Epilogue 2 #2
Nobody tells me I’m being too hard on myself. Nobody rushes to explain my childhood or remind me that a trauma response isn’t a deliberate choice. Those things are true, but they don’t change the experience Ryan carried out of my father’s house.
“I don’t know how to love him without making him responsible for whether I feel safe, beautiful, or worthy. That isn’t fair to him. I made his love do work that belonged to me. I expected the way he saw me to overpower the way I saw myself, then panicked every time it couldn’t.”
The admission settles into me.
“I still love him. I don’t know how to stop, and part of me doesn’t want to.
I also know that missing him can’t become another excuse to avoid getting healthy.
I can’t eat because I hope he’ll come back.
I can’t gain weight because I want him to find me beautiful again.
I have to do it because I want to live, even if I leave here and Ryan never speaks to me. ”
My voice collapses around the final words.
“I don’t know how to want that life yet, but I’m trying.”
Silence fills the room. My eyes remain on my empty fingers. I didn’t think I had any tears left, so it surprises me every time more appear.
“I think that’s all I can say.”
“That was a great deal, Charm,” the counselor says gently.
I return to my chair, and Luke hands me the box of tissues. A bandage wraps one of his wrists beneath the sleeve of his sweatshirt. I know enough about treatment now to understand that everyone here carries stories they aren’t required to explain before offering kindness.
“Thank you.”
He nods. Luke lost his little son at a birthday party held at a public pool. He looked away for one moment before alarms sounded and people pulled his child from the water.
Luke can never get his son back.
For one terrible second, shame tells me my grief is pathetic beside his.
Ryan is alive. Somewhere outside this place, he is breathing, recovering, and building a life.
My loss came from decisions, boundaries, and damage people might believe could still be repaired.
Luke’s loss has no door anyone can reopen.
Then I remember what the counselor told us during my first week.
Pain isn’t a competition. Using someone else’s tragedy to invalidate my own is another way of refusing to feel what hurts.
“I’m sorry about your son,” I whisper.
Luke looks toward the floor. “I’m sorry about Ryan.”
The simple kindness breaks something open in me. I press the tissue beneath my eyes while he returns his attention to the group.
“A healthier Charm will be able to process this grief differently,” the counselor says. “You aren’t there yet, but you can get there.”
I nod.
“You’re doing well. You’re putting in the work, even on the days when your illness tells you that recovery is something being done against you. This is the first time you’ve stood and spoken to the group.”
Everyone looks at me again, but I don’t feel as exposed this time.
“The more you let us see,” she continues, “the more we can help you understand what you’re carrying. You don’t have to solve all of it today.”
“It feels like I do.”
“I know. Perfectionism turns healing into another test. It tells you that if you can’t recover correctly and immediately, you’re failing.”
A few people nod.
“Recovery isn’t perfect,” she says. “It’s repetitive. You eat the next meal. You attend the next group. You tell the truth the next time you’re tempted to hide. Eventually, those choices begin to build a life.”
I look at my hands again. They remain unfamiliar without my rings, but they carried me out of the chair. My voice shook, my breathing broke, and I cried in front of eleven people.
I survived being seen.
That has to matter.
The number on the scale still frightens me. I’m 101 pounds, and some part of my mind is already planning how to make it disappear. That voice hasn’t gone silent because I entered treatment or stood in group and admitted I miss Ryan.
I’m learning that recovery doesn’t require the voice to disappear before I stop obeying it.
This will take longer than I want. I’ll have to eat hundreds of meals while my mind insists I’ve done something wrong.
I’ll have to sit through panic attacks without running to my parents, Ryan, or the habits that once gave me the illusion of control.
I’ll have to learn who I am without my father’s approval, my mother’s scrutiny, or Ryan’s love reflecting something beautiful back at me.
I’m going to do it.
Maybe one day, I’ll see him again and hearing his name won’t feel like a knife entering my chest. I’ll be able to say hello without begging him to remember the woman he loved or forgive the one who failed him.
Maybe he’ll say hello back.
The loss might become a scar instead of an open wound. We could stand inside the same room without hatred, punishment, or fear deciding which one of us leaves first.
I don’t let myself imagine anything beyond that.
Hope can become another cage if I build my recovery around it. Ryan cannot be the reward for becoming healthy, and I cannot keep treating his love as proof that I deserve to exist.
Still, somewhere beneath everything I’m learning to release, I love him.
I can love him from here without asking him to save me. I can miss him without making grief an excuse to disappear. I can carry what we were while learning how to become someone who no longer hides every imperfect part of herself.
Maybe one day, I’ll see Ryan again.
Maybe it won’t kill either of us.
Who knows?
Maybe one day.
Ryan and Charm’s Story Continues in
FACEOFF
Book Two of the Power Play Duet
They survived the breakup. Now they have to face what remains.
Turn the page for a sneak peek.