Chapter 19

When June got home, Hadrian was already fast asleep. She decided to try playing her meditation music, something Hadrian didn’t seem to mind. He had his white noise going, and the two sounds seemed to blend into a hypnotic, almost magical combination. Eventually, June drifted off to sleep.

The next day, June did her best to refocus on work and regain her balance after the previous night. She hadn’t slept well, getting only a few hours before waking up in a sweat, realizing that Hadrian had already left for the gym. Lying in bed, she thought about the strange dream she’d just had about her and her brother Emil as children. It had been a long time since she’d even remembered a dream. She tried to push it out of her mind, focusing on the meditation music and her breathing, managing to fall asleep for another hour before it was time to get the kids ready for school.

June had a lot to catch up on after spending the previous days reflecting and writing, but she was able to get through it quickly. By the end of the day, she felt relieved to have cleared her slate before picking up the kids. The projects she was managing were nearing completion, with most of the work being highly technical. All June could really do was monitor the progress and report on any developments.

That evening, she packed an overnight bag for Evelyn to take with her on Friday morning. Evvie, was going to spend the night at her best friend Aria Ceretti’s house. Aria was the stepdaughter of Ms. Ceretti, the kids’ favorite teacher, who had taught them all from first to second grade, except for Elizabeth, who had only had her for one year. Aria and Evvie were both in Ms. Ceretti’s second-grade class, and it had been a challenge for Aria to handle all the attention. Everyone wanted to be her best friend because her mom was the teacher, but Aria mostly wanted space.

Evvie wasn’t like the other kids. She didn’t like crowds and was quite shy, waiting for others to approach her. That combination seemed to bond the two of them. June and Autumn, Ms. Ceretti’s first name, had become friends over the years, sharing both a love for June’s children and frustrations with the other parents and school politics at Forest Glen.

June was glad Evvie had such a good friend. Her daughter was so painfully shy, and being Aria’s best friend meant she was always included in the fun events and birthdays. Aria was turning eight, and Evvie was the only kid invited to spend the night before the big birthday party.

June and Autumn had worked that out together. Evvie had been struggling with feelings of being "ugly," saying it was because of her dark skin and difficult hair—she would never look like the pretty blonde girls, like her mom or Aria. June’s heart broke every time she heard Evvie call herself ugly. She had shared her concern with Autumn, who had arranged some classroom activities to highlight Evvie’s strengths. One activity even had the other kids write down things they liked about her. While it wasn’t a cure, it had helped a lot.

After dinner and tucking the kids in, June hoped she’d find sleep quickly, and to her relief, she did. Exhaustion took over, which was a good sign. She knew that if she were manic, she wouldn’t be able to sleep at all, and if she were psychotic, she wouldn’t be able to focus on work. Feeling a breath of relief, she sank into bed next to Hadrian, who was already turned over and breathing deeply. At least he wasn’t snoring, June thought, just before she drifted off.

The next morning, after a solid seven hours of sleep, June felt refreshed and stronger—less spacey, less dizzy. She started a new document even before her team meeting. Feeling more grounded in her convictions about Donna, she planned on wrapping up her reflections and coming to final conclusions. Once this was settled, she intended to draft a letter to give to Donna, with answers to her triggering, repeated question: “Did you ever love me?”

Conclusions on Reflections - March 25, 2022, 7:42 AM

When I have dinner with Donna, I am triggered. The intensity of her pain triggers me—I dissociate. I feel light-headed, floaty; things look golden, and I feel a little high. I struggle to fully be present in my body. It’s hard to think clearly. I’m trying to maintain the boundary I want—just friends. I don’t want to be more than that. I need a close friend, a sisterhood. Her desire is to be more, and it feels like she wants to possess me, own me, make me hers.

It feels like, slowly over the past six years, she has moved from having a fun, flirty girlfriend to making out with, to grooming me to be her eventual full-time lover and Plan B—her fallback relationship for when Don dies, so she won’t be alone.

I feel like she’s using me so she has a lover to dream about, fantasize about, and hold on to as her hope for the future, helping her feel less trapped in a life where she’s the rock for everyone else. Trapped in a marriage with a man with whom she feels no real intimate connection. I’m her escape hatch, and that feels terrible.

June took a quick break to log into her team meeting. It ended early, giving her some time to herself. Twenty minutes later, she resumed her reflections, feeling the weight of her thoughts but determined to push through.

As she sat back down at her desk, she picked up where she left off, her mind returning to Donna and the complexities of their relationship. It wasn’t just about boundaries anymore. It was about trust, about control, about the delicate balance between love, friendship, and emotional dependency. Donna’s neediness felt suffocating, and June realized she had been bending under the pressure for far too long.

She clicked back into the document, her fingers moving across the keyboard with more certainty now. These feelings weren’t new, but they had been simmering under the surface, waiting for a moment like this to be acknowledged. As the words flowed, she felt a sense of release, like she was finally beginning to untangle herself from the emotional knot that had been holding her captive for years.

June paused to stare at the screen from time to time, fingers hovering over the keyboard, feeling the buildup of thoughts that had been swirling inside her. It was like the dam was finally cracking, and she wasn’t sure if she was ready for the flood, but it was coming either way. She had to get it all out—everything she hadn’t been able to say before, everything she’d buried beneath years of appeasement, guilt, and a deep, unresolved anger.

She does this without reciprocation. She doesn’t “feel me,” and has actually repeatedly said that she likes that. She is free to feel however she wants inside her one-sided fantasy. My subtle hints—expressing to her that I’m in constant conflict, feeling imbalanced in the relationship (I consistently told her that I felt bad that she’s “more into me than I am into her”)—none of that deterred her for long. And I haven’t consistently had the courage to set and keep my boundaries. That feels terrible.

What’s worse is that now it’s like she’s playing the victim, as if I led her on all this time and gave her no clues, no indication that this relationship was not right. She claims she has always been consistent—which is mostly true. But the insinuation is that I have not been consistent.

I just want a friendship. I don’t think she knows what it means to be a true friend, to have a true friend. Someone who accepts you fully for who you are, loves you—not romantically but in a strong, familial way—through ups and downs, good times and bad. I don’t think she’s ever had anyone in her life that she felt she could depend on. I’m trying to be that for her, but it keeps blurring into more than I’m comfortable with.

My dissociation passes, and then I feel panic, fear, anger—fight or flight. My chest is tight, I struggle to focus and think straight. I can’t sleep. I’m afraid. I become obsessed with “figuring things out”—finding a label, a root cause for what’s happening, so I can figure out what to do to fix it. Fix me, fix everyone I love—my kids, my husband, and Donna.

Strangely, I don’t feel like I have to fix my sister. She seems okay, even though she has issues and problems. She has Sean, her kids, and her life. She seems strong, even though she’s dealing with things.

Oh my God, as I’m writing this, I am realizing... I actually did something good! (I am crying now.) I was able to save her from some of the trauma I experienced—even though I know I messed up in some things, I did more things right. That’s what mattered. She is okay. She is safe. She is loved. She is strong. She has connection and sanity. I love her so much.

I can function through this at work and at home by being minimally engaged, intensely reflecting, researching, writing, analyzing relationships in between meetings and responsibilities. It feels like a dangerously careful balancing act, though. I can do this for a while, but I shouldn’t keep it up for long. The cost of context-switching is high, and it’s hard to “get my head in the game” at work after just crying and reflecting. While reflecting, I can feel myself start to dissociate, sometimes start to panic, sometimes get confused. Then I have to rip myself out of that and focus back on work, or pick the kids up from school, and make dinner, and tend to their needs—help them work through the constant conflicts they’re dealing with.

As if right on cue, a meeting reminder popped up and June stopped her reflecting to join it.  As she finished her meeting and returned to her reflections, she was struck by a sudden memory—the dream from the other night. It had startled her awake, her heart racing, as if from a panic attack. The feelings from that dream mirrored the strange episodes she’d been having around Donna—the light-headedness, the sense of floating, the dissociation.

She sat with these realizations, questioning them, letting them simmer in her mind. Sleep came that night, but her conclusions were left to linger, waiting for confirmation in the morning. As the next few days passed, she kept revisiting the reflections, refining her thoughts, clarifying her questions. Each time she re-read what she’d written, new layers emerged, more complex questions surfaced, until she was finally certain of what needed to be done.

June knew now that she needed to speak these words out loud to someone who would understand—to someone who could guide her through this tangled web. That person was Solin. Only Solin could help her unravel the mess of emotions, truths, and confusion that had been stirring within her for so long. Until that moment, her truth—ugly as it felt—would remain buried just beneath the surface, waiting for Solin to help her bring it into the light.

You can be amazing, You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug

You can be the outcast, Or be the backlash of somebody's lack of love

Or you can start speaking up

Nothing's gonna hurt you the way that words do, When they settle 'neath your skin

Kept on the inside and no sunlight, Sometimes a shadow wins

But I wonder what would happen if you

Say what you wanna say, And let the words fall out

Honestly I wanna see you be brave

Everybody's been there, everybody's been stared down By the enemy

Fallen for the fear and done some disappearing

Bow down to the mighty

But don't run, stop holding your tongue

Maybe there's a way out of the cage where you live

Maybe one of these days you can let the light in

Show me how big your brave is

Innocence, your history of silence, Won't do you any good

Did you think it would?

Let your words be anything but empty, Why don't you tell them the truth?

Say what you wanna say, And let the words fall out

Honestly I wanna see you be brave

Brave by Sarah Bareilles