Chapter 3
IVY
Iwake up with my heart already racing.
I lie there for a second, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember what it feels like to wake up normally. Like a person. Like someone who isn’t bracing for impact before she’s even opened her eyes.
At least I could have had a nightmare, or maybe even a nice dream. Either would be preferable to this shapeless morning dread. But waking in a panic is just status quo at this point.
My Apple Watch buzzes against my wrist. I turn the alarm off and immediately feel it—that heavy, familiar exhaustion that sits behind my eyes and drags through my body.
I used to be functional—the kind of person who could juggle a job, a social life, deadlines, workouts… all of it. I used to answer texts. Show up to things. Remember things.
Now I can handle one thing a day. One task. One plan. One obligation. Anything more than that and it feels like I’m trying to climb a mountain with no oxygen.
They call it brain fog. Trauma brain. Nervous system dysregulation—I’ve googled it so many times the words don’t even feel real anymore.
All I know is that my thoughts don’t stick. They slide away before I can hold onto them. I forget everything. Miss things. Let things slip.
Then I sit there afterward, staring at my calendar like it’s evidence against me, and tear myself apart for it.
What is wrong with you?
How do you forget things you care about?
How are you this… useless?
It’s like my brain cloned him and stuck him inside my head. Even when he’s gone, he’s still there. Sometimes worse. A perpetual voice in my head. You’re so dramatic. That’s not how it happened. You’re remembering it wrong.
I push myself up and swing my legs over the side of the bed.
The room is small. Temporary. The kind of place you stay when your life has blown up and you’re pretending it’s just a short stop.
I go into the bathroom and turn on the shower. The temperature is wrong no matter what I do with it. Too hot, then too cold. I stand under it anyway, letting the water hit my shoulders.
I start washing my hair. And then my stomach drops.
Hair. Too much.
Not normal shedding. Clumps.
They slide through my fingers and collect in my hand, wet and heavy, like something being pulled out of me.
I just stand there, staring at the drain. My mind goes to Baywatch. An episode I watched as a child, where someone was sick and her hair started falling out in the shower. I remember thinking back then that illness was something that lived inside you and slowly dismantled you.
Now I’m standing here, holding my own hair in my hand, and the thought hits fast and irrational. What if something’s wrong with me? What if I’m actually sick and I just… haven’t realized it yet?
I swallow hard and force myself to breathe. Stress can do this. Trauma can do this. I know that. But knowing doesn’t stop my hands from shaking.
When I get out, I wrap myself in a towel and sit on the edge of the bed with my laptop open, dripping water everywhere like I don’t even care.
I type it in.
Hair falling out in clumps after stress.
The results come back instantly.
Telogen effluvium.
Hair loss triggered by severe stress.
Symptoms appear two to three months after the triggering event. Two to three months. Of course. Of course my body waited until I was technically safe to start falling apart.
I close the laptop and stare at the wall.
My brain keeps telling me I’m fine. That I’m overreacting. That I should be grateful I got out. That I’m safe now. But my body doesn’t agree. My body remembers everything.
I get dressed slowly. Bike shorts. Tank top.
The same thing I’ve been wearing on repeat.
Like if I keep it simple enough, no one will expect anything from me.
If it wasn’t so humid, as much as I used to hate sleeves and leg prisons, I’d hide in sweatpants and a hoodie.
But I already feel suffocated enough as it is.
I don’t go downstairs. I can hear him moving around in the kitchen. Cabinets. A mug. The espresso machine. He’s up. Which means I’ll stay here.
Because if I go down there, there’s a chance he’ll look at me like I’m in the way. Or worse—like I’m invisible.
And if he’s in one of his moods, he’ll start asking questions. Where are you going? What are you doing today? Who are you talking to? Like I owe him an explanation for existing. I hate it.
I hate the way I move through this apartment like I don’t belong here.
I hate that I’m grateful and resentful at the same time.
I hate most of all that I can’t tell where one ends and the other starts.