Page 158 of Reckless Hearts

I clench my fists so tight my knuckles turn white, nails digging crescents into my palms. “Of course not. But they did. I’m like a wrecking ball. I can’t help but shatter the lives of everyone around me.”

“It sounds like you’re carrying a lot of guilt,” she observes. “Have you ever considered that a nine-year-old child isn’t equipped to handle that kind of situation?”

I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Tell that to my father. He knows exactly who’s to blame.”

Dr. Emerson’s pen scratches across her notepad. “And what makes you think your father blames you?”

“Because he couldn’t even look at me after my mother died. She must have told him about how I pushed Emmy. And he just…stopped seeing me. Even when I was right in front of him.”

“What do you mean by that?”

I swallow hard. “He couldn’t even be in the same room as me. He sent me away to boarding school, saying it would be ‘better for everyone.’”

“That must have been incredibly isolating.”

“The worst part is, he never raised his voice or said anything cruel. But I have this internal monologue that fills in the blanks, imagining what he would say to me.”

I curl in on myself, like I can somehow compensate for the ball of hurt inside me.

But the pain comes out in my voice as I continue, “He just…erased me. Like I stopped existing the moment he learned the truth.”

I run my hand through my hair. “Sometimes I think that’s why I like acting so much. At least when people watch you on a screen, they have to see you.”

“And how does your father’s opinion impact your view of yourself?” Dr. Emerson’s voice is carefully neutral.

The question hits me like a sucker punch. I open my mouth, then close it again. “I… I don’t know,” I admit finally.

“We’ll circle back to this again, but I want to move on to what prompted you to come here. Your rock bottom.” She checks your notes. “You were disappointed you’d missed out on a role and were worried you were going to harm yourself, so you called your best friend, who then got in contact with your agent to bring you here.”

“That wasn’t my rock bottom,” I find myself saying.

“What was your rock bottom?”

“When the man who loves you begs you never to contact him again because you’re destroying him.” My voice is shaking. “That’s when you know you’ve hit rock bottom.”

“Who is the man who loves you?”

“His name is Seb.” Even saying his name causes pain to shoot through me. “He’s the younger brother of my best friend. We were together at university, and then we had another relationship for eighteen months. It ended three months ago.”

“Why did it end?”

“Because, like I said at the beginning, I’m incapable of love.”

She fixes her gaze on me. “You say he begged you not to contact him. How did you respond?”

“I promised I wouldn’t contact him again.”

“And have you kept that promise?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because he deserves to be happy.”

“Have you wanted to talk to him?”

My laugh comes out almost like a sob. “Every day.”