Page 216 of This Life of Mine

“The same eyes. The same fury. The same moment where I know—know—that the person across from me has already decided I don’t matter.” My voice drops to a whisper. “I’m just their dartboard.”

“And then I wake up.”

An awkward quiet hangs between us.

“I haven’t dreamed about Peter in years,” I say finally. “Not since I met Cole. After that, my nightmares were always about him instead.”

My therapist Silvia nods thoughtfully.

“That makes sense,” she says.

I glance up at her, waiting.

“Your brain isn’t confusing them,” she explains. “It’s organizing them. Peter was your first lesson in danger. Cole was the continuation of it.”

She lets that settle before continuing.

“When you were a child, your nervous system learned what rage looked like. What escalation was like. What it meant to protect someone smaller than you.”

My throat tightens.

“Your mind didn’t forget Peter,” she says gently. “It archived him. And when Cole entered your life, your brain recognized the pattern—even if your heart didn’t want to.”

“So why now?” I ask, shutting my eyes briefly to regain composure. “Why is Peter back, haunting my dreams?”

She smiles softly.

“Because you’re safe now,” she says. “Your mind finally has room to process what it couldn’t before. The dream isn’t about fear—it’s about integration.”

I frown slightly.

“You saw Peter turn into Cole because your brain understands now that they were never separate threats,” she continues. “They were variations of the same kind.”

I exhale shakily.

“But you woke up,” she adds. “And that matters.”

I nod.

“I always wake up,” I say.

I stare down at my hands for a considerable moment before I speak again.

“Why didn’t I see it?” I ask.

Silvia looks up this time, her pen stilling.

“Why didn’t I recognize what Cole was?” My voice tightens. “Why didn’t I see that he was like Peter?”

She doesn’t rush to answer.

“Peter always made it seem like I was crazy,” I continue, the words coming faster now, like they’ve been waiting. “Whenever I tried to talk about what he did—to me, to Sam—he’d brush it off. Act like I was exaggerating. Like I was being dramatic. Emotional. Sensitive.”

I’m furious by the memory of his words.

“He’d look at me like I was rewriting history. Like my memories weren’t real.” My jaw clenches. “Like I was the problem.”

I swallow hard.