“I always felt like I had to fit into something that wasn’t made for me,” I continue, the words coming slower now, more deliberate. “I was supposed to fulfill their dreams for me, and in my mother’s case that was her being able to live vicariously through everything I did.”
I let out a soft laugh.
“She wanted me to become a Hollywood actress.”
Soren smirks.
“It’s true!” I throw my hands up, shaking my head, my mouth curved into a small smile. “She enrolled me in drama class and forced me to be in all the school plays—including the musicals! I’m an awful singer, too!”
He laughs now.
The words settle awkwardly in my chest. Whimsical as they are, they make something stick out to me. I’ve never thought about how wildly misplaced I was, like one of those kid’s toys when you try to jam the triangle into the circle hole.
I’m the triangle. The triangle is me.
“I think that’s why I’ve stayed in situations longer than I should have,” I add, softer now, the truth slipping out before I can filter it. “Because I thought if I just tried hard enough, I’d finally belong somewhere.”
There it is. The part I don’t usually say.
I expect something typical in response. Advice. Sympathy. A shift in the air that signals discomfort. Any of the reactionsI’ve had when I’ve braved up and shared even part of this history.
But none of that comes.
Instead, Soren turns slightly toward me. “Of course you feel that way.”
The words land immediately. Simple and certain.
They don’t question me.
They don’t soften what I said, or try to reshape it into something more palatable.
They accept it as fact.
“You were disconnected from your origin,” he continues, his voice calm and even, “and then placed somewhere that didn’t know how to integrate you.”
My breath catches. The phrasing is precise. Deliberate.
“They didn’t know what to do with you,” he says, “so you learned how to make yourself fit with them.”
I blink, something in my chest shifting, opening in a way that feels unfamiliar.
“That isn’t a flaw,” he adds. “That’s survival. Making the best of an incredibly complex, layered situation that you don’t get given a guidebook on how to deal with—especially when you’re the child.”
The words settle deeper than anything else.
He makes me feel the opposite of wrong or broken. And something a therapist once said comes flashing back to me, pointing out that I had needed to be the parent in my relationship with my mother because she sure as hell wasn’t willing or capable.
“They failed you.”
That lands harder. Cleaner. No qualifiers or minimizers or tactful diplomacy to make it more digestible for everyone else.
“You don’t need to go back to people who made you feel like that.”
My eyes sting suddenly, the reaction immediate and unexpected. I let out a shaky breath, the heat pressing in closeraround me. “I’ve never said that out loud before,” I admit. “All that I told you.”
“I know.” His hand moves then. Slow. Deliberate. His fingers brush along my arm first, light enough that it almost feels incidental, before settling at my wrist. His thumb presses gently over my pulse. The contact is grounding. Intentional.
“You’ve been carrying that alone for a very long time,” he says quietly, “and look what happened when you did.” There’s a pause. Then—“You don’t have to anymore, little poison.”