She tilts her head. “What exactly were you supposed to do?”
I shake my head, frustration bubbling in my chest. “I was supposed to… fix myself. Be happy being alone. Be strong enough to not feel like I need someone else.”
Pee-Pee exhales softly. “Ivy, do you remember why we agreed on the dating ban?”
I hesitate, fingers curling against the hem of my sleeve.
She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “It wasn’t because you needed to learn how to be alone. You were already alone. You were keeping yourself alone.” She pauses. “The problem wasn’t that you were dating. It was how you were dating.”
I swallow.
“You weren’t looking for connection. You were looking for validation. You told me yourself—you would walk into a bar, pick out someone who seemed interested, and then…” She gestures vaguely.
I close my eyes briefly. “And then I’d pretend to be whoever they wanted.”
She nods. “You made yourself easy to want. You made yourself into a fantasy, into something exciting. But the second they got too close, the second it was about you—not the version you were showing them, the real you—you pulled away.”
My chest tightens.
I already know this. I’ve known it for ages. But hearing it again, laid out so plainly, still stings.
She keeps going, her voice steady. “The dating ban wasn’t about isolation. It was about giving you time to figure out who you are—what you want in a relationship, and what the people you let into your life actually want from you.”
I nod slowly, staring at my lap. “Right.”
She waits a beat, then says, “A while ago you told me that with Theo you can be yourself. So let me ask you this—does Theo know you, the real you?”
I hesitate. “Yeah.”
“And do you feel like you’re pretending around him?”
I shake my head. “No.”
She nods. “And do you think he only wants you because you’re making yourself into something convenient for him?”
I blink. “No.” The answer is immediate. And true.
Theo doesn’t want something from me.
He just… wants me there.
The thought sends a strange, warm feeling curling in my stomach.
Pee-Pee nods. “Then maybe this isn’t what you were avoiding.”
I let out a slow breath, still staring at my lap.
She lets me sit with that thought for a moment before she speaks again, her voice gentler this time.
“You’re not supposed to be an island, Ivy.”
I swallow.
I know she’s right.
But knowing it and accepting it? That’s a whole different thing.
I stare down at my hands, my mind a mess of tangled thoughts. Pee-Pee has a way of making me see things—things I’ve been carefully ignoring or pushing aside. And now, I don’t know what to do with all of it.
