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“Amelia,” Daniel started. “Do you want me near you?”
She couldn’t answer. Her hands pressed into her face tighter.
“J-just go,” she managed to choke out. “You don’t have to stay for this.”
“No,” he said, which surprised her. She looked at him, and he was kneeling in front of her. “I’m not leaving you.”
“You should. You should run and never look back.”
“That’s something a coward would do,” he said. “But I’m here, next to you, even when you’re not perfect. I will never run from you, Amelia. I’ll be the one running to you.”
He was lying. He had to be lying. No one would want to sit there and deal with someone who was an emotional mess and couldn’t get it together.
Except her dad.
Her mom.
John.
Daniel gently reached and brushed away a tear. She surprised herself by letting him.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She could only stare at him. Her mind finally quieted, her breathing slowed, and the post-anxiety exhaustion hit her.
Amelia said thickly, “I think . . . I think I have PTSD.”
“From what?”
She looked at him. “Andrew. The last night we were together, he snapped and threw his phone at me. When I tried to pick it up, he . . .” She couldn’t say it, but she could feel it.
“He hit you, didn’t he?”
“Y-yes,” she choked out. “I left him after that. But the damage was done.”
He took a long, deep breath. When she looked up, his lips were pursed.
“You’re mad.”
“Of course I am. I don’t want anyone hurting you. Whether it’s someone petty like Dana and Andrea, or if it’s more serious.”
“B-but maybe I deserved—”
“You didn’t deserve it, no matter what you did.”
“Daniel . . . I . . .” She stopped herself from trying to figure out what she was going to say. “I’m . . . I’m messed up. I can’t remember things. I get behind on chores. I can’t focus or sit still.”
“None of that means you’re messed up.”
“I have ADHD. The me you see is only because I have to take medicine every day. I literally can’t function without it.”
She hadn’t told anyone since Andrew, and the words cracked as they came out. She looked back down at her hands and waited for Daniel to say he was leaving or that maybe she had deserved it this entire time.
“I know.”
“What? How did you know?”
“Because last night, I knocked your purse over and saw the medicine.”
