Page 51 of Tangled Hearts

Knycole sat in the waiting area with her leg bouncing. The strap of her bookbag slid down her shoulder. She’d come straight from school and wished she’d skipped it all together. Her phone buzzed with a text from Hov.

Hov: Got Qua. We gon’ grab food. Don’t worry about him.

She exhaled, grateful. That gave her one less thing to worry about in that moment.

The receptionist called her name, and she stood up, heart thudding louder than her footsteps as she walked down the hall.

The office smelled faintly of lavender and the walls were lined with framed artwork. She found herself relaxing just a little before her eyes landed on the woman seated across the room. She swallowed hard.

“Hey, Knycole.” The therapist smiled warmly, rising to meet her. She was tall, had box braids grazing her shoulders, and gold hoop earrings that caught the light. “I’m Dr. Simmons. You can call me Simone, though. Come on in, sit wherever you’re comfortable.”

Knycole nodded quickly and dropped onto the couch, just looking around. With her hands tucked between her knees, she rocked her body.

Dr. Simmons settled into the chair across from her, crossing her legs, notebook resting on one of her thighs. “First sessions can feel like a lot, huh? You nervous?”

Knycole gave a small shrug, her lips twitching. “Kinda… yea,” she admitted.

“That’s normal.” Simone nodded. “Most people are. So let’s just start simple.” She leaned forward. “What brought you here? And what do you hope to gain from this?”

Knycole chewed the inside of her cheek. Her first instinct was to say “nothing, I’m fine.” But the silence in the room gave her nowhere to hide.

“I don’t even know,” she admitted, eyes dropping to her sneakers. “Everybody keeps telling me I need to talk to somebody. I guess… I just feel stuck.”

“Stuck,” Simone repeated gently. “In what way?”

Knycole’s eyes remained on her sneakers.

The words tumbling out quicker than she expected.

“I feel like I hurt people. Like… I know when I’m doing it, but I still do it.

And then I feel bad. But not bad enough to stop.

Just stuck doing wrong,” her voice cracked on the last word.

“I be thinking something wrong with me. Everybody always say I got a good heart. But it don’t feel like that.

It feel like I be breaking people I actually love. ”

Simone nodded slowly, letting the silence stretch before asking, “when do you remember feeling that way for the first time?”

Knycole hesitated a little. Her throat tightened just saying it out loud.

“My daddy. Nick. He didn’t leave me, not like that.

He was there. But the way he loved me… the way he carried shit…

it made me feel like love always had conditions.

Like it was gon’ hurt no matter what. And now…

I move the same way. I can’t tell if I’m protecting myself or just fucking everybody over because that’s all I know.

That’s what an addicted daddy taught me.

His love depended on how sober he was. How I made him feel.

How much I didn’t bother him. It wasn’t reliable.

It was always… up in the air. And I learned quick—don’t be too loud.

Don’t be too needy. Don’t cry too hard, or he’ll go get high again.

” Knycole leaned back in her seat. “I used to feel guilty every time he got high. Like I caused it. So I stopped asking for shit. Stopped needing anything.”

Simone’s pen stilled. “And yet, you describe yourself as someone who’s emotionally needy.”

“Because I am and I hate it. I always need reassurance. I cling. I beg people to love me in ways that don’t even make sense. I look strong to folks who don’t know me. But the ones who do? They walk light around me. Hov. Rock. Noir. They treat me like glass.”

Simone didn’t say anything, her soft eyes pushing Knycole to keep going. It was sitting right there begging to be free.

“I used to be strong. When me and Hov were little, I used to sneak him food when Nick would be on a binge. Let him sleep in my bed ‘cause I knew he was scared. But somewhere along the line, I broke. And I just… stayed broken.”

Passing her a Kleenex, Simone sat back, still giving Knycole the floor.

“They cater to me now. Even when I don’t deserve it.” Knycole’s brows dipped as if she was just realizing how much she weighed her friends down.

Simone softened her posture. “Do you believe you don’t deserve it?”

Knycole nodded, her eyes drooping more. “Yes. Especially with Hov.” Her heart fluttered at his name. “He’s my person. He’s seen every piece of me. He knows I love him the most, and I still couldn’t get it right.”

“Why not?”

“Because I needed him too much. I depended on him like a crutch, and that doesn’t feel like love, it feels like a burden.

So I ran back to Rock because of that and.

..” she stopped herself from telling too much of Nick’s business.

She loved her daddy. Their relationship had transformed into everything she always wanted.

“Not ‘cause I didn’t love him, but ‘cause I was scared I was gon’ ruin him like Nick ruined me.”

She covered her mouth as sobs burst out of her. “I’m ashamed. I’m so fuckin’ ashamed.”

Simone handed her the whole box of tissues this time but she didn’t interrupt. Knycole crumbled into herself, rocking, trying to breathe.

“I always been the one people protected. But protection isn’t love.

It’s just another name for fear. And when I realized Hov was starting to fear hurting me too…

that he stopped being honest with me ‘cause he didn’t wanna break me.

I knew I fucked up. I’m not his equal any more. I’m the weight he gotta carry.”

“Do you think he sees it that way?” Simone asked softly.

“I don’t know,” Knycole whispered. “But I do think that.”

The silence dragged.

Simone finally said, “Knycole, everything you just described… that’s not weakness.

That’s a little girl who never learned that needing love doesn’t make her unlovable.

You learned survival. You learned to twist your heart around other people’s silence.

That doesn’t make you broken. That makes you scared. But fear isn’t final.”

Knycole wiped her face, her shoulders still shaking.

“You can’t keep trying to be the version of you that gets the least rejected. That’s not living, baby. That’s performance. And love can’t find you there.”

The room went still again. Knycole stared at her lap.

“Do you want peace?” Simone asked.

“I don’t even know what that looks like,” she admitted.

“It looks like letting people love you without earning it. Without shrinking. Without having to fall apart just to be held.”

Knycole cried harder at that. Loud, ugly tears. When she found her voice to speak again, it came out just above a whisper. “What if I never learn how to be enough for the people I love?”

Simone looked her square in the eyes. “Then we’ll sit here together until you learn how to be enough for yourself.”

“Your daddy shaped the way you see love. That doesn’t mean you’re doomed to repeat what he taught you.

What we can do together is help you separate his flaws from your identity.

And maybe, when you stop seeing yourself as weak or needy, you’ll start seeing yourself as someone just trying to learn how to love without bleeding out. ”

Simone’s words made Knycole exhale the tension she’d been holding in her chest.

“Does this sound like something you’re willing to do? This journey won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it.”

Knycole nodded. “I’m ready.” A faint smile rested on her face.

“Now that we know why you’re here, tell me about yourself.”

“I’m twenty-two. I have a son,” Knycole smiled thinking about Qua. “I’m currently in school to be a nurse but I’ve been thinking about going bigger and becoming a doctor.”

“I like that idea,” Simone smiled, sipping a little from her thermos. “Go big or go home.”

“I was born addicted to crack… my mama overdosed when I was super young. My daddy struggled with drugs up until about five years ago.”

“And what made him give it up? You?” Simone probed.

Knycole shook her head. “No… I really don’t know. We’ve never talked about it for real … I mean I did tell him he’d lose me if he didn’t get it together but, I don’t know, Dr. Simone.” She shrugged.

“Is that something you think you need closure about?”

Her head rocked side to side again. “Not really. I mean, I’m not trying to trigger him back into that dark place.”

“A place you seem to constantly live in. Hmm.” Simone pursed her lips, jotting things down as she went.

Knycole’s face balled up. She didn’t like the way the statement came out. It felt judgmental—felt like her corpse had been cut open for the world to pick apart.

“Did I offend you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Knycole closed her eyes for a few seconds, regulating her feelings. “I love my daddy.”

“Okay?”

“And hearing you say something about him is a sore spot for me. Like, I know he wasn’t the best but he’s what I got. He’s the man God gave me, so I gotta know the pain comes with peace. Nick is peaceful now.”

Simone placed her notebook down, looking Knycole square in the face. “Is Knycole peaceful?”

Tears brimmed her eyes. “No,” she choked out.

The word hung heavy in the room. Even heavier than the silence that followed. It wasn’t just an answer. It was a long overdue confession. Knycole had spent years trying to pretend she was fine, that she was holding it together, but with that single word she let the truth slip through.

Peace wasn’t hers. It never had been. She carried too many voices in her head. Her father’s, her lovers’, even her own doubts. All arguing over who she should be. And somewhere in all of that noise, she had forgotten what it sounded like to just be still.

Knycole realized then that peace wasn’t something she could borrow from a man’s arms or steal from fleeting moments of happiness. Peace had to be built, brick by brick, from the inside.