Page 103 of Tangled Hearts
Knycole gave a small shrug, her lips twitching. “Kinda… yea,” she admitted.
“That’s normal.” Simone nodded. “Most people are. So let’s just start simple.” She leaned forward. “What brought you here? And what do you hope to gain from this?”
Knycole chewed the inside of her cheek. Her first instinct was to say“nothing, I’m fine.”But the silence in the room gave her nowhere to hide.
“I don’t even know,” she admitted, eyes dropping to her sneakers. “Everybody keeps telling me I need to talk to somebody. I guess… I just feel stuck.”
“Stuck,” Simone repeated gently. “In what way?”
Knycole’s eyes remained on her sneakers. The words tumbling out quicker than she expected. “I feel like I hurt people. Like… I know when I’m doing it, but I still do it. And then I feel bad. But not bad enough to stop. Just stuck doing wrong,” her voice cracked on the last word. “I be thinking something wrong with me. Everybody always say I got a good heart. But it don’t feel like that. It feel like I be breaking people I actually love.”
Simone nodded slowly, letting the silence stretch before asking, “when do you remember feeling that way for the first time?”
Knycole hesitated a little. Her throat tightened just saying it out loud.
“My daddy. Nick. He didn’t leave me, not like that. He was there. But the way he loved me… the way he carried shit… it made me feel like love always had conditions. Like it was gon’hurt no matter what. And now… I move the same way. I can’t tell if I’m protecting myself or just fucking everybody over because that’s all I know. That’s what an addicted daddy taught me. His love depended on how sober he was. How I made him feel. How much I didn’t bother him. It wasn’t reliable. It was always… up in the air. And I learned quick—don’t be too loud. Don’t be too needy. Don’t cry too hard, or he’ll go get high again.” Knycole leaned back in her seat. “I used to feel guilty every time he got high. Like I caused it. So I stopped asking for shit. Stopped needing anything.”
Simone’s pen stilled. “And yet, you describe yourself as someone who’s emotionally needy.”
“Because I am and I hate it. I always need reassurance. I cling. I beg people to love me in ways that don’t even make sense. I look strong to folks who don’t know me. But the ones who do? They walk light around me. Hov. Rock. Noir. They treat me like glass.”
Simone didn’t say anything, her soft eyes pushing Knycole to keep going. It was sitting right there begging to be free.
“I used to be strong. When me and Hov were little, I used to sneak him food when Nick would be on a binge. Let him sleep in my bed ‘cause I knew he was scared. But somewhere along the line, I broke. And I just… stayed broken.”
Passing her a Kleenex, Simone sat back, still giving Knycole the floor.
“They cater to me now. Even when I don’t deserve it.” Knycole’s brows dipped as if she was just realizing how much she weighed her friends down.
Simone softened her posture. “Do you believe you don’t deserve it?”
Knycole nodded, her eyes drooping more. “Yes. Especially with Hov.” Her heart fluttered at his name. “He’s my person.He’s seen every piece of me. He knows I love him the most, and I still couldn’t get it right.”
“Why not?”
“Because I needed him too much. I depended on him like a crutch, and that doesn’t feel like love, it feels like a burden. So I ran back to Rock because of that and...” she stopped herself from telling too much of Nick’s business. She loved her daddy. Their relationship had transformed into everything she always wanted. “Not ‘cause I didn’t love him, but ‘cause I was scared I was gon’ ruin him like Nick ruined me.”
She covered her mouth as sobs burst out of her. “I’m ashamed. I’m so fuckin’ ashamed.”
Simone handed her the whole box of tissues this time but she didn’t interrupt. Knycole crumbled into herself, rocking, trying to breathe.
“I always been the one people protected. But protection isn’t love. It’s just another name for fear. And when I realized Hov was starting to fear hurting me too… that he stopped being honest with me ‘cause he didn’t wanna break me. I knew I fucked up. I’m not his equal any more. I’m the weight he gotta carry.”
“Do you think he sees it that way?” Simone asked softly.
“I don’t know,” Knycole whispered. “But I do think that.”
The silence dragged.
Simone finally said, “Knycole, everything you just described… that’s not weakness. That’s a little girl who never learned that needing love doesn’t make her unlovable. You learned survival. You learned to twist your heart around other people’s silence. That doesn’t make you broken. That makes you scared. But fear isn’t final.”
Knycole wiped her face, her shoulders still shaking.
“You can’t keep trying to be the version of you that gets the least rejected. That’s not living, baby. That’s performance. And love can’t find you there.”
The room went still again. Knycole stared at her lap.
“Do you want peace?” Simone asked.
