Page 165 of Unconditionally Yours

“And for you,” Jett says, digging in his hoodie pocket, “this.”

He tosses something at my face.

I catch it. It’s a choker. Like a collar.

I stare at it for a second too long.

Jett shrugs. “Figured you’re the one with weird kinks.”

I am.

“She has a disco ball in the kitchen,” he adds casually. “And a bear-shaped jar full of condoms. Also? Her bed looks like it eats men.”

“Perfect,” Benji says, all heart eyes and tiny rhinestones. “Where’d you leave the gift?”

“Right on the unmade sheets. Smack center. I arranged the tissue paper like a fucking romantic.”

“She’s gonna cry,” I say.

“She’s gonna bite me,” Jett counters.

Benji lets out a soft, smug sigh and says, “She’s gonna love it.”

And fuck me, I hope she does.

Because without even meaning to, we just gave her the first real piece of us.

Journal Entry #11

Sunday August 8th

Therapy Journal

Dear Rhys,

We need to talk. Not like talk talk, but like, you need to hear the deranged jungle beat of my heart because I’m spiraling in glitter and longing and feelings, and frankly? It’s your fault. Yours and Jett’s and Benji’s. You’re all complicit in my emotional crimes.

Let’s start with the facts. I broke some boundaries. Smashed them, really. Like emotional piñatas. Surprise! There’s stalking inside. But in my defense, and I will always defend myself in these pages like it’s a courtroom of one, I did it because Chad is acting shady. Hank is involved. Something stinks and it’s not my vanilla sugar shower gel, which by the way, Jett bought for me. He bought me soap with scent-memory implications. You know what that means? I’ve imprinted on him.

Anyway. You said journaling helps externalize emotions. Well here’s my emotional confetti cannon: You left me gifts. All three of you. And I don’t know how to cope with being loved in high-definition. I had to lie down on the floor.

I think I’m going to combust. Or cry. Or hump the gift bag and cry while combusting.

So now I’m journaling. Like you told me to. Because otherwise I’m going to show up at your office wearing only your anklet and ask inappropriate questions about Freud. I don’t even know what Freud said. I just know I want to unpack with you. Nakedly.

I’m going to Benji’s when I finish this. I don’t have your address. And he holds me like he knows how breakable I am, even though I’m wrapped in barbed wire and bad ideas. I love you all. In wildly different ways. And it’s not normal. But nothing about me is.

Please don’t take my gold stars away.

Rhys Journal

You gave me jewelry.

We haven’t even fucked yet. I haven’t broken into your house. I haven’t carved our initials into your office chair or left a lock of my hair under your bed or made a collage of your outfit rotation with scented glue sticks. We are so wildly out of order and I’m not coping well.

This feels alarmingly like something normal people might do. You gave me a gift bag full of fiancé-level shit. Do you understand the implications? Because I do, and my uterus has been vibrating in Morse code ever since: engaged. engaged. engaged.

I’m spiraling. I’m sweating. I licked the anklet.