“And I canceled all of last month’s appointments to avoid facing the truth.” Perched at the edge of the couch, I slid my hands up and down the tops of my legs, anxious about making this confession but knowing it had to be done.

“I was worried about that.” He looked at me intently. “Did you have a relapse?”

“Yes. For months now, I’ve been backsliding.”

He reached for his notepad and clicked his ballpoint pen. “Intrusive thoughts?”

“Yes. And the rituals. And anxiety, the worst anxiety I’ve ever felt.”

He made a note and flipped back a few pages. “Months, you said? About when did this start?”

“August twenty-fifth.”

Ken looked up. “What triggered it?”

“Skylar told me she loved me.” For a second, I blamed Skylar for telling me she loved me for the first time on an odd day. Didn’t she know nothing good happened to me on odd days?

“And what about that was traumatic for you?”

I stared at my hands on my legs. “The weight of it. The responsibility.”

He made another note. “Tell me about the responsibility of loving someone.”

God, didn’t he understand me at all? “It’s not the responsibility of loving someone. Loving her is easy. It’s effortless.” I took a breath and tried to put into words how I felt. “It’s the responsibility that comes with letting someone love you. It means you’re beholden to that love. You have to sustain that love.”

“You have to deserve that love.”

Aha. He did understand me.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “And no matter how much my heart feels for her, my head just keeps convincing me I’m doomed to disappoint her, or worse.”

“You will disappoint her, Sebastian. That’s human nature. In any close relationship, there will be hurt and disappointment.” He set his notepad aside. “But there is also forgiveness. Redemption. No one expects you to be perfect.”

“Except for myself.”

“You’re going to have to let that go, Sebastian. We all know what it feels like to want to be a better person for someone, but aiming for perfection is a mistake.” He shifted in his chair, sat up taller. “Think back to when I first started seeing you. You set goals. You made progress. Things have changed now that you’ve fallen in love, but there’s no reason why we can’t adjust those goals, adjust your therapy to help you. You respond well to therapy, Sebastian. You’re disciplined and tough on yourself and determined. Let’s use those qualities to help you get back on track.”

I nodded, glad to hear his faith in me.

“Now tell me what happened in the last month.”

Sitting back on the couch, I described my last few months to him in detail, explaining how falling more in love with Skylar had triggered the faulty wiring in my brain to convince me the rituals would protect her. “Instead they drove her away,” I said. “She accused me of doing it on purpose, and I wonder if she was right. Maybe I wasn’t doing it to protect her—maybe I was doing it to make her leave so that it would be less painful. I’d have control over it, you know?”

Ken nodded. “You’d be alone by choice then, rather than be abandoned.”

“Right.” I exhaled, closing my eyes for a moment. “You know, I spent all last night wondering if those shrinks were right about my issues stemming from my mother’s death. Deep down, am I just scared of being left alone? Did I isolate myself in school because I was afraid to make friends? Did I choose Diana because I knew subconsciously there was never any danger of losing my whole heart to her? And did my feelings for Skylar trigger this relapse because I swam out past that danger?”

“Those are good, introspective questions, Sebastian.”

I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. “But then I wonder if that’s all bullshit and it’s just neurological, not psychological.”

Ken nodded. “Also a valid question.”

I pinned him with a stare. “I need answers, Ken. I need help. I don’t want to lose her. Tell me what to do.”

• • •

Together, Ken and I discussed strategies for getting back on track, some that had been successful for me in the past, and some that were new to me. He told me to schedule an appointment with my doctor to see about changing up some of my meds and specifically asked me to mention being treated for depression as well as anxiety. I promised I would, and I meant it. Then he asked how serious I was about Skylar.

“Serious,” I said. “In all of this, the one thing I have no doubt about is the way I feel about her.”

Ken smiled. “Perfect. So let’s bring her in here and talk about what she can do to help.”

Feeling optimistic, I left his office building, putting up the collar of my coat against the cold. I was dying to run right to Skylar and apologize and tell her I was doing everything possible to get better fast, but I thought it might be better to spend some time doing some serious self-reflection, setting new goals for myself, and pondering the best way to show her that I wanted to make a life with her, if she’d give me another chance.

When I got back to the cabin, I texted her instead. I miss you and I’m thinking of you every minute. If I’m silent for a while, it isn’t to shut you out. It’s to get well enough to let you in, and never let you go. I love you. I’ll always love you.

It nearly killed me not to call him the following week, but I knew he needed this time to work things out on his own. I answered his text with a simple I love you too and waited for him to come to me. I missed him terribly, but I was also glad he was taking this seriously. If he’d rushed right to my side, I might be tempted to think he wasn’t taking enough time to think carefully about what he wanted for the future.

I knew what I wanted. Finally.

The days that Sebastian took for himself, I took for myself too, reflecting on what I’d accomplished this summer and where I was headed. I felt proud of the direction my life had taken: I had a job I loved and I was good at it; I had big-picture plans to save up the money to buy my own condo like my sisters had done; I made rent payments to my parents even though they said they didn’t want them, I made a car payment each month on time, and I still had some left over for nice shoes. (Note to self: Do Not Wear Leopard Heels In Rain.)

Maybe I didn’t have a wedding ring or kids like some people my age, but I had fallen madly in love…that was a good start, wasn’t it? But the more days went by without hearing from him, the more I worried he’d changed his mind about me. His note had said I’ll always love you, and in my mind I started to hear a sort of final, tragic ring to the words…like maybe we wouldn’t get our happy ending but we’d always have last summer. Each night I went to sleep alone, I fretted and prayed and hoped and missed him. Please don’t let me miss him forever. Please don’t let me regret anything. Please bring him back to me.

And then one shivering cold evening in early December, I came home from work to find an envelope taped to the guest house door with my name on it. The writing was Sebastian’s. Surprised, I looked around but saw no one around and heard only the wind gusting through the orchard. A few snow flurries were starting to fall from the inky sky as I pulled the envelope off the door and hustled inside, kicking it shut behind me.

Without even taking off my coat, I threw my gloves onto the counter and slid my finger under the flap. Inside were two sheets of notebook paper folded into thirds. Hands trembling, I opened them up. They had spiral fringe on the left as if he’d written them in his journal and ripped them out. The top one was a letter.

My sweet Skylar,

Sorry this letter isn’t on nicer paper—you deserve beautiful things, and I promise to give them to you. But this paper suits me, I think. A little rough around the edges, but the words are heartfelt.