1 During the third year after my severe clinical depression diagnosis, Liam was the only reason I stayed alive. He locked away every sharp object in the house, installed safety railings on the balcony, and even left the bathroom door cracked open when I showered. "We’ll take it slow. I’ll wait for you to get better." That was until Chloe came back from Europe. She had studied psychology and immediately claimed Liam’s actions were cementing my identity as a patient. "The more you protect her, the more she’ll believe she’s broken." Liam stayed silent for a whole night. The next day, he took down the balcony railings. "Keeping it locked up only makes you afraid. Leaving it open is actually no big deal." He put the knives back in the kitchen drawers. "You have to learn to coexist with these things." He stopped checking on me in the middle of the night to see if I was crying. "You need to learn to process your own emotions." Chloe stood beside him every time, nodding in approval. "Exactly. This is the healthy way to handle it." The day I was crouched in the corner of a shopping mall, hyperventilating and unable to breathe, I heard them walking ahead of me, speaking in low voices. Chloe: "Just hold on a little longer. She’s almost cured." Liam: "And then what?" "Then you’ll finally be free." She hooked her pinky finger around his and laughed softly. That night, I stood on the balcony. The wind was howling. The safety railings were gone. … When the front door unlocked, half of my foot was already dangling over the edge of the balcony. The wind whipped through the empty space where the railing used to be, plastering my nightgown against my legs. Liam and Chloe walked in, laughing. The car keys in Liam’s hand clattered to the floor. All the color drained from his face in an instant, and he bolted toward me. Seeing his panic, my body instinctively shrank back a little. In the past, whenever I even stood too close to the balcony, he would wrap his arms around me from behind, too terrified to even speak loudly. He would whisper, "Nora, don't be scared. I'm here." But Chloe reached out and clamped her hand around his arm. Her tone was gentle, yet absolutely commanding. "Don't go over there, Liam. She's using self-destructive tendencies to blackmail you. If you go to her now, you're only reinforcing her manipulative behavior." Liam stopped dead at the sliding glass door. He looked at me, the frantic panic in his eyes slowly sinking into something colder. Chloe continued, "This is a textbook borderline control tactic. She knows you're scared, so she uses herself as leverage every single time. You cannot keep playing along." Liam’s Adam's apple bobbed. I stood barefoot on the very edge of the concrete, my toes going numb from the freezing wind. He stared at me through the glass door, his voice dropping low. "Nora, look at yourself. You haven't actually jumped, have you?" I froze. Chloe sighed softly, like a teacher dealing with an unruly student. Liam draped his jacket over his arm, his tone shifting back to that exhausted, restrained patience. "The wind is strong up there. Once you're done acting, come back inside. I'm not going to enable you without limits anymore." The fingers gripping the doorframe slowly, agonizingly let go. So standing here wasn’t dangerous to him anymore. It was just acting. I walked slowly back into the living room, my bare feet padding across the freezing hardwood floor. Liam bent down to pick up his keys and said to Chloe, "You're right. I indulged her way too much in the past." Chloe handed him a mug of hot water. "You've done incredibly well. Caregivers need boundaries too, you know." At 2:00 AM, I dragged myself out of bed. My chest felt like a concrete slab was crushing it. My temples throbbed violently, and a sharp, persistent ringing filled my ears. I pulled open my nightstand drawer and grabbed the familiar white prescription bottle. I popped the cap, but instead of my medication, a handful of brightly colored candy poured into my palm. I stared at the candy for a long time, unable to process what I was looking at. I clutched the bottle and walked out to the living room. Liam was sitting on the sofa, scrolling through emails, his face illuminated by the cold glow of his laptop. I held the bottle out to him, my throat so raw it burned to speak. "Liam. Where is my medication?" He didn't look up. "I swapped it." I gripped the edge of the sofa, my knuckles turning white. "My chest hurts. My head hurts. Please give me my medication." Liam finally looked up, his brow furrowing slightly. "Chloe said your dosage has far exceeded the safe limit. You've developed a drug dependency." Chloe stepped out of the master bedroom. "Nora, placebos are a very common supplementary treatment. You need to believe in your own willpower." Liam took the bottle from my hand and poured out a single piece of candy. "Take this for now. You just have to get through tonight. Stop treating yourself like an invalid." My stomach lurched violently. I grabbed the edge of the coffee table, dry heaving. He stood up, looking utterly exasperated. "I have an early meeting tomorrow. Don't drag this out all night." I fell to my knees on the rug, my fingers digging into the edge of the table. "Liam. Please." His footsteps faltered for a second. Chloe softly reminded him, "Liam, she's testing your boundaries." Liam’s back went rigid. Then, he pushed open the door to the master bedroom. "Process it yourself." The lock clicked shut behind them. I lay collapsed in the dark living room, listening to my own breathing grow more and more frantic. 2 I stayed curled up on the rug until dawn. Liam walked over and tossed a dress onto the coffee table. He looked down at my trembling body, his voice completely flat. "Change into this. We're taking Chloe out for a welcome-back lunch." I shook my head, unable to force a coherent sound past my throat. The agonizing withdrawal from missing my medication last night hadn't faded. Even the distant sound of the elevator doors opening and closing pierced my ears like a siren. Liam bent down, grabbed my wrist, and yanked me off the floor. "Exposure therapy is the most effective method. You can't hide in this house and rot for the rest of your life." I stumbled, a red mark instantly blooming around my wrist where he gripped it. "I'm not going. I can't do today." Chloe poked her head out from the hallway, her tone patronizingly sweet. "Nora, avoiding it will only make the fear worse. You need to give Liam a little confidence in you." Liam looked at her, his eyes softening for a fleeting second. When he looked back at me, his grip tightened. "Be good. Don't make this difficult for me." The private dining room at the restaurant was blindingly bright. A dozen people sat around the large circular table. They were all Liam's friends—the same people who had watched him take care of me for the past three years. Someone saw me and jokingly called out, "Look who finally came out of hiding! It hasn't been easy for Liam these past three years." I sat in the corner, twisting the fabric of my dress around my fingers, my chest tightening painfully in waves. Chloe walked over with a glass of warm water, her voice low but pitched perfectly so the entire table could hear. "Guys, please don't look at Nora like she's a patient. Excessive sympathy will only solidify her identity as a sick person. She's actually very healthy now, right, Nora?" A dozen pairs of eyes locked onto me. I opened my mouth, but only a faint gasp came out. Liam sat next to Chloe, lightly tapping the rim of his glass. "Say something. Don't always make other people cover for you." Someone chuckled. "It's depression, not terminal cancer. Come on, Nora, enough is enough." "Seriously, Liam revolves his whole life around you. Anyone would be exhausted." "Chloe comes back, and boom—a few tricks and she's out in public again. A professional really makes a difference." The words drilled into my ears like tiny, sharp needles. I covered my ears, my body beginning to tremble uncontrollably. Chloe leaned down, gently pressing a hand on my shoulder. "Look, the avoidance reaction is kicking in. Don't be scared, we're all here to help you." The scent of her perfume washed over me. It was the exact same scent that was on Liam's collar last night. I shot up from my chair. My knee slammed into the edge of the table, knocking my glass over. Red wine splashed all over Liam's shirt. The room went dead silent. Liam looked down at the dark stain on his shirt, slowly wiping it with a napkin. The veins on the back of his hand bulged. I couldn't breathe. I crouched on the floor, digging my nails into the carpet. "Take me home, Liam. Please. Take me home." In the past, whenever this happened, he would take off his jacket, drape it over my head to block out the noise, and carry me out. But this time, he just stared at me coldly. "Are you done throwing this tantrum?" Chloe grabbed his sleeve, offering gentle advice: "Don't blame her, it's a withdrawal reaction. If you take her away now, the exposure therapy will be completely ruined." Liam closed his eyes for a second, then turned and sat back down. He picked up his water glass, his voice dangerously low. "Nora. Stand up. Walk back to your seat." I looked up at him. My vision was entirely blurred by tears, but I could still see how closely he and Chloe were sitting. Chloe handed him a napkin, her fingertips lingering on his palm for a second. He didn't pull away. I stared at him in absolute despair, my tears hitting the carpet. "What if I can't get up?" Liam looked at me, his eyes filled with nothing but exhausted apathy. "Then stay crouched down forever. I am not helping you up again." Someone muttered, "Liam finally grew a spine." Chloe raised her glass, gently clinking it against Liam's. "Liam, you're doing exactly the right thing." The entire table resumed laughing and chatting. No one looked down to see if I was suffocating. Even Liam smiled along with them. The string that had been pulled taut inside my chest for three years suddenly snapped. My fingers were still digging into the carpet, the edges of my nails bleeding, but I couldn't feel the pain. I slowly stood up. Liam seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. "See? That's better. Stop forcing everyone to revolve around you." I leaned against the wall, pushed open the heavy restaurant doors, and walked out into the pouring rain. Liam didn't follow me. The rain quickly soaked through my dress, the freezing cold creeping up my legs. My hands shook violently as I fumbled in my pocket for my phone. I needed to call my psychiatrist. But before I could even hit dial, my vision went black. A crushing, overwhelming wave of suffocation swallowed me whole. 3 When I finally woke up, Liam was standing by my bed holding a medicine cup, looking down at me. "Acute pneumonia. You had a fever for two days." I instinctively reached for my phone. It wasn't there. "Give me my phone." Liam avoided my eyes. "Chloe said you constantly read negative support group chats, and you were trying to contact your old doctor to ask for psychiatric meds. That's terrible for your desensitization process." "You shouldn't be exposed to those conservative treatments anymore. You can't rely on medication forever." Chloe walked in holding a clipboard. "I already spoke with Dr. Evans. Her treatment plan relies way too heavily on medication. It's inappropriate for your current stage of recovery." "To prevent her from interfering with your treatment, I deleted her number from your contacts." Liam handed me the medicine cup. "Drink this. And stop glaring at her." I didn't take it. His patience vanished. He slammed the cup down on the nightstand. "When you finally decide to start living like a normal person, you'll get your phone back." I didn't beg him. My eyes were completely empty. Liam looked uncomfortable under my hollow stare. He turned and grabbed his jacket. "Get up. I'm taking you somewhere." Half an hour later, he led me to the ground floor of an abandoned building. When the heavy metal door to the basement groaned open, the suffocating smell of rust hit me. Under a single, flickering bulb in the corner sat a totaled, crushed car frame. The front end was completely caved in. The windshield was shattered into a spiderweb of jagged glass. I froze dead in my tracks. Three years ago, that exact car was barreling straight toward Liam. I shoved him out of the way. I took the hit, breaking two ribs and developing severe PTSD. Since that day, I hadn't slept through a single night. Liam gripped my shoulders and forcefully pushed me inside. "Facing your fear is the only way to cure PTSD." I dug my nails into the doorframe. "Liam. Don't do this." Chloe stood behind him, clutching her clipboard. "Nora, trauma memories have to be recoded. You need to trust Liam. He is doing this to help you." Liam shoved me harder. I was thrown into the basement, my knees crashing onto the hard concrete floor. The heavy metal door slammed shut behind me. I scrambled up and pounded frantically on the door, my voice shaking uncontrollably. "Liam! Let me out!" He looked at me through the iron grate in the door, his eyes heavy with exhaustion. "You are going to sit in there and look at it until you aren't afraid anymore." I shook my head wildly, gripping the freezing iron bars. "I'll die in here." Liam's eyes flickered with hesitation. Chloe whispered, "She's exaggerating her fear. Do not let her manipulate you." He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, his voice was like steel. "Nora, I am so incredibly tired." I froze. Liam looked at me, his voice carrying the pathetic grievance of someone who felt completely drained. "I just want you to turn back into the bright, happy girl you used to be. Can't you have a little sympathy for me?" My hands slowly released the iron bars. Chloe gently linked her arm through his. "Liam, you're doing the right thing. Desensitization is always a painful process. A caterpillar has to struggle to become a butterfly." Their footsteps echoed down the hall, growing fainter until they disappeared entirely. The basement was dead silent. Just me and the crushed car. I slumped against the corner, my fingernails slowly clawing into the peeling plaster wall. The smell of rust, the shattered glass, the horrific screech of the tires—everything exploded out of the darkness and attacked me all at once. I bit down hard on the back of my hand. I didn't scream. Over the next ten hours, I clawed a chunk of plaster out of the wall. My fingernails ripped backward, smearing blood all over the gray concrete. Someone came to the door twice. Once, it was Liam. He stood outside for a long time, but he never opened the door. The second time, it was Chloe. Through the heavy metal, I heard her say, "Excellent progress. She's completely stopped begging for help." I heard my own laughter. It was incredibly soft. So that’s what they wanted. Not for me to survive. Just for me to stop asking for help. Sometime after midnight, a piece of paper was slid under the door. It was written in Chloe's handwriting, detailing the next phase of the "behavioral desensitization" plan. At the very bottom was Liam's signature, authorizing it. The date next to his signature was the day before he tore down the balcony railing. I held that piece of paper between my bleeding fingertips, feeling my heart slowly, agonizingly tightening until it shattered. 4 When Liam finally unlocked the basement door, I was sitting quietly next to the crushed car. I wasn't trembling. I wasn't crying. I just looked up at him and smiled. His eyes instantly lit up. "Nora!" He rushed in and wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight. "Thank God. I knew you could do it." Chloe stood in the doorway. A flicker of surprise crossed her face, but she quickly smiled. "See, Liam? Scientific intervention works." Liam hugged me tighter. "You're finally cured." I rested my chin lightly on his shoulder. "Yeah. I'm cured." For the next two weeks, I acted exactly like a normal person. I woke up early to make porridge. I ironed Liam's shirts. When Chloe came over to take her "progress notes," I even poured her a glass of warm water. The tension in Liam's eyes slowly faded away. He started taking me out to see his friends, bragging to anyone who would listen that Chloe had saved us. Someone praised Chloe's expertise. Liam nodded, his tone lighter than it had been in years. "She pulled me out of the mud, too." I sat next to him, silently picking a dead leaf off a potted sunflower. I bought that sunflower three years ago, the day I was discharged from the hospital after the crash. Liam had supported me as I spent an hour picking it out. He said our home needed a little brightness. Now, it sat next to the gaping hole on the balcony, its leaves dry and curling at the edges. I watered it every single day, but it kept withering away. Chloe followed my gaze and smiled. "Plants have to adapt to an open environment too, you know. You can't protect them too much." Liam nodded. "She's right." I nodded too. "Right." That evening, I was cleaning the study. A file folder hadn't been sealed properly, and the corner of an English-headed document was sticking out. I pulled it out and saw a signed overseas transfer agreement for Liam. Destination: Munich, Germany. Duration: Three years. Tucked underneath it was a plane ticket to Munich for the exact same day. The name on the ticket was Chloe. At the very bottom of the pile was a drafted breakup settlement. One apartment. One million dollars. A clause stating that once the "caregiver relationship" was terminated, neither party would interfere with the other's life. I sat at his desk and read through those pages, one by one. So that's what my "recovery" was. It was just the bureaucratic red tape he had to clear before he left. He needed me to look normal. That way, when he abandoned me, he could tell himself, You're cured now. You don't need me anymore. Liam's voice called out from the hallway. "Nora, I'm working late tonight. I won't be coming home." I slid the documents back into the folder exactly as I found them. "Okay." He seemed incredibly satisfied with my calm response. "Go to sleep early. Don't wait up." "I won't." The second the front door clicked shut, I walked out to the balcony and touched the dry, brittle leaves of the sunflower. The veins crunched under my fingers. I retrieved my cracked phone, which Liam had hidden on top of a tall cabinet. I opened the notes app and slowly began to type. "Your stomach medication is in the second drawer on the left. Don't take it on an empty stomach." "You're allergic to mangoes. Don't just buy cakes because they look pretty." "Your knee aches when it rains. Remember to turn the heat on." "Stop watering the sunflower on the balcony so much. It didn't drown; the roots rotted away a long time ago." I paused for a moment, then kept typing. "Liam. I used to think that throwing myself in front of that car would protect us from every disaster the world could throw at us." "But people get tired." "You're finally free." "And just like you wanted... I'm finally cured." "In the moment of my death, I am entirely lucid. Entirely normal." At 3:00 AM, the wind was howling. I placed my slippers neatly on the very edge of the balcony. I set my phone next to them, the screen locked on that final note. The stainless steel railing that had protected me for three years had been torn down by Liam himself two weeks ago. He said, Leaving it open is actually no big deal. I leaned against the wall and stepped barefoot onto the freezing concrete edge. The city lights far below looked like scattered stars. My phone suddenly buzzed. A message from Liam. [I booked a flight for tomorrow afternoon. Chloe and I are moving to Munich.] [There's an agreement on the desk in the study. Nora, since you're fully recovered now, let's end this amicably.] I read it once, then locked the screen. The wind whipped my nightgown around my legs. I took one step forward, and let myself fall.
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