Prologue #2
He’d been in my corner once. Not loudly, never that…but enough to make me believe I wasn’t so bad. Now I could see the truth in the way he kept staring forward.
I was on my own.
My mom shoved the door open with her shoulder, the hinges groaning in protest. The sound made me flinch.
Inside, the faint smell of lemon cleaner clung to everything, unsullied and artificial, the way my mother liked it. She scrubbed the house until it gleamed, as if perfection could keep the cracks from showing. Lemon meant order. Lemon meant control.
It was obvious she had her own problem with obsession, though hers was the kind that got praised. Her addiction was perfection…and perfection never hurt anyone. Not the way mine did.
It burned the back of my throat.
I’d never smelled like lemon, no matter how many times she told me to clean up, straighten up, be better. I always carried something else on my skin: want, worry, the kind of wrongness she couldn’t wipe away.
The smell made my stomach twist until I thought I might throw up.
She dropped her purse onto the table with a sharp thud and spun on her heel so fast I almost collided with her.
Her eyes found me, dark and gleaming with fury, and I knew the real punishment hadn’t even started yet.
“You need more structure,” she snapped, her finger pointed like a weapon. “That’s what the therapist said, right? Well, I can tell you it’s not going to be at your school. I’m done letting you drag this family down with you.”
I didn’t respond. I just stood there with my backpack still slung over one shoulder since I’d carried it straight from school to the therapist’s office. The strap dug into my skin, and I felt small and stupid and sick all over again.
“You embarrassed us,” she hissed, her lips twisting into a snarl. “You embarrassed yourself. You’re lucky his parents didn’t file a restraining order.”
The term restraining order made something shift in my chest.
Something I didn’t have a name for. Something rotten and soft, collapsing under its own weight.
The hoodie.
That was what had started today. The reason we’d been called in, the reason for the emergency appointment, the reason everyone looked at me like I was something that needed fixing.
I hadn’t meant for it to be a big deal. It had just been his hoodie, soft and warm, still smelling like him.
But then Laura had noticed it. And she’d told.
And suddenly it wasn’t comfort anymore…it was evidence.
My mother shook her head like she couldn’t even look at me anymore, then turned and walked away without waiting for a response.
I went upstairs like I always did, one foot in front of the other, wooden and numb and not knowing what else to do.
The afternoon light cut across the floorboards in neat, perfect lines, the kind my mother would’ve approved of.
The edges of my mirror were taped with magazine clippings and sticky notes that didn’t make sense anymore.
I shut the door quietly. Then locked it.
I dug through the bottom drawer of my desk, behind my old sticker books and bent-up gel pens, until I found the letter. The one I’d written to him and never sent. Pages of things I’d never say out loud: apologies, promises, and confessions I’d rewritten until the ink bled through.
It was attached to the picture I’d printed, the one where he was laughing in the sun.
I stared at it for a long time.
Then I tried to tear it.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t even crease it.
My hands shook as I held the edges, but every time I tried to rip it, something in me screamed. Something childish. Possessive. Broken.
I dropped it on the floor and then curled into myself on the bed.
The sob caught in my throat before I even knew it was coming. And then I was crying like a little kid, fists curled in my comforter, nose running, chest heaving—that kind of crying that doesn’t have a shape or a reason or a place to go.
I didn’t know how long I lay there.
But eventually the crying turned to silence.
To stillness.
To that familiar emptiness that always came after. The kind that whispered awful things in a soft, sweet voice.
You’re pathetic. You’re disgusting. You’ll always be too much. Too intense. Too clingy. Too broken.
No one will ever love you back.
I sat up slowly and then got up and walked back to my desk.
The third drawer down, buried beneath a few books and my iPhone cord, held a safety pin I’d kept for emergencies. I couldn’t even remember why anymore…maybe for a Halloween costume that never happened.
I took it out and unclipped it, turning the metal between my fingers until the point caught the light. Then I pressed it into the soft skin just below my waistband, where no one would ever see.
It wasn’t deep. Just enough to sting. Just enough to remind myself that I could still feel something that wasn’t shame.
For a second, the ache in my chest quieted. Not for long, but long enough to trick me into thinking I was okay.
The door slammed open somehow, even though I’d locked it, the handle hitting the wall like she expected to catch me doing something. I was just lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, but I flinched anyway.
My mom stood in the doorway, arms crossed, car keys dangling in her hand. Her eyes swept the room, taking everything in like it was evidence.
“Get up. We’re leaving,” she said.
I blinked at her, pushing myself up on my elbows. “Where?”
My voice came out rough, torn up from tears that wouldn’t stop. My brain was still scrambled from the last hour I’d spent crying.
She didn’t answer right away. Her stare was pure disgust, like she couldn’t believe she had to explain it.
“It’s the place Dr. Whitaker mentioned as we were leaving,” she finally said, her tone clipped, like this was logistics instead of my life. “When I told her we needed more…options than what she’d suggested. You knew this was a possibility.”
I shook my head fiercely. “No,” I whispered. “I didn’t.”
“You did,” she snapped. “You sat in that office and nodded like you understood.”
I hadn’t understood.
I’d nodded to make the conversation end after they’d brought me into the room and made me feel like a monster. I’d nodded because no one had asked how it felt to be talked about like a diagnosis instead of a daughter.
“You’re sending me away?”
The words scraped out of my throat before I could stop them. My chest felt tight, like all the air had been sucked out of the room.
She didn’t answer right away, just looked past me, her jaw set, her eyes shiny but dry.
“I want to stay here,” I blurted, panic clawing its way up my ribs. “I’ll be better. I swear, I’ll—” My voice cracked. The rest got lost somewhere between breath and pleading.
I wasn’t sure what away meant yet, but every part of me knew it was bad. Bad in a way that changed you.
“It’s not forever,” she said, cutting me off as she turned away. “Just a few weeks. A reset.”
A reset.
Like I was a busted machine. Like if they unplugged me long enough, I’d come back better. Easier.
“Let’s go,” she said over her shoulder. “You can bring a sweatshirt and your toothbrush. That’s it.”
Then she walked out. No hug or last look.
Just the sound of her boots hitting the stairs, one after the other. Measured, final, like punctuation at the end of something I didn’t know was over.
I wanted her to turn back. To touch my hair. To tell me it wasn’t as bad as it felt. One small gesture, something warm to hold onto before everything changed.
But of course she didn’t.
It took me a second to drag myself off the bed because I was busy staring at the floor like maybe it would open up and swallow me whole.
Maybe that would’ve been easier.
Eventually, I stood and grabbed the photo from beneath the covers where I’d hid it.
The one of Nico.
Still perfect. Still smiling like he didn’t know he’d ruined me.
I held it for a second, then tucked it into the inside pocket of my hoodie.
Pressed it close.
If they were going to lock me up, I’d take him with me.
Even if I was the only one who ever believed it was love.