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“Abby?” But it was Seth. He eased himself inside, something relaxing in his face when he saw me. “Oh, good. I found you.”

I tried to take a deep breath, but it hitched in the middle. “I wasn’t hiding,” I lied. “I just…needed a minute to myself, and this was the closest place I found.”

He didn’t bother asking me why I hadn’t tried the bathroom, which had a door that locked. Maybe Bev had been known to bust in on people. It wouldn’t surprise me. “Okay.” He closed the door behind him. I guessed he wasn’t going to judge me, which was a relief. Not that I cared what he thought.

He stepped closer. My chest grew tight, but he didn’t come close enough to touch me, which was also a relief, because I was so tight that I might collapse if he did. Instead, he took a seat in one of the cushioned chairs facing the rabbi’s desk, which appeared way more comfortable than the bare-bones one I was sitting in. “So,” he said. “That woman. She was one of your parents’ friends?”

First instinct: I could throw one of the photos at him and make a break for it.

But of course I couldn’t do that. That was assault. And if there was anything I wanted less than Mrs. Landskroner bringing news of my fake boyfriend to my parents, it was her bringing them news of my arrest for assault. And also Seth getting hurt. I didn’t want that, either. “Yes,” I said. “And my old Hebrew school teacher. But after, like, middle school, she was mostly in my life as my mom’s friend.”

“So she was part of your bad childhood,” Seth said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

My answer was immediate, automatic. “No.”

The look Seth gave me in response was hard to read in the shade of the room, but it seemed a little like disappointment. Was he disappointed in me? The thought was disconcerting, and I was surprised to realize how much so. When had I started caring what he thought?

My head was throbbing again. It wasn’t a Category 3, though, the one his presence had always caused. This was something new and different, something not on the scale. A Category 5.5. Maybe even a Category 6.

I took a deep breath. This one hitched twice. “My parents didn’t beat me. It wasn’t like that. I didn’t go to school with bruises or have CPS called on them or anything. There are people who had it way worse.”

I waited for Seth to protest, to tell me that you couldn’t compare your life to anyone else’s, that my experiences and feelings were all true and valid and gag.

But he didn’t. He only sat there listening, totally still, as if I were a deer in the woods and one movement might send me running away. And, miracle of miracles, my headache receded a tiny bit, bringing me back to the painful but familiar territory of a Category 5.

The lack of response and the lessening of the pain behind my eyes made it possible for me to go on. “The thing about my parents is that I always had to be on edge around them. You know, that cliché of walking on eggshells, except I’d describe it more as walking on glass. If you stepped the wrong way it wouldn’t just break; it would cut you.” I bit my lip. “Again, not literally.”

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t judge. Just listened. My headache receded another half a point. It was kind of spooky. Like speaking these thoughts and feelings out loud was a Tylenol.

“It was like they had all these rules I didn’t understand and that didn’t make sense and sometimes contradicted one another. Like, sometimes they’d be really happy if I made dinner for them before they got home and would get mad if I didn’t do it because they’d come home hungry, and sometimes they’d be furious I did it because I could’ve lit the house on fire. And they’d punish me for things, but not like the ways my friends were punished. They wouldn’t tell me no dessert or ground me or take away my phone or anything; they’d give me the silent treatment. Or suddenly wouldn’t drive my friend to activities they’d agreed on and blame me. Or tell people something really embarrassing about me.” I cringed again at the memories. “Again, they didn’t beat me or anything. There are definitely people out there who have it worse. I’m not trying to say I had it the worst.”

Seth finally spoke. “Abuse isn’t a competition.”

He believed me. He thought it was abuse. My headache receded again, all the way down to a Category 2. The way it was shrinking like this was kind of freaking me out, to be honest. “I talked about it a little bit to my roommate in college, who tried to convince me to go to therapy.” I pressed my lips together at the memory. It had felt a little bit like she’d slapped me across the face. Go purposely spill my innermost secrets to someone? Who then might go on to spill them to someone else, who could use them to hurt me? No, thank you. “I didn’t, but it was the first time I realized that my childhood wasn’t normal. I did a bunch of reading and figured that I didn’t need therapy; I just needed to get away from my parents. So I did.”

And then I’d made the mistake of coming back. That was why I was having all these issues with panicking. Not because there was something wrong with me, or that I’d done something wrong.

Right?

Maybe Seth had a point. Maybe I hadn’t processed everything as well as I’d thought. Maybe all I’d done was turn my back and run away and pretend nothing was there. That was the opposite of how I’d dealt with the spiders who seemed to love hanging out in my shitty apartment. Running away from them meant that they were still there to freak me out and make me jump. The way to keep myself from jumping was to force myself to collect them under my designated spider mug with a sheet of paper and dump them outside (because, gross or not, I still appreciated how they ate mosquitoes).

Well. I just had to make it through three more days. Then I could go back to Vermont and never even think about coming here again.

“Therapy doesn’t mean you’re broken,” Seth said. “It’s not a bad thing. I’ve been to therapy, and I’ve found it really helpful in dealing with hard times and hard things.”

I blew a deep breath out through puffed cheeks. “I didn’t say that therapy means you’re broken or that it’s a bad thing. It’s just…not for me.” I didn’t understand how Seth could be so unguarded about his vulnerabilities. He was just opening himself up to a world of pain if someone decided to use them to hurt him. Like my parents did. “I’m perfectly happy with my life and how I am.”

“Are you?” His voice was mild and not especially judgy, but it felt judgy. Maybe because I’d already shared with him more than I’d shared with anyone in a long time. And yes, Seth, I was happy. Really happy. Happier now than I’d been in a long time.

Even if it was only pretend. Only temporary.

I shrugged, ready to instinctively snap back, then stopped myself. He’d listened to me. He’d believed me.

So I took a deep breath. “Thank you. For hearing me,” I said. “We should probably go cheer your parents on.” I turned, ready to go.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Seth said to my back. “It’s what friends do.”

When did that lump swell up in my throat? Hopefully, it wasn’t cancer. “Okay.”