Page 15 of The Breaking Point

She leans back, her tone casual, but her eyes are locked on mine to make sure I’m listening. “Your parents had just left. You were vulnerable, lost, and at exactly that moment Aiden showed up. He gave you attention. He showed interest. That filled the ache inside of you. So, you did everything you could to make sure he didn’t leave you.”

I blink, feeling a knot twist in my stomach. “Wow. Those psychology classes are really working out for you.”

She doesn't smile. Instead, she tilts her head slightly, considering me, and I know she’s not saying it to be cruel. She’s saying it because she’s been on the other side of healing. She knows how to look at things and dissect them, she’s done the work. Quinn’s a retired army vet who was medically discharged. She joined a VA group, when she came back and the counsellor there really helped her. So much, she went back to school to get a degree in psychology.”

“If you were paying me,” she says with a grin, “I’d slow down.”

I can’t help the small laugh that escapes me. I’m not sure if it’s from relief or disbelief.

The silence settles back around us for a moment, but there’s something heavier in the air now, something I can’t ignore. I’m still processing what she just said when my voice comes out shaky.

“You know… everyone thought I got pregnant on purpose.”

Quinn doesn’t miss a beat. She looks over at me, eyes wide, and shakes her head. “No.”

I blink at her, feeling the words still lodged in my throat. I shouldn’t have brought it up, shouldn’t be dredging up years of rumours and whispers that never seemed to die. But something in me needs it said out loud, needs it witnessed.

“I got into the same college as Aiden,” I say quietly. “I had a college fund. Why would I throw all that away for something I already had?”

Quinn snorts gently, setting her wineglass down with a soft clink. “People love to create drama. Gives them something totalk about at dinner. Makes them feel better about their own messes.”

I let the silence settle, the weight of everything we’ve said building like sediment. After a long beat, I ask the question that’s been tightening in my chest for a while. “Do you really think couples therapy works?”

“It works if you do the steps,” she says plainly. “Even if you two don’t stay together, it’ll help. A therapist can help you both understand your dynamic, figure out how to communicate without setting each other on fire. And if you decide to split, therapy will help you co-parent without dragging the kids through hell.”

I glance at her, surprised by the practicality of it. Quinn doesn’t sugarcoat anything, but she’s not harsh either. Just… honest.

She continues, softer now, “And maybe, if you’re ready, they can help you with the abandonment stuff. It’s buried deep, but it’s there. I see it every time you try to act like everything’s fine when it’s obviously not.”

I look down at my painted nails, silver to match the dress. I don’t say anything for a long while, because there’s too much to unpack. But eventually, I whisper, “Yeah. Maybe I’m finally ready to talk about it.”

Quinn doesn’t respond with words. She just leans in, rests her head lightly against mine, and lets the quiet stretch, like an answer all on its own.

We decide to head to bed after that. It’s nearly morning. The sky outside is beginning to pale at the edges, soft grey creeping into the corners of the living room. I can’t tell if I’m exhausted orwired. Probably both. A million thoughts race through my head, slamming into each other like waves. Abandonment issues. Do I really have them?

The words echo, and I try them on like a coat that doesn’t quite fit but also doesn’t feel unfamiliar. Maybe I do.

I’m the third child in a family that only ever wanted two. My parents were nearly forty when I was born. My siblings were already halfway grown. They had done their job. They had raised the children they intended to raise.

I was the accident. The surprise. The mistake no one planned for.

It was told to me like a joke, like a charming little anecdote they could toss out at dinner parties or during holidays. My mom would laugh and say it with her wine glass raised, her eyes already on someone else. “I had no idea I was pregnant. Thought it was menopause. By the time we found out, it was too late. So, we had another baby.”

The first time I heard it; I excused myself to cry in the bathroom. Quiet, fast tears I wiped away before anyone noticed. I was eleven.

The tenth time I heard it, I smiled and pretended it didn’t matter. Pretended I’d grown out of caring. That was easier than letting them see they still had the power to gut me without even meaning to.

I didn’t break until they forgot my sixteenth birthday.

Not forgot to call. Forgot it existed. No gift. No card. No mention. I came downstairs and the kitchen was empty, no balloons, no pancakes, no anything. My name didn’t even comeup. I waited until dinner, thinking maybe they were planning something, maybe they were just late. Boy was I wrong.

I blew up at them, said all the things I’d been holding in. The next day they told me I was moving in with grandma in Texas, just for a little while, said they’d be back to visit after their trip. That trip turned into a year. That year turned into forever. They sold the house and started traveling. One country after the next. Cruises. Airbnbs. Beachfront views and food blogs and Instagram-worthy sunsets.

They never came back. Not until I didn’t need them anymore.

Everything in between just disappeared with them, along with any illusion I still had that I mattered. And now, lying in bed in the quiet hours before sunrise, I wonder how I ever thought I was immune to abandonment. Of course I have issues. I was raised on them.

I still remember that first day at the new school. New district. New everything. I walked in clutching a binder that wasn’t mine, wearing a sweater two sizes too big. My grandma said it would make me look older. It didn’t. It made me look swallowed.

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