Chapter One
Delilah
I don’t belong here.
Not in therapy. Not in this chair. Not even in the blast radius of regret.
And I mean that sincerely. Not in the way the guy beside me, muttering to his potted plant means it. Though honestly, the plant looks kind of thriving. So maybe he’s onto something. But me? No. I’m not the problem.
I’m the solution.
I’m a blessing in human form.
I’m the welcome mat of devotion, the fairy godmother of love notes and snacks, the full-service girlfriend experience without the subscription fee.
And I am, somehow, court-ordered to stop dating Hank.
Which is wildly confusing, considering Hank and I were the perfect couple.
Sure, he said we weren’t. But words are slippery when you’re emotionally repressed and dangerously close to being loved too well.
The receptionist side-eyes me over the rim of her mug, which says World’s Okayest Empath. Her brows are plucked so thin they look like quotation marks.
I smile sweetly and cross my legs at the ankle, like I was born in a finishing school and not in a trailer behind a sex cult.
My dress flares just enough to flash the tops of my thigh-highs, pastel pink, obviously. With little hearts. Because unlike some people, I commit to an aesthetic.
Dr. Rhys Hartwell’s waiting room smells like dollar store lavender, despair, and a barely-suppressed fart someone tried to cover with Febreze. The chairs are that special kind of uncomfortable that was definitely designed by someone in a hate spiral.
Two men and one woman are waiting with me. One guy’s clearly here because his wife told him to stop screaming during pickleball. The woman’s whispering into a flip phone that isn’t even on. I think I heard her say “microwaves.” The other guy is twitchy and has been reading the same page of GQ for seven minutes.
The wall clock ticks like a countdown to my next bad decision.
It was already tragic enough when they slapped me with the restraining order. A hundred yards. That’s more than a football field. That’s practically another planet.
How am I supposed to take care of Hank from another fucking ZIP code? I can’t stage interventions with a telescope.
How is he supposed to feel safe, knowing I’m out of radius?
Who’s fluffing his pillows with intentions? Or scrying in his bathwater? Who’s leaving throat coat tea in his mailbox with runes drawn in glitter glue? Or checking his locks, watering his aloe plant, and disinfecting his door handles with sanitizing wipes?
Nobody. That’s who.
Certainly not that plain ass rebound chick.
And now they want this?
Therapy?
“I’m not unstable,” I say, mostly to myself, but also kind of to Microwave Lady, just in case she’s secretly a psychic or an undercover cop. “I’m in love.”
She nods solemnly like she gets it. Then offers me a Tic Tac.
I take it. Might be laced with something. Honestly? That’d be a treat. It tastes like wintergreen and unspoken trauma. We sit in companionable madness.
I drum my perfect fingernails on my knee. Ten tiny acrylic daggers painted like candy hearts. One says FUCK, another says OFF. Self-expression is healing.
The court said I need six weeks of therapy or I go to jail. I asked if that included accessorized house arrest. They said no.
