Chapter 14
I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath until the door to Dr. Scott’s office closed behind me.
Her space smelled like sandalwood and peace, that rich, earthy warmth that clung to the air like a hug from somebody’s favorite auntie.
There were books everywhere, floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with Black authors, mental health journals, and poetry anthologies.
She had a quote painted across one wall in bold golden script: You can’t heal what you won’t reveal.
Dr. Scott stood when I walked in, a regal Black woman with rich, brown skin, waist-length sisterlocs pulled into a bun, and eyes that looked like they’d seen generations. She didn’t smile like a therapist; she smiled like kin.
“Jonay Jacobson,” she greeted, offering a hand before gently wrapping me in a hug. “You have been carrying too much for too long. We are going to dive into that, baby.”
Damn. I wanted to sob right then.
We sat down. I curled up on the burnt-orange loveseat like a child in timeout. My hands wouldn’t stay still. My voice was somewhere stuck between my throat and my trauma.
Dr. Scott didn’t rush. She didn’t prod. She poured.
“What you survived was not your fault. Let me say that again. What he did to you isn’t a reflection of your worth. And the guilt you feel about surviving? About still being soft in a world that tried to harden you? That’s grief masquerading as shame.”
I sat there, stunned.
She handed me a small stone from the tray on her desk. “Smooth that over in your palm every time a lie tries to rise up. This is your grounding rock. You get to take it with you.”
I rolled the cool stone between my fingers and whispered, “Thank you.”
“This first session isn’t about fixing everything. It’s about telling your truth out loud. When you’re ready, we will go deeper. But today, I just want you to name what hurts.”
The floodgates opened.
I told her about Kam. About the betrayal. The mental exhaustion. The way my body still flinched when shadows moved too fast. The guilt that gnawed at me for involving Elias and EJ in my chaos. And that quiet little voice inside me that whispered I didn’t deserve this kind of love.
She let me cry. Let me rage. Let me pause.
And when I was quiet, she leaned forward and said, “Your softness is not a liability, Jonay. It’s your superpower. And we’re going to sharpen that softness into a sword.”
When it was time for my second session, I walked in lighter. Not healed. Not whole. But lighter.
Last time, I went in dragging chains. This time, I walked slower, heavier but more intentionally, like the load was still there, but I’d decided not to let it bury me alive.
Her space was unchanged: sandalwood in the air, golden goddess steady on the wall, books stacked like testimonies. But I was different.
She handed me a mug of chamomile tea and nodded to the stack of affirmation cards. “Pull one before we start.”
I shuffled and picked one at random. The words broke me open all over again. I release what does not belong to me.
It felt like the universe was clowning me.
“This one.” I choked. “It feels like it’s mocking me.”
“No, baby,” Dr. Scott said. “That’s not mockery. That’s clarity. The things you’re carrying—his demons, your cousin’s betrayal, the weight of his downfall—those don’t belong to you.”
The tears fell fast.
“I stayed with him for two years,” I whispered.
“Two whole years, and I had no idea what demons Kam was fighting. What kind of woman doesn’t see the signs?
What kind of person puts her own jealous-ass cousin in his path?
She was gasoline, and I handed her the match.
He went from damaged to destructive, and I feel complicit.
And I still… I still pray for his peace. ”
Dr. Scott shook her head. “You loved who he pretended to be. Don’t punish yourself for not being able to see through the mask.”
I gripped the stone from last time like it was keeping me tethered.
“And Elias,” I whispered. His name felt heavy in my chest. “He’s so good.
Too good. He protects me, loves me, shows up for EJ like it’s easy.
He looks at me like I’m the best thing he’s ever touched.
And all I can think is, what if he’s wrong?
What if loving me ruins him? What if my trauma is a target on his back? ”
My hands shook. “Sometimes I want to push him away. Not because I don’t want him. God, I do. But because loving me feels dangerous. Like my damage is contagious.”
Dr. Scott’s gaze sharpened. “You don’t get to play God, Jonay. You don’t get to decide who is allowed to love you or how much of you they can handle. That man is not loving you by accident. He is loving you on purpose.”
Her words cracked something inside me.
“But why me?” I sobbed. “Why would anybody choose this? A woman who second-guesses herself every five minutes, who jumps at shadows, who cries in bathrooms so her man won’t see?”
Dr. Scott leaned forward, her voice cutting like the truth did. “Because you’re not giving him enough credit. Elias doesn’t want perfect. He wants you. The bruised and the brave. The broken and the beautiful. The woman who thinks she’s too much but is exactly enough.”
I stared at her, stone hot in my hand, throat raw with disbelief.
“Say it,” she said.
“I… I am enough.”
“Again.”
“I am enough.”
“Again.”
This time, I said it louder, the words trembling but defiant. “I. Am. Enough.”
Something shifted in me. Not healed. Not whole. But fighting.
Dr. Scott passed me another card. I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.
And for the first time, I thought maybe I could believe it.
By the third session, I thought I was armored up. Sunshine bear propped in EJ’s room. Elias’s hoodie smelled like safety on my shoulders. My grounding stone was tucked deep in my purse.
But grief was a sneaky bastard.
I sat down, and silence pressed against me like a too-tight seat belt. I stared at the quote on the wall. You can’t heal what you won’t reveal. My throat burned.
Dr. Scott watched me carefully. “There’s something you’re still carrying. Let’s talk about it.”
My jaw locked. My voice was small. “My cousin. Taleah.”
Her name was poison and memory at once.
“She’s gone,” I said, words tumbling like rocks.
“Dead. And I don’t feel anything. Not grief.
Not rage. Just… nothing. And that makes me feel like shit because we grew up together.
She was my first playmate, my first secret-keeper.
But she spent her whole life competing with me in secret.
Always trying to one-up me. And when Kam chose me, she found her chance and took it.
That’s who she was. And now she’s gone, and I’m numb.
What kind of person doesn’t cry when their own blood dies? ”
Tears finally welled, guilty and hot.
Dr. Scott’s voice was gentle but unshaken. “You are grieving, Jonay. You’re grieving the little girl you loved, not the woman she became. Those are two different people.”
I shook my head, trembling. “But it feels like relief. And that makes me sick. The way she died—messy, violent, tragic—it feels like she was racing toward it. And a part of me thinks she wrote her own ending. And that thought makes me cold.”
“No,” Dr. Scott said, firm now. “It makes you honest. You don’t owe her a performance of grief. You can love the child she was and be honest about the woman she became. Both truths can exist.”
The words gutted me.
“I prayed for Kam’s peace,” I whispered, “but with Taleah,… I don’t even know what to pray. I loved her once. But she thrived on my pain. Even in death, she feels like she won because now I’m the one carrying guilt.”
Dr. Scott’s eyes softened. “Stop grading your grief. Numbness, anger, and tears are all valid. Grief is not one-size-fits-all. And Taleah’s choices are not your burden to carry.”
I broke then, sobbing ugly, clutching the stone so hard it bit into my palm.
“I don’t even know which version of her I miss,” I confessed. “The cousin I played double-dutch with? Or the woman who laughed when Kam betrayed me? I don’t know which version of me she’d haunt, if she could.”
Dr. Scott reached across and held my hand. “Then let her rest. Don’t let her ghost live in you. You don’t owe her pain. You owe yourself peace.”
Something inside me loosened. For the first time since Taleah died, I let myself breathe without shame.
Maybe healing wasn’t about crying the right way for the dead. Maybe it was about choosing to live for the living.
By the time I left that third session, I wasn’t healed. I wasn’t whole. But I wasn’t shackled either.
I had my grounding stone. My affirmation cards. My voice cracking but trying. My heart bruised but still beating.
And for the first time in a long time, I believed what Dr. Scott said. I wasn’t broken beyond repair.
I was enough.
And I was choosing me.