No one ever plans to become a loser.

It just sort of happens.

In my case, for as long as I can remember, I was always shy. Over-sensitive. Anxious. Bad at eye contact. Bad at socializing. Bad at laughing at the punchline—it was always the setup that got me. Not-so-good at sports, no real tangible skills in general, okay at video games.

Not really what you’d call a winning recipe.

Now twenty-six years into my journey on this frozen fireball, I was friendless. Girlfriendless. Prospectless, certainly, when it came to things like having a ‘career’ or ‘real, meaningful hobbies’. I was trapped in a dopamine loop of sleeping in, sugary cereal featuring a certain famous sea captain, “looking for a job”—for like five minutes, video games, hating myself, more video games, more cereal, scrolling on my phone until I passed out, rinse and repeat.

My parents, constantly jutting back and forth between easing off the pressure—hoping it would give me space to improve, or insane, Finding Nemo levels of helicopter parenting—hoping it would give me the stress to improve, had opted for a new strategy now.

Therapy.

I had to attend four sessions, or I would be kicked out of the house.

Oof.

On the list of “things I never ever want to do,” spilling my secrets and insecurities out to a complete stranger ranked pretty damn high. Interestingly though, living on the street with no safety net ranked even higher! I wanted to believe that this was yet another empty threat from the perpetual paper tiger couple that was Momma and Dadda, but they were serious. Filled out most of the intake forms themselves and paid for four sessions in advance—serious.

Begrudgingly, I added my e-signature and clicked ‘submit’ on the page they’d opened for me. I was going to therapy.

And so there I was, sat across from Riley, my parent-approved counselor who supposedly specialized in trauma therapy, mindfulness, and something called EMDR (which I Googled and still didn’t quite understand). She looked… frazzled. Tired. I watched her hand move in uneven, hurried strokes across a piece of paper—she’d started the session by apologizing and asking for two minutes—as I recalled the cursory online search I did about her in the days leading up to the session.

She was quite new to this. Freshly graduated, recently moved to the city, and just signed on with this practice a few months ago. Her rates were cheaper than most—my folks’ rationale in choosing her becoming ever more apparent.

I wasn’t sure if her being green was a good or bad thing when it came to this whole operation. Maybe she wouldn’t know what to do with a headcase like me, and I’d be able to skirt by these sessions on a technicality. We could both just sit in silence together—no word-vomiting for hours about my mommy issues required.

She folded the piece of paper twice, pocketed it, then shifted her full attention—posture, eyes, soul—towards me.

“Hi Elijah,” she said.

“Hi,” I said back.

“It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for coming in today.”

“Of course, and uh, thank you… for… taking the time?”

Jeez. Ten seconds into chatting and I was already crumbling.

“How has your week been so far?” she asked.

“Uhh, good? I think. Yeah! Good. Fine. Decent.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“Yeah,” I said, with a chuckle for some reason, before deciding to look down at the rug which felt the right thing to do.

How the fuck do people talk outside of Discord, again?

“If I may ask, is this your first time working with a counselor?”

I was now in a full-on staring contest with the ground. “Yeah—first time.”

She let the silence linger. Dear God, the cruelty of it all. Did this monster not realize I had no idea how to carry a conversation?

After two eternities—or what lesser humans would call “three minutes give or take”—I lifted my eyes back to reach hers.

“It’s okay if you’re nervous,” she said. “Therapy can be a lot.”

“Yeah no, sorry, it’s… my parents, they uh, really wanted me to come here. And I’m uh here now, hah. I think—I think that they’re just, uh, worried about me. And I guess I get it?”

“You guess you get it. Can you explain more about what you mean by that?”

“Yeah, I mean, cause they don’t say it with these words but they probably think I’m a… waste of space, I guess. ‘Cause I am. I mean, I take up space. I’m like, that dude from The Metamorphosis, who turns into a bug, but with like, less shame. Like I just play video games all day, then sort of like hate myself for it, but then continue doing it, and just yeah—don’t really, have, ambitions I guess, I think ‘cause I’ve hated every job I’ve ever had, so like—hard to want a job after that right? Hah but uh yeah, I’m, I don’t know, I’m not stoked on myself either so I get it but I also don’t know how to help it cause if I could’ve helped it obviously I would’ve solved it by now, you know—”

And Jesus Christ. I’d just opened the sewer gates and let metric tons of industrial sludge pour into the room.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be,” she said reassuringly. “It sounds like you’re going through a lot. Like you’re dealing with a lot of different, conflicting feelings within yourself. Which, believe it or not, is actually quite normal.” She paused, took a deep breath, and then continued. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to start by saying two very simple things.”

“Sure.”

“First, we have plenty of time together, so don’t worry too much about getting things right. About… getting the words out perfectly, and rushing through your thoughts so you don’t forget anything. This is a space where you are welcome, encouraged even, to take your time to work through things.”

“Right, so if I’m hearing you correctly, I don’t have to talk like an auctioneer?”

Holy crap—she actually laughed! Sure she was getting paid to be nice to me, but still! When the hell do I ever crack jokes?

“Second…” she said, and deep down I hoped and prayed that she’d say something mundane and forgettable because it’s not every day—or ever, actually—that I sit across from someone and have them actually care about what I say, this particular revelation bringing me concern that I was probably much more prone to liking this woman than the average person—“I can tell, from just a couple minutes of talking to you, that you seem like a decent guy. A decent guy who’s maybe just being a little hard on himself.”

Goddamnit. And now, I think I might actually like you. Maybe I do need therapy.

“And by the way, it’s Gregor Samsa.”

“Sorry?”

“The name of the guy from The Metamorphosis?” she said. “By Kafka? It’s Gregor Samsa.”

“Ah. Right.”

Yep. I like you.

The rest of the sixty-minute session consisted of probing questions, me opening up (see: rambling) about next to everything, and gaining a sense of just how deep my emotional trauma rabbit hole went. All the while, she listened fully, taking notes, smiling, nodding. I felt a cosmic thread between us.

I felt it after the session, too. A weight.

It was as if some room had opened up in my chest. A pile of emotional clutter, confusion and sensations I couldn’t put words to had cleared out, making space for something else.

But what exactly that something else was—I couldn’t quite put a finger on.

_______________

My new favorite person wanted to go a bit deeper with session 2.

If session 1 was “Let me get to know you,” 2 was “No, really, get to know you.”

She steered us through the chit-chat of how the week went—the usual niceties—grounding us in the room for this meeting I didn’t want to admit I’d been waiting all week for.

“Now, with your permission,” she said, “I want you to take a moment to think about the biggest blocker in your life right now. It could be something external; situational. It could be a feeling that you have about yourself. Or a memory. Maybe, something from your past. Take a minute, and let me know when you’ve found it.”

Okay, here goes nothing…

I thought long and hard about the giant list of negatives that comprised my miserable little life. All of them, in their own ways, jutting compelling knives of anxiety into my throat, my chest, my arms—

But there was a throughline, within all of them.

“My biggest blocker is that I think that everyone hates me.”

She wrote it down, mouthed it as she did. “You think…” scribble scribble “that everyone…” scribble “hates you...”

“Yeah, but not just think. It feels like it’s been reinforced, through the, I don’t know, things people have said, or ways they’ve acted around me. Like, it’s not just me.”

“I understand,” she said, leaning forward as if my state had given her a spark of inspiration. “What I’d like you to do next, if you’re comfortable, is to close your eyes.”

I complied.

Behind my shut lids, a kaleidoscope of blurred shapes, dots, and splatters started to take form on an otherwise dark canvas.

“I want you to imagine that this thought, feeling, or concrete belief formed out of a series of life events—‘Everyone hates me.’—I want you to imagine that it has a name, a voice, and a presence in your mind.”

“Alright.”

“Let me know when you’ve done that.”

“Yep, I’m there,” I said. Wasn’t too difficult. My self-hatred makes up most of me, anyways.

“Great. Now, I’d like you to imagine that there’s a microphone in your mind, and all of these disparate parts of you—anxiety, jealousy, fervor, happiness, fear, love,”—yeesh, she really emphasized that last one—“they all have access to this microphone, but only you get to decide who holds it.”

“Okay…”

“And now I’d like you to give the microphone to the part of you that thinks you’re unlikeable.”

“And then…?”

“And then I’m gonna ask you to let it speak.”

And so, I did. And over the next thirty minutes, I let the part of me that hates me tear into me. I cursed myself for the awkward way that I’d try—and fail—to enter conversations by cracking a stupid joke; the self-deprecating persona I’d wear everywhere I went, to the thunderous applause of no new friends made in seven years; cringy memories of simply existing in the highschool hallways and getting bullied for the stupid indie band t-shirts I wore that I thought would make me look smart and sophisticated but actually made me look like a giant tryhard; the gross feeling of simply being in my body and having my abject ugliness perceived by the outside world.

And as we circled closer to the end of the session—with me occasionally hearing the sounds of her pen scribbling over paper following the destructive words I uttered about myself—she finally told me to open my eyes.

11:59AM. One minute left in our meeting.

How was she going to wrap things up?

“That was fantastic work,” she said. “You’ve already made so much progress.”

“I have? I-I kind of… feel like shit.”

“That’s completely natural. It’s all part of the healing process. You’ll learn to trust it.”

“Uhm, alright.”

And then, an earnest look shot my way. “I’m really, really proud of you.”

Despite the misery that I’d conjured up in this controlled and safe environment, her words lit a small fireworks display in my sternum.

She rose to her feet from the chair, and I did the same. Simon says.

As she did, she asked me a final question—

“Do you have a name for the part of you that you identified in this session? This… self-critical, harsh side of your mind.”

The words came almost instinctively. “My torturer,” I said. “It’s my torturer.”

“Your homework for this session is to leave the microphone with your torturer. Do not give it to anyone else.”

_______________

She told me things were going to feel draining after the last session, but holy shit the level of lethargy was not what I expected.

There were mornings where I felt like I could barely move. Where even the thought of being lazy was difficult to access at times. Full stretches of day where I could barely keep my eyes open to watch TV.

I was just sort of there. Existing. Like a husk.

The voice of misery in my head, it turns out, had a whole lot to say. And as hours and days stretched past, it felt as if the voice was amplifying. All the things I was afraid of about myself—that I was unlovable, that I’d always hate myself, that I’d remain useless—were starting to seem more and more concrete. More true.

Was this really how this was supposed to feel?

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Every time I wanted to ignore Riley’s advice and pass the aux cord in my mind to a more welcoming party—maybe the self-soother in me, or the optimistic dreamer—I’d remember her words.

“I’m really, really proud of you.”

I clung onto them like they were an anchor, as the weight in my chest grew exponentially, and used them to drag my increasingly lifeless form into the couch for session 3.

I’m sure my body and face wore my feelings pretty well, but Riley still found a way to chime in with an almost psychic read on the matter—

“This whole week, since you left our last session, has been tough for you. Draining. Demoralizing.”

She’d phrased it like a statement, less so a question.

“Yes,” I said, wanting to say more, but I was just so tired, so I mustered out the same word again. “Yes.”

“There’s a misery, deep inside you, that runs further than you realized.”

“Yes,” I said again. At least I wasn’t as afraid of eye contact anymore. My pupils met hers, and through the cosmic thread I thought I shared with her, I spoke more. “So what do I do now?”

She tilted her head, almost bewildered. “Could you elaborate on what you mean?”

“To feel better,” I clarified. “What am I supposed to do to feel better now?”

She looked away briefly, as if gathering her thoughts. Then she met my gaze again, resolute. “You continue. You honor your honest feelings and thoughts. You sit with them. You live with them.”

I lowered my head, exasperated. Already sinking. “That can’t be right.”

Her voice felt distant now. Like I was in a void, underwater, helpless, useless. “This is what the work is,” I think I heard her say. Muffled. Through static. Lightyears away.

“The work is fucking awful,” I exhaled.

As I fell deeper, I wondered if this was what I deserved for signing up for cheap therapy. Maybe she was in over her head.

Or maybe, the behind-the-TV cord untangling of my various neuroses and traumas was a tall order for anyone, regardless of how qualified they might’ve been.

I shot my thousand-yard stare down at the familiar rug.

I guess I could try to stay in this misery a little longer. Wallow in it, if that was really the point of all this.

I closed my eyes. She hadn’t said a word for a while anyway.

Maybe if I stay still enough, I can just disappear.

Then, I felt a warmth at the back of my neck. A comforting, unfamiliar warmth. A soft hand ran up and down my back, consoling. Another hand, with nails gently curling into the hair at the back of my head.

The warmth at the back of my neck persisted.

Kisses.

I was being caressed.

What?

“I could tell you were different,” she said. “You have a helplessness that runs so, so, so deep.”

What are you d—

“You’re alright. There isn’t a thing wrong with you. You’re perfect, even if the world shuns your pain.”

More kisses at the nape of my neck.

I knew this was against every rule in the therapist-client code. And yet, I didn’t want her to stop. It was the most meaningful moment I’d ever experienced in my life. It felt like she saw me, saw all of me—all the ugly that made up what I really was, and accepted it.

“You’re a special person to me,” she said. “You’re my favorite person.”

And after that, session 3 dissolved into a dreamlike haze. I can barely remember what happened after. I know she held me, I know we spoke, I know she wanted me to continue with the important work we were doing, but beyond that, it all sort of blurred together.

Regardless, this had to be love, right?

People don’t just do that, to people they’re like—academically interested in, right?

_____________

I wanted to die.

In the week following the previous session, I had become a zombie.

I was sleeping thirteen, maybe fourteen hours most days, but would wake up feeling like I’d just pulled an all-nighter.

I’d come off of the highest high ever, and yet, I was steeped in a depressive malaise that was as overwhelming as it was incomprehensible.

The very nature of my thinking had become warped. My mental chatter was fully contained to the negative, the tiring, the hopeless, the cynical. The thoughts ping-ponged across my mind quietly and consistently—the remaining dregs of energy in my body being rerouted there and there alone to keep this whole miserable operation going.

I was hoping for an upswing. Praying for one.

Praying for the work to pay off.

In the meantime, hanging on for dear life to the singular spark left in me–the singular flutter in my chest. Getting to see her again.

Session 4.

She was late to let me in.

When she finally opened the door, I noticed she was more jovial than I’d ever seen her. Laughing with a coworker and taking her time to get things set up.

A vibrant smile marked her face as I sat across.

I felt like muck. A big, stinking, ugly, disgusting, should’ve-been-shot-in-the-face-and-left-for-dead-yesterday pile of muck.

And she looked like she was in the prime of her life, radiating a level of pep and excitement worlds away from her usual demeanor. She sized me up and said—

“You’re at your absolute lowest point, aren’t you.”

Again—phrased more like a statement than a question.

I nodded.

“This is the most miserable you’ve ever felt.”

Another nod.

And then—the strangest look from her. A hint of invigoration paired with a hint of sympathy. Like a billionaire trying to feel bad.

“Do you… think you have it in you to try our next exercise?”

Is it going to help? Is any of this going to help? Or are we just digging my grave here?

“I…”

“Yes?”

I don’t know what I’m doing.

“Can you please, just, hold my hand,” I said, in less than a whisper.

“I’m sorry? Could you please repeat that again?”

“Could you please… hold my hand,” I said again, a few decibels louder this time.

She didn’t move.

“There’s a new exercise I’d like you to do. I think it’ll really help with the work.”

I don’t get it.

What happened?

Why don’t you like me anymore?

And as my thoughts, formed from anxious synapses in the pockets of my chest, arms, and back, spiraled about yet another new thing, about why it felt like my therapist seemed happier yet colder, and that the world where she held me was just an illusion, a lie—I caught a flicker in Riley’s eyes and the suppression of a smile at the corner of her mouth.

What… are you?

But my spoken word was just, “Okay.”

She straightened her back against the chair. Eager.

“I want you to take a deep breath,” she said. “And I want you to close your eyes.”

She took a long inhale, motioning for me to do the same. I tried to match.

I knew whatever we tried now was only going to make things worse, yet I followed, propelled by the remaining spark of light in me—a faith, a hope—hope that she was actually in my corner. Hope that she was actually trying to help me.

“So we’ve spent some time giving attention, and a voice, and a microphone, to the part of you that dislikes yourself.”

Yes. Yes we have. Probably more than it warrants at this point.

“I want you to try and visualize this part of you now. Try to bring it forward in your mind. Can you see it?”

I focused, and to my shock, in the darkness behind my closed eyes, the image of my torturer was unbelievably and immediately clear—

A face poking out of a thin, black mist.

With the widest smile I’d ever seen. And eyes like glowing slits.

Eager to close the distance and reach me. Excited at the prospect that I was afraid.

“Describe it to me,” she said.

“No.”

“I’m sorry?”

I opened my eyes.

“No.”

I stood up from my seat. Lifeless. Energyless.

A good hard look at the only person I liked, who was thrashing about my insides like it was nobody’s business.

But even in her radiant energy and today’s brightness, she just looked pitiful. Sad and small.

I carcassed away from her, and towards the door, with literal baby steps.

And heard a phrase come from her as I reached the archway.

“I thought you’d be the one who stayed.”

_______________

I shuffled down the hallway.

The voices and sounds around me were muddled, like we were all underwater.

I was going to leave her behind.

And I was going to return to my life of… light misery. Light depression, light alienation, dopamine-fueled habits chasing light contentment, and subtle despair buried under layers and layers of light distraction.

And for a second, everything settled in my mind, and her words played.

“I’m really, really proud of you.”

A step forward.

“You’re a special person to me.”

And another. One foot in front of the next, that’s how we were taught to do it.

“I can tell, from just a couple minutes of talking to you—”

I tried to erase the voice from my head.

But then the moment—the sensation of being held in her arms, and being kissed by her—started coming to the forefront of my mind.

And almost like a hallucination, the image of it started playing on the walls and doors beside and in front of me, grainy and flickering, as if broadcast by an old, worn-out projector.

And I felt love for her.

And more so I felt pity for her.

And I understood that all of these emotions of compassion for her were irrational and unnecessary.

And I realized it didn’t matter because I’d been compromised by her for quite some time now.

And I walked back.

It felt like it was under my own volition, but—who knows.

_________________

“You came back.”

I don’t actually remember re-entering the room, nor what I said when I did.

It was all another surreal blur.

When I came to, I was seated out on the couch, holding a goodbye letter that she’d been partway through writing to me before I’d stepped back into her office.

Dear Elijah,

I’m not a normal person.

I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember.

Some people need socializing. Some people need rest. Some people need sports. Some people need soap operas. Some people need sunshine. I need

And of course, it ended there, cut off by my return.

I lifted my eyes from the piece of paper in my hands and looked at her to finish.

“I need people’s will to live. In all its forms. Depression, anxiety, hopelessness, misery. These are springs where I get my water.” She looked ashamed as she said it. “I will always cherish the time we spent together. Signed—Riley.”

I let the words sit in my empty body.

No one had ever written me a letter before.

“I’ve been giving you life?” I asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

I understood, truly, this time.

And then I closed my eyes and visualized the entity I’d given life to. I pictured my torturer again.

The face in the fog reappeared.

“What next?” I asked.

“Elijah, you don’t have to do this anym—”

“I wanna try. I wanna try to make this work. What next?”

A hesitation in her response. No words, at first. But then—

“Describe the emotions you feel in your body, as you see the picture in your mind.”

I focused.

“I feel… a tightness in my chest. There’s an uncomfortable, unmovable, weighted box sitting there. And the feeling of it is permeating outwards, and I feel tired, and helpless, and sad, and the sensations are going through my arms, my legs, my back, my head.”

“Label this feeling. What is it?”

“It’s the feeling of not belonging. Of being terrified of the world. Of feeling small, weak, unlovable and unsafe in the face of everything.”

“Good. Now, try to remember the earliest instance when you felt this way. When this feeling of ‘not belonging’ was within you.”

“I…I—”

I let the image of my torturer melt into the void behind my eyelids, and allowed a newer, livelier scene to appear in my head.

“I was at a bar,” I said, “I’d been given an invite to an outing, sort of as an afterthought, and when I got there everyone ignored me and treated me like shit and—”

“I want you to go further back, Elijah. Find an older memory.”

I followed the time-traveling string of self-hate in me and let my mind conjure up new memories.

High school.

“It was tenth grade, and I’d just switched schools, and it was first week, and I was already an outcast, and every lunch hour the kids would—”

“Even further. Keep going.”

I immediately tried to spin up more scenes in my head.

A new image now. Suburban streets, holding my mom’s hand as she walked me home from school.

“I was seven I think, and mom picked me up after I got in trouble at school, and she uh… told me that she wished I’d never been born, and I didn’t know who to talk to about it because—”

“You’re almost there now. Hold the feeling and go deeper. There must be something more.”

The next one hit me instantly. The recollection of me crawling and knocking something over, and Dad getting unbelievably mad at me—

“It’s so weird, because Dad freaked out, but he was usually so nice, and, why would anyone even get mad at a kid who’s just crawling, like I was so little, it doesn’t even make any sen—”

“I can feel you. We’re so close. Describe how it felt in the moment—”

“It felt confusing, and overwhelming, and I felt unsupported, and unloved, and I didn’t feel safe there I didn’t feel safe—”

Dad’s image in my memory started to transform—the look on his face twisting and warping into something demented—

“Hold this feeling, this exact feeling, and now try to find, perhaps, the earliest instance of this sensation—”

How can I go earlier than crawling?

What am I doing?

“I…”

And yet, it came.

Something even earlier.

And it was hard to speak.

“What do you see, Elijah?”

I wasn’t sure how to say it.

“I was born, I think.”

“Yes.”

“I was in the operating room, and I saw white walls, white everything, and I felt unsafe, and unseen, and the doctors seemed distracted. Disinterested. And this all felt too big, too much for me.”

“This is the moment,” she said.

The appearance of the doctors began to shift now too.

“What do you feel now?”

“I was ripped out too soon, I’m at the whim of the world, I don’t feel safe.”

“You don’t feel safe,” she said. Then—“Hold this moment, frame this moment, press it to your conscience, don’t let it go—”

The whole scene in my head started evolving, into undistilled misery, discomfort, and terror.

The doctors became less human yet more familiar. The room turned to black, as their faces lit up like they were glow-in-the-dark.

They all looked like my torturer now.

Riley spoke intensely. “If this image, this moment, were framed forever, what would the caption be?”

Why am I doing this to myself?

“I am not safe or loved in this world,” I said, as both the image and the feeling became hellish. I felt myself sinking.

“Repeat it, like a mantra,” she said. “You are not safe or loved in this world.”

“I am not safe or loved in this world,” I said again.

“Again, say it, with everything you have,” she shouted, stern, activated, relishing, receiving life—

“I am not safe! I am not loved. I never was.”

And as the image, the memory took on a life of its own, turning into a funhouse mirror nightmare where the medical staff grew bigger smiles and twisted forms that stretched up to the ceiling as they peered down on baby Elijah, I heard the doctors say:

"Congratulations, ma'am! And now, he can be unborn."

I opened my eyes. I had to.

She was crouched in front of me. Inches from my face.

And she too wore the face of my torturer.

Her hand caressed my cheek.

And then—

It was her again. Riley with her own face. Full of life and vigor and sunshine.

“Thank you,” she said with soft, apologetic, bright and open eyes, and I didn’t want to be on this planet anymore and I wished I’d never been born but then she kissed my lips and it was still not okay but it certainly helped.

_________________

I’m not sure what the exact day was that I stopped being her client and started being her boyfriend.

Granted, the line was always fuzzy after session three anyways.

I’ve spent the last four weeks living with her.

We’re still figuring some things out.

I can’t be an endless reservoir of energy for her to siphon every single day, as eventually, there’s nothing left for her to drain.

So, on date nights, we’ll go to various locations where she can access some of the raw, palpable emotions of sensitive people. Slam poetry nights are great for this, as are open mics.

Occasionally, we’ll even find a couple arguing in a coffee shop or restaurant and try to find the closest seat.

She tells me that these nights are helpful to tide her over, but that ultimately, she’s a more traditional energy vampire—and hence, much prefers it when she gets all of her energy needs from the one person she’s in a committed engagement with.

And so, on the whole, whether it’s going back through painful memories or conjuring up the image of the part of me that hates myself—always a winner—I do what I can to ensure there’s always something for her to pull from, to inflame. Always misery on hand for her to tap into and find joy from.

The bulk of my days are spent with a severely diminished quality of life. Lower energy all the time, depression, suicidal ideation, wanting to stay in bed all day.

Seeing the worst in everyone—people are unkind, selfish, machiavellian, flesh-eating, back-stabbing, two faced liars who don’t even know themselves well enough to—

But then sometimes I’ll spend a nice night with her. And like heroin, it’s a net negative, except for the brief flicker when it goes through my veins.

She’s been much happier as of late. She told me that one of my emotions has been working really, really well for her. She isn’t quite sure which one it is though.

I use my remaining energy to curl a smile. I’m just glad she’s happy. I’d rather not let her know that the emotion is fear.

It’s unfortunate.

I’ve been seeing the face of my torturer more and more since Riley first kissed me.

It shows up on the faces of people as I walk down the street. Sometimes, as a figure at the end of an alleyway. Other times, the weatherman on TV.

It’s taking over all of the faces in my dreams.

And even at night, when she’s caressing my hair, thinking I’m sleeping, and looking down at me and smiling—I see it there too, through the thin cracks of my eyelids.

And I try my best to bear through it.

After all, she’s just getting her needs met.