Page 104 of Tangled Hearts
“I don’t even know what that looks like,” she admitted.
“It looks like letting people love you without earning it. Without shrinking. Without having to fall apart just to be held.”
Knycole cried harder at that. Loud, ugly tears. When she found her voice to speak again, it came out just above a whisper. “What if I never learn how to be enough for the people I love?”
Simone looked her square in the eyes. “Then we’ll sit here together until you learn how to be enough for yourself.”
“Your daddy shaped the way you see love. That doesn’t mean you’re doomed to repeat what he taught you. What we can do together is help you separatehisflaws fromyouridentity. And maybe, when you stop seeing yourself as weak or needy, you’ll start seeing yourself as someone just trying to learn how to love without bleeding out.”
Simone’s words made Knycole exhale the tension she’d been holding in her chest.
“Does this sound like something you’re willing to do? This journey won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it.”
Knycole nodded. “I’m ready.” A faint smile rested on her face.
“Now that we know why you’re here, tell me about yourself.”
“I’m twenty-two. I have a son,” Knycole smiled thinking about Qua. “I’m currently in school to be a nurse but I’ve been thinking about going bigger and becoming a doctor.”
“I like that idea,” Simone smiled, sipping a little from her thermos. “Go big or go home.”
“I was born addicted to crack… my mama overdosed when I was super young. My daddy struggled with drugs up until about five years ago.”
“And what made him give it up? You?” Simone probed.
Knycole shook her head. “No… I really don’t know. We’ve never talked about it for real … I mean I did tell him he’d loseme if he didn’t get it together but, I don’t know, Dr. Simone.” She shrugged.
“Is that something you think you need closure about?”
Her head rocked side to side again. “Not really. I mean, I’m not trying to trigger him back into that dark place.”
“A place you seem to constantly live in. Hmm.” Simone pursed her lips, jotting things down as she went.
Knycole’s face balled up. She didn’t like the way the statement came out. It felt judgmental—felt like her corpse had been cut open for the world to pick apart.
“Did I offend you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Knycole closed her eyes for a few seconds, regulating her feelings. “I love my daddy.”
“Okay?”
“And hearing you say something about him is a sore spot for me. Like, I know he wasn’t the best but he’s what I got. He’s the man God gave me, so I gotta know the pain comes with peace. Nick is peaceful now.”
Simone placed her notebook down, looking Knycole square in the face. “Is Knycole peaceful?”
Tears brimmed her eyes. “No,” she choked out.
The word hung heavy in the room. Even heavier than the silence that followed. It wasn’t just an answer. It was a long overdue confession. Knycole had spent years trying to pretend she was fine, that she was holding it together, but with that single word she let the truth slip through.
Peace wasn’t hers. It never had been. She carried too many voices in her head. Her father’s, her lovers’, even her own doubts. All arguing over who she should be. And somewhere in all of that noise, she had forgotten what it sounded like to just be still.
Knycole realized then that peace wasn’t something she could borrow from a man’s arms or steal from fleeting moments of happiness. Peace had to be built, brick by brick, from the inside.
That was the cruelest part of tangled hearts. You spend so much time twisting yourself around others that you don’t notice how frayed you’ve become. How much of you is lost in the knots. And by the time you say it out loud, the wordnotastes like ashes in your mouth.
