Therapy or Treason"

My hands wouldn't stop shaking. Hot, bitter tears spilled over my cheeks, blurring my vision.

Just yesterday, I took a freelance makeup gig. My client turned out to be a sweet young girl in a wheelchair, secretly in love with my boyfriend.

She, just like me, viewed Nolan as the absolute light of her life. He was my anchor, the man who had pulled me out of my darkest psychological depths step by step. But today, the brutal truth finally hit me. His boundless warmth wasn't exclusive to me. It was a public commodity.

He held the young girl's hand, looking at me with utter disappointment.

"Alyson, she's struggling. Can't you just show a little empathy for once?"

I swallowed the lump of glass in my throat, choked back my tears, and boarded a flight across the ocean to get the psychiatric help I desperately needed.

It all started with that makeup appointment. The client was a vibrant girl who had recently lost the use of her legs. Her eyes sparkled with a naive, contagious hope.

"Could you give me a soft, romantic look?" she had asked, her cheeks flushing. "I want to confess my feelings to the guy I like."

Looking at her, I felt a pang of nostalgia. She reminded me of myself when I first fell for Nolan. On a rare whim, I decided to stick around and watch her big moment.

"Sure," I told her. "Having someone there might give you a little courage."

I hid behind a cluster of manicured hedges in the park, ready to witness this girl's fiery declaration of love. But when the man turned around, the breath was knocked right out of my lungs.

It was Nolan. My boyfriend.

When their lips met, my mind short circuited into a deafening static.

"So, does this mean my boyfriend can kiss me?" the girl asked softly.

Nolan crouched down, gently cupping the back of her head, and pulled her into a deep, lingering kiss.

The girl's earlier words echoed in my ears like a broken record.

"He's such an amazing guy. Most people look at my wheelchair with pity or disgust, but he treats me like a normal human being. He told me we all have one mouth and two eyes, and I'm no different from anyone else. I was terrified to tell him how I felt, but he's so good to me. He's worth risking a broken heart."

Those words were practically identical to how I used to talk about Nolan. She was physically broken. I was psychologically broken. We were both just lucky enough to cross paths with a saint like him.

Except reality was currently chewing me up and spitting me out. The man I worshipped was making out with someone else in broad daylight.

I didn't scream. I didn't cause a scene. I just turned around and walked away, completely hollowed out.

When I got back to our apartment, I grabbed my brushes and painted the exact scene of them kissing. I left the canvas right in the middle of the living room.

Nolan had been incredibly busy lately. He told me he was assigned a new case, a devastated young woman named Daisy. She was in her early twenties, right in the prime of her life, when an accident took her legs. She was spiraling into a deep depression, and the community outreach program assigned Nolan to be her dedicated social worker.

He even reassured me before he left. He said my bipolar episodes had been stable lately, so I should be fine on my own. Just call him if I needed anything.

I always supported his career. I genuinely wanted people trapped in the dark to find their way out, just like I did. But he conveniently left out the part where his therapy sessions required tongue.

Daisy was a chronic oversharer. After that makeup session, she flooded my phone with texts about her and Nolan. That was before I knew the "amazing guy" she was talking about was my boyfriend.

But looking at the video she just sent, a clip of Nolan tenderly massaging her atrophied legs, a sick feeling twisted in my gut. Was she doing this on purpose? Was she rubbing it in my face, or did she genuinely just think we were friends and wanted to share her joy?

People like me don't have many friends. Nobody wants to deal with a ticking time bomb who could have a mental breakdown at any given second.

My phone buzzed. A text from Nolan.

[Her mental state is really fragile today. I need to stay and make sure she's safe. Don't forget to take your meds.]

I stared at the neatly organized pill organizers on the kitchen counter. He had sorted them all for me. Every time my emotions went off the rails, I would inevitably knock those bottles to the floor in a fit of rage. And every single time, he would patiently pull me into his arms and sweep up the mess.

But today, the apartment was dead silent. He wasn't coming home.

"Why are you sleeping out here?"

Nolan's voice was as gentle as ever when he finally walked in. He draped a warm blanket over my shoulders, then sighed with a helpless smile as he noticed the scattered pills across the floor.

"What's wrong, Alyson? Are you mad I worked late?"

I didn't say a word. I just picked up the canvas from the table.

"Nolan, do you think this painting is beautiful?"

His pupils shrank the moment the image registered. A heavy silence stretched out before he forced a laugh and reached for my hand.

"Why are you painting stuff like this? I thought you were working on those portraits for our anniversary."

I dodged his hand and stubbornly held up the canvas.

"I asked you a question. Is it beautiful?"

Before he could craft a lie, the doorbell rang.

"Let me get that," he muttered, practically sprinting away.

The person at the door made both of us freeze. Daisy was sitting in her wheelchair, a bright, bubbly smile on her face. She rolled herself inside and naturally grabbed Nolan's hand.

"Hey! I came to drop off your wallet. You left it on my couch." She paused, blinking at me in surprise. "Oh, hey! You're here too? Wait, are you one of his assigned cases as well?"

I kept my mouth shut. My eyes were locked onto Nolan.

He didn't drop her hand. Instead, he gave her a soft, affectionate pat on the head.

"Yeah. She is." He looked down at Daisy. "You shouldn't have come all this way in the cold. Just text me next time, and I'll come pick it up."

Daisy's eyes drifted to the canvas I was holding. Her face lit up.

"Oh my gosh, that's gorgeous! Is that us? Did you paint this for us? Wow, I love it so much!"

I stared at Nolan. He looked away, completely mute.

My phone dinged in my pocket. It was a text from him, sent right there in the living room.

[Daisy is highly unstable right now. Do not trigger her.]

Do not trigger her? So I was just supposed to stand here and watch another woman act like a lovesick puppy with my boyfriend in my own living room?

A wave of absolute exhaustion washed over me. I looked at Daisy.

"Yeah. You two make a perfect match."

"Aw, thank you! I think so too." Daisy tugged at Nolan's fingers, lacing hers with his. "I'm starving. Come get late night takeout with me."

Nolan shot me a warning glance, then turned to leave with her.

My hands were shaking uncontrollably now. I made one final, desperate attempt to pull him back.

"Nolan, I haven't taken my meds today. My chest hurts. The panic is starting again."

His footsteps didn't even slow down. He didn't even look back.

"You've been doing great lately. One night won't kill you."

But he was wrong. I was slipping back into the dark. I was waking up at 3 AM drenched in cold sweat, my hands trembling so badly I couldn't even hold a paintbrush.

He didn't know any of this. Because for the past few weeks, he had been glued to Daisy's side, terrified that the reality of her disability would push her over the edge.

But what about me? I was his client once too. I was his girlfriend. Why was I always the one getting pushed to the back of the line?

I walked over to my laptop and opened an email from a highly specialized psychiatric facility in Europe.

My condition had plateaued here. The local treatments weren't doing enough anymore, and I had been considering this overseas program for months. But Nolan's whole life and career were here, and having him around used to keep me grounded. I had initially declined the offer for him.

Tonight, I changed my mind.

Nolan's compassion was a bottomless well for everyone else. He put his clients on a pedestal, willing to sacrifice anything to fix them. Even if it meant playing the role of someone else's boyfriend.

And me? The actual girlfriend? I was just a ghost haunting his apartment.

The next morning, I was dragging my suitcase toward the front door when the lock clicked. Nolan walked in.

"Where are you going?" he demanded, his brow furrowing.

"This isn't my home. I'm going back to my own place."

He stepped forward and gripped the handle of my luggage, stopping me in my tracks.

"Stop making a scene, please. I already explained this to you. Daisy is in a really dark place. She needs me right now."

"But Nolan, I'm sick too. I need you too."

The tears I had been fighting finally broke free.

"You're perfectly stable right now. You've been sleeping through the night, haven't you?"

His absolute ignorance felt like a bucket of ice water to the chest. I violently yanked my hand away from his, shoving my sleeve up to my shoulder to expose the mottled bruises and raw scratches on my arms, the physical aftermath of my recent panic attacks.

"Before we got together, you actually cared. You hovered over me, terrified I would have a breakdown and hurt myself. But the second I became yours, all your energy went to saving other people. You're so dedicated to your job you'll just play boyfriend to a patient?"

"Kissing? Holding hands? Is that standard protocol for a social worker now?"

I fired the questions at him like bullets. Nolan stood there, his jaw tight, unable to form a single excuse.

A heavy silence stretched between us until his phone started buzzing in his pocket.

"Yeah, I'm here. Don't panic, Daisy. I'm on my way back right now."

He hung up the phone and looked at me. His eyes were cold, completely drained of the warmth I used to love.

"Alyson, grow up. Do you have any idea how young she is?"

"You're almost thirty. She barely just hit twenty. And you've been managing your condition for years. This is her first time dealing with trauma. I kissed her to calm her down, to give her some hope. Stop being so damn heartless."

He reached out and roughly grabbed my bruised arm, inspecting the marks with a scoff.

"Scratches? You haven't had an episode in months, and the second I start spending time with Daisy, you suddenly magically relapse?"

"Alyson, you're disappointing me."

I said absolutely nothing. I just rolled down my sleeve.

Grabbing the handle of my suitcase, I walked out the door and never looked back.