearing versions of that sentence for years.
You’re so good at these things. You’re the strong one.
Thank God one of us is organized. All of it sounding generous.
All of it quietly fastening the responsibility back onto me.
We said goodbye.
I ended the call and stared at the phone. It buzzed with a text.
Mom: I miss when it was just us.
Mom: We used to be so close.
Mom: I don’t know why you don’t want that anymore.
My throat constricted. It was painful to be consistently hurt by someone who was supposed to protect you.
My chest felt hot with anger and something worse under it. Grief, probably. Or guilt. They wore each other’s clothes often enough that I couldn’t always separate them.
My thumb hovered over the screen. I didn’t know what counted as a reasonable amount of anger anymore.
I didn’t know what part of this reaction belonged to the present, and what part was my body running old code.
Dr. Ellie would probably have had a calm, regulated, and deeply irritating perspective on that.
Something about noticing the younger part of me that still heard messages like this as a summons.
Something about choosing not to let her run the whole system.
What I knew was simpler. I felt eight years old and forty at the same time. I felt mean. I felt manipulated. I felt sad enough to resent it.
I typed, deleted, typed something else, deleted that too. Every possible response had a trapdoor. Too warm, and I’d be back in it. Too cold, and I’d be cast as hard and withholding, and somehow I’d still end up doing emotional cleanup for both of us.
In the end, I locked my phone and tossed it onto the couch.
The silence in my apartment settled around me. My pulse was still too high. My whole body had that strained, over-alert feeling I was starting to recognize as old information wearing a current outfit. But this wasn’t old information. Not really. This was my same old story.
The point Dr. Ellie was hoping to make with me was that I could choose not to live there anymore. I could change the story.
I hadn’t even been in the room with my mother, and I’d still felt thirteen.
A long exhale left my chest before I could stop it.
Why? Why was it so hard for me to say no to her? Why did I always end up solving the problem anyway, and then just bitching to myself about it?
I picked up the travel mug and took a long drink.
This had been an exhausting day.
An hour’s drive.
Socializing.
A call from the police.
An emotional confrontation.
And now this.
The worst part was the uncomfortable thought that followed: Liam had also created a problem tonight, but he had handled it very differently. He had owned the mistake immediately. He’d managed it himself. He hadn’t tried to convince me to solve it for him. He hadn’t pushed or asked for reassurance.
He had simply accepted the boundary and left.
That difference sat quietly in the back of my mind. Unfortunately, I still needed to be mad about the situation. My brain was not prepared to process anything else tonight.
I opened the door.
“BAD DOG,” Markie said.
“Yes,” I muttered. “Everyone has been a bad dog today.”
The night felt different the moment I stepped outside.
Cooler. Quieter.
The street stretched out in both directions under the pale glow of the streetlights. Trees lined the sidewalk, and the moon sat high above the rooftops, bright enough to turn the sidewalk silver.
I stood there, letting the night settle around me.
The fresh air helped immediately. My lungs expanded fully for the first time since I had rushed into the lobby earlier. The tension in my shoulders eased slightly as I took a slow breath and rolled my ankle gently to test it.
Still sore, but functional. Good enough for a walk. Of course, the heels I’d worn today hadn’t helped anything.
I took another drink of wine and started down the sidewalk.
The quiet helped. Walking helped even more. My mind began sorting through the wreckage of the evening, while my body focused on something simple and repetitive.
One step, then another.
That was when I saw the truck. Liam’s truck. It was parked halfway down the street.
I slowed as my brain processed the information. Then irritation surged back immediately.
What the fuck? He hadn’t left?
I looked up and down the street.
No Liam. No movement. Just the truck.
I kept walking toward it slowly, scanning the sidewalks and the tree line.
No sign of him.
I reached the truck, putting my hands on my hips as I glared at it. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I turned in a slow circle, searching the shadows between the houses.
“Liam!”
Nothing.
“Liam!”
Still nothing.
I took another drink from the travel mug and shook my head. “This is absurd.”
I started walking again, circling the block slowly while keeping an eye on the yards and driveways around me.
Movement caught my attention near the tree line across the street as a wolf stepped out from the shadows.
My brain took half a second to react before the rest of me caught up. “Jesus Christ.”
The large, gray wolf stopped when it saw me, its ears flattening against its head.
“Seriously?” I asked.
One second there was a wolf; the next Liam was standing between the trees. He ran a hand through his hair and walked toward me.
I folded my arms. “What are you doing?”
He stopped a few feet away.
I gestured toward the truck. “You were supposed to leave.”
“I will.”
“Then why are you still here?”
He hesitated slightly before answering. “I always do a perimeter run before leaving. Plus, I needed some fresh air before driving home.”
I blinked. “A what?”
“A perimeter run. To check for any danger.”
My patience evaporated. “Fuck, Liam. I’m not in any danger.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you patrolling my neighborhood like a personal security guard?”
He met my gaze. “It’s a ritual that makes me feel safe. Like I’m in control. It makes me feel like I can prevent something bad if I only run a few laps.”
That answer made me pause.
He continued carefully. “I know it sounds unreasonable.”
“It does.”
“But I can’t leave without checking.”
I rubbed my forehead again.
This conversation had officially moved beyond my current emotional processing capacity.
“Liam, you cannot spend hours roaming around my home.”
“I understand.”
“You cannot build furniture in my apartment without my permission.”
“Okay.”
“You cannot conduct patrols around my neighborhood.”
“You’re right.”
“You cannot break into my apartment because of potential thievery.”
“I know.”
I pointed at the truck. “You need to go home.”
He nodded slowly.
“And if you ever want to come here again,” I continued, “you need to be invited or you need to call ahead.”
“Okay.”
“No more surprise patrols.”
A nod. I studied him. He looked calmer now than he had in the lobby, but the exhaustion around his eyes remained.
“Are you safe to drive?” I asked.
“Yes.” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
I raised a hand. “Please don’t.”
He stopped speaking immediately.
“I have had a really bad night,” I said.
“I understand.”
Something shifted in his expression. A quiet calculation. He closed his eyes briefly and took several slow breaths. “I’m good to go home.”
The words were calm, measured.
My heart broke a little.
“Okay.”
He turned and walked toward the truck.
I stood there, watching him go.
And I hated myself just a little.