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The knife moves like she’s auditioning for a cooking show called Therapists Who Slice Precisely to Avoid Conflict .

“Still using the Santoku,” I say, dropping my keys into the bowl by the door.

She doesn’t look up. “Still showing up unannounced?”

“I didn’t want to schedule vulnerability.”

My mom snorts—just barely—and turns to rinse the cutting board. “Very brave. Or very stupid.”

“Both,” I say, pulling out a chair.

She doesn’t ask what’s wrong. She never asks questions she already knows the answer to. Instead, she puts the kettle on. Chamomile. Code for emotional triage.

“Tea?” she asks. “Or something that helps with dissociation?”

“Got anything that pairs with ego death?”

“I have rooibos. And wine I forgot to process emotionally.”

I exhale. “Rooibos. Let’s stay grounded.”

She sits across from me, careful and calm. She always gives me room to speak. Sometimes I wish she wouldn’t.

“You think I became a coach to help men get relationships?”

“I think you became a coach to manage yours,” she says calmly. “From a safe distance. Preferably with good lighting and a sense of control.”

I huff out a breath. “Are you analyzing me right now?”

“Occupational hazard.”

“You still seeing clients? ”

“Just a few. Referral-only.”

She pauses. “One reminds me of you.”

“Poor thing.”

“She’s sharp. Strategic. A little too quick to diagnose people so she doesn’t have to trust them. You’d probably hate her.”

“Or imprint on her sexually and call it growth.”

She doesn’t blink. “Not your worst pattern.”

I rub my eyes. My skin feels wrong. My brain’s a reboot halfway through an update.

“You remember that whole voice memo thing?”

“The one that leaked on three platforms, got remixed into a lo-fi seduction track, and inspired a dozen TikTok think pieces about emotionally unavailable men? Vaguely.”

I groan. “God. You heard it.”

“It was forwarded to me. Repeatedly.” She looks at me over the rim of her cup. “The themes... they rang familiar.”

“Please stop saying themes.”

I set the mug down, too hard. Tea sloshes over the rim. “You want to know what happened?” I say.

She doesn’t answer. Just waits.

“It was never meant for an audience. Definitely not for me,” I say. “But I saw it before it leaked. That was private. It was her, unfiltered. It was messy and human and... way too real.”

“And you listened to it,” my mom says softly.

“I listened to it.” I nod, slow and reluctant, like it still makes me flinch. “And I didn’t have a playbook. I couldn’t flip it into a response video or a witty clapback or a charming invitation to collaborate. I just... froze.”

“Because it was real.”

I lean forward, elbows on the table. “You don’t get it. I’ve had people confess crushes, obsessions, kinks—on camera, in DMs, live Q&As. This wasn’t like that. It wasn’t flirty or clever or asking for anything. It was honest.”

“So you backed away.”

“No,” I say quickly. Then, slower, “Yes. But not in the way you think.”

She tilts her head, therapist mode fully engaged.

“I didn’t ghost her,” I say. “We... slept together. After I heard it. She didn’t know I’d heard it, but I thought—I’ll give her what she wants. Me.”

“What version of you did you give her?” she asks quietly.

I swallow. “The one she wanted. Or... the one I thought she did.”

Her eyes are too calm. Too knowing.

“I gave her the fantasy,” I say. “Smooth. Confident. Attentive. I made it look like I meant every touch. Every pause. Which I had. But I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything real. I just... gave her what she’d imagined. And then I left before the silence could turn into truth.”

“You played the role.”

“It was a good role,” I say bitterly. “Oscar-worthy. Until she realized there was no real person behind it.”

She nods slowly. “And when the leak happened?”

“I thought she’d never talk to me again. So I stayed out of it. I didn’t post, didn’t comment, didn’t defend her, didn’t use it for PR—even when people begged me to. Tyler wanted to capitalize on it. I told him to drop it. I fired him later.”

“That was the right call.”

“It didn’t feel like enough. ”

“Because it wasn’t.”

I look at her. She holds my gaze.

“You didn’t hurt her by walking away from the scandal,” she says. “You hurt her by walking away from her. Before the scandal even hit.”

“I was scared,” I admit.

“That she’d want more from you than you knew how to give?”

I exhale. “No. That she’d see what I didn’t have to give.”

She nods once. “And now?”

“Now I think I’m in love with someone who probably doesn’t even like me.”

“Do you want her to?”

I almost laugh. “You’re supposed to ask why, not if.”

“I’m not your therapist,” she says gently. “I’m your mom.”

That word lands harder than expected. I feel it in the back of my throat.

“You always knew how to read a room,” she says. “But reading a person? That takes more than strategy.”

“You’re a really annoying therapist,” I mutter.

She sips. “One of my clients once said, ‘He always knows what I need. But I never know what he needs. And that’s why I can’t trust him.’”

I freeze.

She doesn’t blink.

“That line stuck with me,” she says. “Because it reminded me of you.”

I stare at the steam rising off my cup.

She stands and rinses her mug. I don’t move .

My hands stay wrapped around the cup like it has answers. It doesn’t.

I watch her move around the kitchen—efficient, unbothered, like we haven’t just cracked open the softest part of me and left it on the table to steam.

She dries the mug. Folds the towel.

I clear my throat. “Do you ever get clients who mess things up not because they don’t care... but because they do?”

She doesn’t turn around. “That’s most of them.”

I shift in my chair. “What do you tell them?”

This time, she does look at me. No analysis. No smug insight. Just a quiet awareness, like she knows I’ve finally stopped deflecting.

“I tell them that love isn’t something you prove by saying the right thing,” she says. “It’s something you protect by showing up anyway.”

I nod. Once. “Okay. Then what the hell do I do now?”

She turns, a towel in her hand.

“If I wanted to fix it,” I say slowly, “with her—I mean... if I even could—”

She raises a hand.

“If the door opens again,” she says, “don’t walk in selling something.”

She places the mug down carefully.

“Just walk in. That’s enough.”

I look at the table, then at the door. Then back at her.

It sounds simple. But for me, showing up has always come with a pitch deck.

“No script?” I ask, half-joking, half-hoping she’ll break her own rule.

“No script,” she says. “Just presence.”

I exhale slowly. I’m unlearning a language I thought was native.

“Right,” I say. “Just... walk in.”

She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t need to. She just reaches for the towel again, like the conversation hasn’t upended me.

And somehow, that makes it easier to stand.

We don’t hug. We never do, unless someone is dying or graduating. At the door, she slips a container into my hands.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“Dinner. And a subtle metaphor.”

I raise an eyebrow.

She taps the red lid. “Means stop running.”

I stare at her.

She smiles like a secret.

And for the first time in weeks, I don’t have anything clever to say.