I was on my way to work. I was walking as I always do, with my headphones on, oblivious to the world, like I'm in my own music video.

Eventually, I got close to my job. They were almost opening, but I bumped into a man in a black suit, and he dropped some papers out of his briefcase.

At this point, I was extremely embarrassed because I wasn't paying attention, so it was definitely my fault. I tried to pick up the papers and help him, continuously apologizing for my carelessness.

He smiled and said, "Don't worry about it. It's okay."

But then he stared.

He took a moment and looked at me as if he had never seen someone who looked quite like me. And I guess that's true. It's not often that you see a biological female with a shaved head, so most of the time I get questions like, "Oh, do you have cancer?" or, "Oh, are you gay?"

You know, all the stereotypes.

Of course, the way he looked at me didn't seem like he was thinking any of that at all.

He smiled again after staring at me for quite an unusual amount of time and handed me a business card.

I smiled, accepted it, and said, "Thank you," even though I had no idea what I was thanking him for.

Then he walked away.

I don't know where he went. I don't know where he was going. But he left, and I went on to work.

Later that afternoon, when I got home from work, I looked at the business card.

The name on it was Andrew Ward. Apparently, he was a lawyer at a pretty prestigious firm. I don't really know anything about those things, but I called the number and asked for him.

There was a pause after the secretary said, "One moment, please."

Then he answered the phone.

I introduced myself and reminded him that I was the person who had bumped into him embarrassingly that morning.

"Yes," he said. "I remember."

At some point, I asked why he had given me the business card.

He said, "Well, if you don't mind, I would like to take you out for dinner—and then whatever you'd like after that."

I paused for quite a moment.

Because it wasn't just the dinner. It was the way he said whatever you'd like after that.

What did that mean?

It was such an unusual proposal, and I had never been asked out to dinner before, so I thought, Why not?

So we went out to this restaurant I'd never been to before—a really nice Japanese restaurant—and we had some amazing sushi.

I was surprised because, unbeknownst to him, I absolutely love sushi.

We got to talking about that and several other things. He asked me if I was single and whether I had any kids—all the usual things people ask.

Eventually, the question about my hair came up.

He said he didn't want to pry, but he was curious.

I told him it was just a personal choice. I felt more comfortable that way. And even though my body is biologically female, I identify as non-binary.

He took a moment to take that in and then nodded his head as if he understood completely.

After our meal, he took me back to his car, which was a pretty fancy car, by the way. I think it was a black Mercedes, if I'm not mistaken. The seats were quite comfortable.

Then he said, "Chris, I want to be frank with you about this. I want to know what you would like to do next—and by that, I mean anything."

I looked at him and paused, trying to grasp exactly what he was getting at.

Then it clicked.

Wait a minute. Is he asking what I think he's asking?

Well, me being the frank person that I am, I had to come right out and say it.

"Are you asking if I want to have sex with you?"

And he answered far too quickly.

"Yes."

I felt like I had a frog in my throat. I almost couldn't speak or swallow, but my mind and body were desperately saying, Please say yes.

Eventually, the word came out.

"Yes."

I don't know how it sounded, but I know that he heard it.

And that was it.

We were on the road again.

He took us to a Hilton hotel and got a room for the night. Then we went up to the room.

He suggested that I take a shower or do anything else I wanted to do.

So I did.

Afterward, I got into a big, comfortable robe.

From there, he ordered room service. There was wine and some sort of fruit plate with grapes and cheese.

I told him that I was an alcoholic and couldn't have the wine, so he sent it back quickly.

He told me to enjoy the rest of the food while he went to take a shower himself.

Then he came out of the bathroom wearing a big, comfortable robe too.

The room was gorgeous, and the view was great. The bed was incredibly comfortable, although I was starting to feel more nervous about lying on it.

I felt like he was about to remove that robe at any moment, and I tried to stop him.

I needed to tell him something, and I didn't know how he was going to take it.

So I asked him to sit down.

He sat beside me and listened attentively to what I had to say.

"When we do this, I want you to know something. I've never had sex with a man consensually. I was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused as a child, and later in life I was assaulted.

"Most of the men in my life that I've known have always looked at me in the wrong way and had cruel, awful intentions.

"I've never had anyone touch me in a way that felt appropriate or safe."

He looked at me for what seemed like forever.

His almost bluish-gray eyes looked as though they were filled with tears.

I had never seen a man look as though he was on the verge of crying like that. It shocked me.

Between that and his beautiful gray-white hair—yeah, he was quite a bit older than me—but there was something about him that stood out.

I don't know.

I guess that's why I had said yes to all of this to begin with.

Eventually, he spoke.

"I would never hurt you. And I want you to know that. If I do anything that you don't want, or you want me to stop, then I'll stop."

So I told him okay.

I moved the tray to a table along with the water and the other things I had.

He dimmed the lights.

I was still sitting on the bed.

He stood in front of me and began to undress.

For his age, he was quite fit. And as far as his size was concerned, I was quite impressed.

Seeing him immediately turned me on, but I was so shocked that I could barely move.

I don't think it was nervousness.

I think it was the realization.

Finally, I was going to be with someone who really wanted me in a good way—not selfishly, not just for his own needs and pleasure, but because he also wanted to give me pleasure.

He took my hands and placed them on his waist.

Then he grabbed the robe, untied it, and slowly slid it down.

He laid me down on the bed and gently lay on top of me.

Then he started kissing me everywhere.

He started at my head, as far as I could remember, and then moved down my neck and everywhere else.

I couldn't remember a place he hadn't kissed.

Everywhere his lips touched, my skin became hot.

I was overwhelmed.

Eventually, he returned to my face, kissing me on my lips again. He kissed me deeply, and his hands began exploring my body, touching me until I was so aroused I thought I might climax right there.

I watched him put on a condom.

Then he wrapped his arms around me as tightly as he could beneath my shoulder blades while holding my head and kissing me again.

He entered me slowly.

Very slowly.

He moved carefully, and I could feel how hard he was already.

But it felt good.

It didn't hurt.

It wasn't sharp or painful.

It felt like I was alive again somehow.

I didn't know how to describe it.

I had never been with a man like this.

He was so gentle, and everything felt amazing.

Eventually, he started moving faster as we both became more aroused.

He could hear me moaning louder, almost with an aching sound, as though I were in pain—even though it was only because I had so much desire inside me.

Everything had been so pent up.

I guess I'm not sure how to explain it.

I just know that I had wanted someone to touch me like this for a very long time.

And here he was.

He moved faster.

I placed my hands on him, holding him as I felt him move inside me.

I could feel the tension building throughout my body.

And then I remember saying over and over:

"Yes. Please. Oh God, yes."

And then I came.

I felt an orgasm unlike anything I had ever experienced before.

I could feel him inside me, the pressure, the movement, and I could hear his deep groan as he came at the same time.

I felt so good that I became overwhelmed with emotion and started crying.

He just held me.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

I told him that it was just so beautiful.

He held me tighter and said that everything was going to be okay.

That I was okay.

Later, we had sex again after resting.

Apparently, I had become even more aroused after the first time.

During the second time, I asked him to put his hands around my neck and squeeze—not enough to hurt me, but enough to give me the feeling of being dominated.

I trusted him enough.

I wanted to feel the pressure and the sense of control while he was having sex with me more intensely.

He asked me, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, please."

He put his hands around my neck, carefully enough for me to feel the pressure of his control without hurting me.

Then he shifted his position, and I moved beneath him.

He started moving harder.

I began screaming in ecstasy.

It was as though my mind was on some kind of drug.

I was completely gone.

Completely lost.

I could barely even hear myself.

I could only feel the pleasure.

There was nothing else.

After the second time, we both had to take a break.

I was trying to catch my breath, and I'm quite sure he was too.

Eventually, I asked him, "Why did you give me that card that day? And why me?"

He looked at me.

"Why not you?"

And that was the first time I thought:

I deserve this.

I deserve to have pleasure.

I deserve to be wanted.

I deserve to feel wanted.

I deserve to be touched.

I deserve to experience intimacy.

I deserve to be desired just like anyone else.

And he was right.

Why not me?

So, one last time before we went to sleep, I lay on my stomach and let him take me from behind.

By that point, I was completely aroused and ready for him.

My body was relaxed, and I was completely receptive to him.

Whatever intensity we chose, I was ready for it.

Afterward, we stayed in each other's arms for a while, and eventually we fell asleep.

By morning, I had a small breakfast, and then we got dressed and prepared to leave the room.

He took me back to my house.

Before I left, he kissed me in the car and smiled.

Then he motioned for my arm, as if he wanted to hold my hand or pull me back toward him.

I'm not sure.

Instead, he placed a card in my hand.

This time, it was similar to the business card from before, but heavier and more metallic.

It had his name on it.

And his personal cell phone number.

He smiled, then drove away.

I stood there holding the card and kept thinking:

Should I call him again?

I've been going against myself for a while now, hoping for things. And I never do that.

Because if I were the same fucking person I was last year, I would tell you that I don't fucking believe in hope.

Hope doesn't create action. Hope doesn't give you real possibilities in real time, right then and there. It doesn't guarantee anything.

But just like faith, you fucking believe in it. And then you sit there, waiting, and nothing fucking happens.

I'm not going to keep hoping for the things I need and want when, at the end of the day, what I need and what I want doesn't seem to matter.

It doesn't matter.

And I have to let these things go. I have to start focusing on the real things that fucking matter so I can survive in this stupid, miserable fucking life.

And I don't care what anybody else thinks.

To the few people I've talked to, the few people I've told, and the few people who know what I'm asking for and what I'm looking for: I don't care anymore.

I'm not going to keep going through this cycle.

I'm not going to keep getting disappointed, realizing that something isn't going to happen, that someone isn't going to show up, or that someone can't be there anymore.

And then I'm left sitting here, realizing that what I want doesn't matter.

Fuck hope.

I won't do it anymore.

I'm not going to keep going against myself.

This is who I am.

And why the fuck did I try to be anyone else, even for a moment?

Why did I try to believe in some other fantasy, some other possibility, some other piece of bullshit?

Because that's all it really is to me right now.

Bullshit.

It's nothing more than a child waiting for a specific Christmas present that will never fucking come.

And I'm tired of waiting for something that may never happen.

So no, I don't care anymore.

I need to get off my ass, and I need to take care of what really fucking matters.

I need to put everything else on the back burner, no matter how much pain there is, no matter how lonely I am, and no matter how much I want something different.

Because I have other things to take care of.

God damn it.

I've got other things that need my attention.

I've got a life I still have to fucking live.

And I'm not going to let myself be dragged down by this anymore.

I'm not going to keep putting myself through the same disappointment, the same waiting, and the same fucking cycle of hoping for something that might never happen.

I need to focus on what is real.

What is in front of me.

What I can actually do.

What I can actually change.

And even if that means putting my wants aside, even if that means accepting the loneliness and dealing with the pain, then that's what I have to do.

Because right now, I need to survive.

And I've got other things to take care of.

God damn it.

August 28th is what we're going to talk about in this chapter, because that was the day my life essentially changed physically.

I am dealing with an unprecedented condition. Currently, we have no diagnosis. We don't know what it is. We know what it isn't, or at least we have ruled out some of the things that doctors initially suspected, but we still don't know what the hell it is.

On August 28th, I developed a tremor and shaking on the right side of my body, particularly in my right hand and right arm. I kept shaking violently in my right arm for hours. Eventually, I decided I was going to Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital of Houston and figure out what this was and make sure that it wasn't something serious.

We had already established that I was having physical, full-body episodes of convulsions and shaking. We initially thought it might be epilepsy, but that was ruled out during my hospitalization from August 20th through August 24th.

I was told that if anything changed, I should return to the hospital.

So I did exactly what they told me to do.

Something changed.

On August 28th, I developed completely new symptoms.

And when I tried to follow the instructions I had been given, I had to fight with the Houston Fire Department just to get taken to the hospital.

They didn't want to take me.

They did not believe it was an emergency.

They believed other people were more important than me.

They didn't believe I was in crisis.

And, quite frankly, it felt like they treated me like I was just asking for attention or some shit.

Yes, I'm angry about that.

I'm fucking angry.

Because I wasn't asking for attention.

I was asking for medical care.

I had new neurological symptoms. I had been specifically told to go back to the hospital if anything changed. Something had changed. I was shaking violently on the right side of my body for hours, and I was trying to get reevaluated.

What the fuck was I supposed to do?

When the first responders showed up on August 28th, I told them about my new symptoms. I told them I needed to go back to Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital of Houston to be reevaluated. I was hoping they would admit me and get me into their neurology department so I could be evaluated again because of these new symptoms.

I didn't trust the diagnosis I had originally been given.

I had done my own research, and I had originally been diagnosed with functional seizures.

And I believe that diagnosis was wrong.

God damn wrong.

I understand that functional seizures are real. I understand that they can involve very real, involuntary movements that resemble epileptic seizures. I understand that they can be associated with trauma and that someone experiencing them is not consciously faking anything.

I've experienced functional seizures before.

But my experience with these new episodes has been different.

The episodes that began in June of this year involved full-body convulsions and shaking. On the surface, they could look like functional seizures. But there was something else happening that I could not ignore.

Pain.

There was pain in the back of my head, on the right side, approximately three inches from my right ear and about an inch upward. It stayed in essentially the exact same location.

And it has been fucking terrible.

Sometimes, during an episode, I feel a stabbing pain like somebody is taking a knife and stabbing me directly in the fucking head.

Sometimes it feels like somebody is taking my brain and squeezing it.

Sometimes I don't feel anything that I can even properly describe. There is pain, but I don't know how to describe the sensation. I just suffer through it because I don't have the words for what I'm experiencing.

And that is part of the problem.

I'm the person experiencing this.

I can tell you what it feels like, but I cannot always tell you what it means.

I've had episodes where I have lost coherence and my ability to understand language.

I've had episodes of mutism—not selective mutism, but episodes where I simply could not speak. I would try to talk, and the words would not come out.

One of those episodes lasted approximately twelve hours.

On September 1st, I had an episode while I was seeing my primary care physician. He witnessed it.

He witnessed my tremors.

He witnessed my head shaking.

He witnessed vocal tics.

And then I couldn't produce language.

I tried.

I physically tried to speak, and it wouldn't come out.

Eventually, approximately five and a half hours later, the episode resolved itself.

Just like that.

My ability to communicate came back.

Everything returned to normal.

And there was no explanation for why it happened or why it stopped.

It simply happened.

Then it stopped.

And now I'm dealing with even more episodes.

As of September 18th, I've had episodes where the pain has become so severe that I can't even explain what I'm feeling.

Today, I had an episode where I would rate the pain at an eleven out of ten.

It was off the fucking scale.

I was screaming.

I was crying.

I don't know exactly how long the episode lasted.

I remember begging for help.

I remember trying to look around and figure out if there was anything I could do to make it stop.

Anything.

My therapist has been helping me work through what happens when you're dealing with extreme pain and chronic pain, particularly when the suffering becomes so severe that it feels like torture.

Because that's what this feels like.

It is torture.

This condition is torturing me.

And that is something people need to understand when they talk about chronic pain and severe neurological symptoms.

It's not simply, "Oh, you're in pain."

Sometimes pain becomes its own form of torture.

When you're screaming and crying and begging for help and you don't know how long it's going to last, when you don't know what is happening inside your own body, and when nobody can tell you why it's happening or how to stop it, that changes you.

So part of what we're working on is how to survive that.

How to deal with it mentally.

How to deal with it physically.

How to cope when you feel like you're being tortured.

How to keep yourself going when your body is doing things you don't understand.

And my mantra now is simple:

Fight.

Don't give up.

Fight.

Don't give up.

Fight.

Don't give up.

I have to tell myself that almost by the minute.

Because there are moments when the suffering makes me question the quality of life itself.

And when you also live with mental-health challenges, that question becomes even harder.

You look at your life and you ask yourself:

Is this life worth living anymore?

Is living like this worth it?

Is suffering like this, without answers, without treatment, without knowing what's happening to your own body, something I can continue doing?

And those are difficult fucking questions.

But there is something I need to make clear.

I want to live.

I have goals.

I have hopes.

I have dreams.

I have things I still want to do.

I don't want my life to end because I don't want to live.

I want my life back.

There is a difference.

And that's part of why I'm writing this book.

Because I may or may not be able to finish it.

I don't know.

That is the reality.

I don't know what tomorrow looks like.

I don't know how many chapters I will be able to write.

I don't know whether my memory and ability to communicate will continue getting worse.

I don't know whether these episodes will become more severe.

I don't know whether I will eventually get a diagnosis.

I don't know whether I will get treatment.

I don't know what the future holds.

But right now, I still have enough coherence, enough agency, and enough ability to communicate what I think and what I believe.

So I'm fucking writing.

I'm writing as much as I can while I still can.

Because if something happens to me and I cannot finish this book, I want there to be a record.

I want people to know what I believed.

I want people to know what I valued.

I want people to know my goals.

My hopes.

My dreams.

What I wanted from life.

What I believed about people.

What I believed about the medical system.

What I believed about mental health.

What I believed about addiction.

What I believed about suffering.

And what I believed about survival.

I want these words to exist even if I cannot finish the book myself.

Because this book is not just about what happened to me.

It's about what I want to say.

It's about what I want to leave behind.

And right now, I am still here.

So I'm going to keep fucking writing.

At the same time, I'm fighting with the medical system to try to figure out what is happening to me.

Baylor has become extremely important in that fight.

Three hospitals have told me to go to Baylor.

I tried.

And Baylor denied me.

They apparently reviewed Memorial Hermann's records and determined that there was no case there.

And I had to call them and fight with them about it.

I told them they were wrong.

I told them Memorial Hermann was wrong.

I told them the diagnosis was wrong.

And I told them that they needed to evaluate me themselves before deciding that there was nothing they could do.

At least evaluate me once.

If you evaluate me and decide there is no case, then fine.

But do it yourself.

Why would you deny me without even seeing me?

Why would you make that decision based on another hospital's records?

And why the fuck would you not even have the courtesy to call me and tell me that you had denied me?

I had to find out approximately two weeks later.

Two weeks.

That's fucking terrible.

I shouldn't have had to fight just to be evaluated.

I shouldn't have had to fight to convince someone that new symptoms deserve to be looked at.

And I certainly shouldn't have had to discover on my own that I had been denied.

But I'm still fighting.

Because I don't have another choice.

HCA Houston has become my preferred hospital because they are the ones who actually listened to me.

They documented what I said.

They took what I was telling them seriously.

They did what they could to help me.

I've been to other hospitals, including Memorial Hermann and St. Joseph's, and neither one was willing to give me the MRI I was asking for.

HCA Houston was.

They performed the imaging, with or without contrast as appropriate, and they got a lot of good imaging of my brain.

They ruled out a number of physical conditions, including lesions and possible cancer.

So we know some things that it isn't.

But we still don't know what it is.

And that's where we're at.

The neurological department at HCA Houston has been wonderful to me.

The doctor there—I struggle to remember his name sometimes because my memory has been getting worse—was wonderful.

He understood something that I think is incredibly important.

You can have a neurological condition or a movement disorder and still need psychological help.

Those things are not mutually exclusive.

Sometimes you need both.

When you're suffering physically, you also need help psychologically.

When you're dealing with something neurological that is affecting your entire life, your mental health is going to be affected by it.

That doesn't mean the neurological symptoms aren't real.

It means you're a human being experiencing something fucking horrible and you may need help from more than one direction.

That's something we're working on now.

I've been in treatment before.

I don't want medication.

A lot of psychiatric medications have caused horrible side effects for me. Some have made me feel worse. Some have made my depression worse. Some have made me more suicidal.

So I don't want to go back down that road.

I want to learn how to fight for myself.

I want to learn how to advocate for myself.

I want to learn coping skills.

I want to use treatments that don't depend on medication.

And I know that can be difficult.

But before June of this year, I was mentally okay.

I was surviving without psychiatric medication.

I had a safety plan.

I monitored myself every day.

I checked in with myself.

How do I feel today?

How am I doing?

How did I sleep?

Have I eaten?

What is going on in my head?

I was doing that every day.

I was fine.

And then something fucking happened in June.

Then it escalated.

It got worse.

By August, I was sitting there thinking:

What the fuck is happening to me?

And now it's September.

My primary care physician has declared me disabled.

I'm looking at disability.

I can't even get an appointment until November at the earliest.

And that's not even the end of the process.

That's just the first intake.

It could take months.

It could take a year.

I don't know.

I'm fighting it.

I have lawyers helping me and I'm trying to get assistance to push the disability process forward as much as possible.

But none of that is guaranteed.

I'm waiting on EBT.

I have to reapply for Medicaid because, for some fucking reason, they are telling me that my application isn't in their system even though the application says that it exists and is pending.

So now I have to fight that too.

I have to push for that too.

Because my insurance doesn't cover some of the medications I need right now.

HCA Houston gave me medication for the tremor, and the insurance won't cover it.

It's sitting at Walmart.

Fifty-five fucking dollars.

Fifty-five dollars for this shit.

And what does it do?

It makes me sleepy.

Of course it can stop my tremor if all it's doing is sedating me.

I can take Benadryl.

I can take melatonin.

I can take other sedating medications.

They can make the tremor stop for a few hours.

But that doesn't answer the question.

It doesn't explain why I have a right-hand tremor.

It doesn't explain why this is happening.

It doesn't explain the episodes.

It doesn't explain the pain.

It doesn't explain the loss of language.

It doesn't explain the loss of coherence.

It doesn't explain why I can sometimes suddenly lose my ability to speak and then, hours later, suddenly be able to communicate normally again.

Sedating me doesn't solve that.

It just makes me sleepy.

And I don't want to be fucking sleepy.

I want to know what's wrong with me.

I want treatment.

I want my life back.

There is another problem now, too.

I'm struggling to eat.

My taste buds still work.

I can taste food.

But physically eating has become difficult, especially if I have to chew.

Liquids are much easier.

That's why I'm waiting on EBT.

That's why I keep pushing for it.

Because as soon as I get it, I'm going to get protein shakes, juices, and other things that I know I can physically tolerate right now.

Something is better than nothing.

Right now, we're talking about barely nothing.

Yesterday, all I had was a little bit of popcorn and three hard-boiled eggs.

That's it.

Nothing else for the entire day other than water, alcohol, and sometimes chocolate milk.

I'm an alcoholic.

That's part of my reality.

I'm not hiding it.

I'm not going to pretend it isn't there.

But that doesn't mean every fucking thing happening to me is because I'm an alcoholic.

And that's one of the most important things I want this book to talk about.

Labels can become explanations for everything.

Once you put a label on somebody, sometimes people stop looking.

They stop asking questions.

They stop investigating.

They stop seeing the person.

And I am terrified that is what is happening to me.

I don't want to go back to the hospital unless I believe there is a true and absolute emergency.

Right now, I have been monitoring myself.

My mental health is stable.

My vital signs are stable.

I don't currently believe I have a reason to go to the hospital for every episode.

But the difficulty eating is becoming a concern.

Because eventually, your body needs nutrition.

Yes, the human body can survive for a long time without food.

Yes, if someone has enough stored body fat, the body can use that energy.

But that doesn't change the fact that I need nutrition.

It doesn't change the weakness.

It doesn't change the exhaustion.

It doesn't change the fact that I need to put something into my body.

And without assistance, I may eventually end up back in the hospital.

And I fucking hate that.

Because I know what happens there.

I'm going to be pinched.

I'm going to be poked.

I'm going to be prodded.

They're going to put needles in my arms.

They're going to fuck up my veins.

They're going to blow them.

I'm going to have bruises.

I'm going to come home sick and exhausted and hurting.

And there is a very real possibility that after all of that, I will still have no answers.

I'm fucking tired of that.

I don't want it anymore.

That's why I'm pushing for assistance.

That's why I'm pushing for specialists.

That's why I'm pushing for Baylor.

That's why I'm trying to get disability.

That's why I'm trying to get Medicaid.

That's why I'm trying to get EBT.

I'm trying to avoid being put through another cycle of hospitalization, testing, pain, discharge, and unanswered questions unless there is a true emergency.

I want answers.

I want help.

I want to live.

And I think I may be dealing with something rare.

When I researched my symptoms, I found that a lot of them appeared to fit functional neurological disorder, or FND.

A lot of them match.

Across the board.

But because my symptoms are progressing so badly, and because of how much worse they have become, especially recently, I have started questioning whether FND is actually what I'm dealing with.

Maybe it is.

Maybe it isn't.

I don't know.

That's the fucking point.

I don't know.

I'm beginning to wonder whether this is something rarer.

Something more debilitating.

Something that requires a movement-disorders specialist or neurologist who is willing to look beyond the obvious explanation.

The medical field talks about looking for horses before zebras.

I'm saying: sometimes you need to look for the fucking zebra.

Because sometimes the rare thing is actually happening.

That's my current theory.

I'm not a doctor.

I know that.

But I've researched a lot of medical information.

I know more medical shit than the average person probably does because of the way I grew up and because of how much illness I was exposed to.

I was forced to learn.

I watched my mother become sick.

I watched myself become sick.

Medical problems were right in front of me, and I had to understand them.

I remember being a teenager when my mother went into what appeared to be a diabetic coma.

I recognized what was happening.

She was diabetic.

She had been eating sugar.

She became unresponsive.

My stepfather didn't believe me.

He was joking around.

He thought she was fine.

He kept saying she was just sleepy.

I told him:

No.

You're wrong.

Call 911.

Something is wrong with her.

He didn't listen.

So I called 911 myself.

I was a teenager.

And in many ways, mentally, I was still much closer to a child.

I was shocked.

I was terrified.

I was traumatized.

But I recognized what was happening.

The paramedics came.

They checked her blood sugar.

It was extremely high.

They gave her insulin.

She came around.

She woke up.

And I remember thinking:

How the fuck did I know what was happening when the adult standing next to me didn't?

Later, my mother had a stroke.

The hospital told me that she had speed in her system—an illegal substance—and they asked me whether my mother was suicidal.

Did she intend to kill herself?

I remember getting angry at that doctor.

I yelled.

I didn't believe it.

I told them my mother would never do that.

At the time, I was young.

I didn't know what I know now.

Looking back, I have questions.

I wonder whether she actually did intend to die.

Maybe she didn't.

Maybe she wanted to go to sleep.

Maybe she was grieving.

My stepfather had recently died from lung cancer, and she was lonely and hurting.

She had a boyfriend later who su

People talk about life as though the simple fact that you are alive automatically makes life fucking great.

“Life is precious.”

“Be grateful you're alive.”

“Things will get better.”

And I'm not saying you shouldn't appreciate life.

There are wonderful things in life. There really are. Animals. Trees. The ocean. Music. A good meal. A fucking beautiful sunset. There is so much beauty in this world, and I'm not going to lie to you about that.

But there is also an enormous amount of suffering.

And the cards you're dealt are not the same cards everybody else gets.

The pain you experience is not necessarily the pain somebody else experiences. And somebody who has never lived inside your body has no fucking idea what it is like to wake up in it every day.

I've talked to people about chronic pain. I've asked people in their sixties and seventies, “Are you in pain every day? Do your joints hurt every day? Are you constantly dealing with pain?”

And some of them look at me and say no.

No.

They don't live like that.

I've been dealing with pain since I was ten years old.

Ten.

I spent years not knowing exactly what was wrong with me. Years of pain. Years of trying to figure out what the hell was happening inside my own body.

And as I got older, it got worse.

Painkillers didn't fix it. Tylenol didn't fix it. Aspirin didn't fix it. Whatever over-the-counter shit somebody wanted to recommend, it didn't matter.

Eventually you start questioning something that most people don't seem to question very often:

What is the quality of this life?

Because being alive and having a good quality of life are not the same thing.

Some people have a relatively easy life.

Some people have an extraordinarily difficult one.

And for the people who drew the shitty hand, what exactly are we supposed to pretend? That suffering doesn't matter because technically we're still breathing?

If someone is suffering every fucking day, don't just shove another pill down their throat and call it treatment.

Especially when that pill creates another problem.

Then you need another pill to treat the side effect of the first pill.

Then another medication creates another side effect.

Pretty soon you're not treating a person. You're managing a fucking chemical ecosystem.

And that's what I mean when I talk about quality of life.

I have survived fifteen suicide attempts in my life.

I have clinical depression. I have anxiety.

And until June of 2026, I was managing those things surprisingly well on my own, without medication.

That isn't because I believe medication is bad.

It isn't.

Medication helps people. Sometimes it saves lives.

But medication has also sent me to the hospital.

There have been medications that made me worse instead of better.

Have you ever actually listened to the warnings in those antidepressant commercials?

They tell you that some medications can increase suicidal thoughts or behaviors in certain people.

That's not some imaginary possibility.

So when you've already experienced medications making you worse, you become fucking cautious.

One medication that helped me for a long time was mirtazapine.

It helped me sleep.

And sleep mattered.

For a while, it worked.

Then something changed.

My joint pain became worse.

I was already dealing with chronic joint pain, and now the medication that was supposed to help me was making another part of my life harder.

Then I couldn't sleep.

Then I started drinking more.

And eventually I had to ask myself what the point of taking the medication was if the medication itself was making my overall quality of life worse.

When I stopped taking it, I felt better.

That doesn't mean I'm telling you not to take medication.

I'm not.

What I'm telling you is to pay attention.

Monitor what happens to you.

Write things down.

Know what you were taking, when you started taking it, what changed afterward, and what symptoms appeared.

And if something feels wrong, tell your doctor.

Don't just assume that feeling worse is something you have to tolerate because somebody prescribed the medication.

At the same time, you can't do everything alone.

I know that because I've tried.

Sometimes you need therapy.

Sometimes you need medication.

Sometimes you need both.

And sometimes you only need them for a period of time.

Treatment doesn't necessarily have to mean taking something forever.

Sometimes the things that help the most are sleep, meditation, grounding techniques, routine, finding things that genuinely make you happy, and building a life that actually fits your body and your mind instead of forcing yourself into somebody else's idea of what a functional life is supposed to look like.

Finding that balance is fucking hard.

But when you find it, you know.

I knew.

I was there.

Until June of 2026.

Then something happened.

I don't know exactly what happened.

And that sentence is important because I am writing this book while I still don't know.

I was processing a lot of trauma.

A lot of anger.

Anger over what I had lost.

Anger over what I had been denied.

Anger over what had been taken from me.

Anger over things that had been done to me.

And eventually, somehow, I let go of a lot of it.

I finally let go of the anger.

And strangely enough, when I let go of it, I got very sick.

My blood pressure suddenly went through the fucking roof.

I went to the hospital.

They couldn't explain it.

Eventually, I determined that an artificial sweetener I had been consuming might have been contributing to the problem, so I stopped consuming it.

My blood pressure returned to normal.

But my gastrointestinal symptoms didn't.

I couldn't eat normally.

Eventually, I was surviving on salt water, sugar water, and crackers.

For two weeks.

That's it.

Two fucking weeks.

Somehow, I survived.

And I was still working.

I was trying to function while barely eating.

Eventually, even keeping water down became difficult.

I started retching.

So I went to my primary-care provider and explained everything that was happening.

I was told it was the stomach flu.

But I did what I always do.

I researched it.

And the average stomach virus doesn't typically last for more than two weeks.

So I kept looking.

I considered another possibility: GERD.

I already had acid reflux.

I also drink alcohol, which made that possibility seem even more plausible.

So I added Prilosec to my medication regimen and increased my famotidine to three times a day.

Four days later, I started improving.

Two weeks later, I was almost back to normal.

I could eat again.

Within reason, anyway.

I still couldn't handle certain foods or spices, but I could fucking eat.

And here's the part that bothers me.

I still didn't have an answer.

I was suffering.

I was trying to figure out what was happening to my own body.

And I ended up trying to figure it out myself because the explanation I had been given didn't make sense to me.

Maybe I was right.

Maybe I was wrong.

That's the point.

I don't know.

As I write this book, I still don't know what is happening to me.

Maybe by the time you reach later chapters, I'll have answers.

Maybe I'll discover something that explains all of this.

Maybe I won't.

But this book is being written while I am still inside the fucking problem.

I'm not writing this from some comfortable place years later where everything has been resolved and I can tell you exactly what happened.

I'm writing it while I'm still trying to figure it out.

And that matters.

Because some people are dealt a really fucking bad hand.

Their cards are bad from the beginning.

And sometimes there doesn't seem to be any way to win the game.

You just keep playing.

You keep losing.

You keep suffering.

And everyone around you keeps telling you that eventually things will get better.

I think everybody wants to believe that.

I think we desperately want to believe that somebody in a uniform has the answers.

A doctor.

A nurse.

A paramedic.

A therapist.

Somebody.

We see the uniform and assume there is knowledge behind it that will somehow make everything make sense.

But they don't always have the answers.

Sometimes they can't run the test you need.

Sometimes the facility you're in doesn't have the equipment.

Sometimes you need a specialist.

Sometimes you need another specialist after that specialist.

Sometimes you need insurance.

Sometimes you need money.

Sometimes you need transportation.

Sometimes you need medication you can't afford.

Sometimes you need a treatment that isn't accessible to you.

And sometimes you have to choose between food and medication.

What the fuck are you supposed to do then?

That's the part people don't want to talk about.

Because it's much easier to tell somebody to take their medication than to ask whether they can afford it.

It's easier to tell somebody to see a specialist than to ask whether their insurance covers the specialist.

It's easier to tell somebody to get help than to ask whether the help actually exists.

And being single can make some of this even more difficult.

There are programs built around families.

There are programs built around children.

There are programs that seem to recognize that certain people have dependents who rely on them.

But what happens when you're just one person?

When you're alone?

When you don't have a child?

When there isn't another person whose needs automatically make your situation more visible to the system?

Sometimes it feels like you simply don't matter.

And I don't want children.

I don't want to pass my genetic problems onto another human being just because society thinks having a family makes a person's suffering more legitimate.

When I was born, I weighed ounces.

Not pounds.

Ounces.

I could fit in my mother's hand.

I wasn't a normal-looking baby.

I've seen the pictures.

Honestly, she probably should have never shown them to me.

It was fucking traumatizing.

Looking at a photograph of a living human being that small and fragile is difficult to process.

And when I look at that picture, part of me thinks that maybe it would have been better if someone had been allowed to make the decision to let me go.

Because that didn't look like life to me.

But I fought.

I fought like hell to live.

And I'm still fighting like hell to live.

Even while parts of my body seem determined to make living harder and harder.

That's the contradiction.

I have fought like hell to stay alive while simultaneously experiencing things that make being alive fucking miserable.

And that is where the phrase quality of life becomes important.

Because I don't want to die.

I want to live.

I want to live without constantly fighting my own body.

I want to sleep.

I want to eat.

I want to function.

I want to understand what is happening to me.

I want to be able to wake up without wondering what the fuck my nervous system is going to do today.

I want to have a life that feels like a life.

And I've seen enough in my lifetime to know how badly the medical system can fail people.

Especially mental-health care.

It can be ridiculous.

It can be sickening.

And sometimes it is completely unacceptable.

Somebody should do something about it.

I've always believed that if something is seriously wrong, somebody should fucking do something.

But I don't see enough people fighting for this.

I see behavioral-health hospitals giving patients peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches even when allergies are known.

Think about that for a second.

You're in a psychiatric hospital because you're suicidal.

You're vulnerable.

You're already in a situation where your ability to make decisions may be compromised.

And then basic safety procedures can still fail.

That is not some grand philosophical problem.

That's a fucking sandwich.

And yet somehow even the sandwich can become an example of how badly the system can fail.

Then there are the medications.

I went into the hospital with my medical history.

I have a medical card on my phone.

I tell people what I'm taking.

I tell them my history.

The good.

The bad.

The ugly.

My drinking.

Everything.

I try to be completely honest because I want them to have the information they need to treat me.

And then I watched them make decisions anyway.

During a recent hospitalization, I wasn't given my thyroid medication.

I kept asking why.

Nobody gave me a satisfactory answer.

Now I'm dealing with severe fatigue while trying to get those levels back where they need to be.

And then, after all of that, the hospital wants to call me for a fucking survey.

“How did we do?”

Really?

You want to know how you did?

Okay.

I'll tell you.

I'll tell you the good.

I'll tell you the bad.

I'll tell you the ugly.

I'll tell you exactly what happened.

And then I'm told, “I'll call you back. I have to take care of some other things.”

And they never called back.

Apparently the patient survey doesn't matter that much after all.

Apparently what I have to say doesn't matter that much either.

And then there's the question of safety.

This one really fucking bothers me.

I entered the hospital following a suicide attempt.

That should mean something.

If you are putting someone into a room under those circumstances, that room should be safe.

Not eventually safe.

Not safe after somebody gets around to it.

Safe.

The room prepared for me still had curtains.

There were cords.

There were things that hadn't been secured.

Nothing was properly tied down.

If you are treating somebody as an active suicide risk, then you have to think differently about the environment.

You have to think like you're protecting a baby.

Anything a baby could potentially get itself into needs to be considered.

Anything that can be tied around something needs to be considered.

Anything that can be used to hurt someone needs to be considered.

I had sitters.

They were supposed to be watching me.

Some of them fell asleep.

They snored.

I could hear them sleeping.

And I remember thinking:

If I wanted to do something right now, I absolutely could.

What the fuck were they going to do about it?

They were asleep.

That is not supervision.

And eventually somebody came in and started zip-tying things down.

Why?

Because I was leaving.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to ask what the fuck the point was.

You are securing the room now?

Now?

I'm being discharged.

I'm already cleared by psychiatry.

I'm already leaving.

The person doing it probably didn't know that.

He was just doing his job.

He didn't know how long I'd been in that room.

He didn't know that I had already been sitting there with unsecured cords and curtains.

He didn't know that the person who was supposed to watch me had been asleep.

So I didn't scream at him.

Because the problem wasn't necessarily that individual person.

The problem was the fucking system around him.

That's what I'm trying to explain.

This is not about one bad doctor.

One bad nurse.

One bad paramedic.

One bad hospital.

It's about what happens when enough little failures pile up around one vulnerable person until the entire system becomes unsafe.

And all of this brings me back to quality of life.

Because after everything I've experienced, I understand why someone might look at me and think I wanted to die.

I had attempted suicide.

I had been suffering.

I had been dealing with pain, depression, anxiety, physical symptoms, insomnia, financial problems, medical problems, and uncertainty.

But there is something I need people to understand.

I did not want to die.

I wanted help.

I wanted the suffering to stop.

There is a difference.

A fucking enormous difference.

I think we make the mistake of assuming that everyone who attempts suicide wants death itself.

Sometimes what they want is an end to a life that has become unbearable.

They want reassurance that somehow, some way, tomorrow can be different.

They want somebody to tell them that there is another way out of the pain.

They want the quality of their life to change.

And when somebody is standing on a bridge, or sitting alone in a hospital room, or staring at a bottle of pills, maybe the question shouldn't only be:

“How do we keep this person alive?”

Maybe we also need to ask:

“What are we keeping them alive for?”

Not because their life isn't valuable.

Because it fucking is.

But if you want someone to keep fighting for life, then you have to give them something worth fighting toward.

You have to help them live.

Not merely survive.

There is a difference between keeping a heart beating and giving someone a life they can actually tolerate living.

I fought incredibly hard to survive.

I'm still fighting.

And I don't want someone to look at that and say, “Well, at least you're alive.”

No.

I want more than that.

I want to fucking live.

I want answers.

I want treatment that works.

I want access to that treatment.

I want doctors to listen.

I want hospitals to be safe.

I want mental-health patients to be treated like human beings instead of problems to be contained.

I want people with addictions to be treated as human beings instead of labels.

I want people without families, without money, without insurance, without somebody standing beside them, to matter just as much as everyone else.

And most of all, I want the medical system to stop confusing survival with quality of life.

Because I have survived.

Fifteen times, I have survived.

But surviving isn't the same thing as living.

And if we are going to tell people that their lives matter, then we have an obligation to make sure they have some fucking chance to experience why.

How do I wake my spirit cold?
We always say when our history's told
If only we knew the things we know
There's a question ages old

Let me down easy, let me down slow
If all good things ever come and go
Let me back down in a place I know
Hold the nail for the hammer stroke

Oh this my trash, this my tome
Oh this my blood, this my bone

How do I learn my dreams to mold
To lay them bare in the morning cold?
If they're still out there then the chasm grows
For all you know, for all you've known

Let me down easy, let me down slow
If all good things ever come and go
Let me back down in a place I know
Hold that nail for the hammer stroke

Oh this my weapon, this my loam
Oh this my blood, this my bone

How do I wake my spirit cold?
Most people die but others just go
She's still out there and the chasm grows
Steady are the feet in the morning glow

Oh this my trash, this my tome
Oh this my weapon, this my loam

Oh this my mountain, this is my home
How do I wake my spirit cold?
There's a question ages old

Notes: Inspired by One Day, One Room (Season 3, Episode 12) and Help Me (Season 6, Episode 22). Character name changed from Eve to Lydia. Cuddy does not get involved with House. Wilson is never the same toward House after Amber's death.
04-19-2023.
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On the floor, he wipes away the dust and blood from his face as the weight of the choice he is about to make weighs on him—a weight so heavy it would turn your blood cold.

You know you shouldn't go back, but it's too damn easy, especially when you're alone in this sick world.

Nobody would bat an eye at his return to pain medication.

It's like she said; everyone is moving on.

Racing thoughts.

His eyes scatter about the room. A broken mirror lies in the bathtub, hundreds of little pieces. Seven years of bad luck, or so they say. But here is a man who has lived years in pain—how much worse could it get?

A jagged, hollowed-out hole remains in the wall where the mirror used to be, and two bottles of Vicodin rest in his hand.

An open door looks out into the living room. A broken clock. A reminder of a life lost today—a daughter, a wife, someone's friend.

A woman who should have had her whole life ahead of her instead lies in the morgue somewhere.

The last thing House wanted was to cut off her leg. He knew the risks better than anybody.

He also knew the pain, and having to subject Hannah to that was too much.

All the blood, sweat, and tears, and she dies anyway.

"If they had just done it my way," he utters, slamming his fists into the floor tile.

Maybe... maybe she would still be alive, but there was no way to know now.

The thoughts run wild—like never telling her he was sorry. It's not like it would have changed anything, but at least it wouldn't be bottled up inside him.

Glancing down at his hands, he now notices the gashes across his knuckles and the blood dripping onto the floor. At some point between walking into that bathroom and pulling the mirror off the wall, he must have punched it.

He was bleeding through his bandage as well.

How lucky that it didn't nick an artery, he thought sarcastically while staring at the two bottles of Vicodin next to him on the floor.

There was a choice to be made: a life forever altered under the influence, living bottle to bottle, depending on the pills to drown out everything and everyone else until he ends up in liver failure or overdosing somewhere.

Or a life fighting it—and the pain—for what?

What did it matter now anyway?

The woman he loves is getting married.

How great for her, he thought sarcastically.

His best friend now has other friends.

Thanks, support groups.

His team is fine without him.

They will all move on anyway.

What did he really have in his life?

One thing was sure.

The pills were always there.

He pops the lid off a bottle and dumps some into his hand, not really counting—just habit, like he always has. Just as he is about to pop 'em into his mouth, a familiar face walks in.

"House?"

A soft voice echoes.

A sweet smell fills the apartment, a perfume somewhere between honeysuckle and jasmine.

A flash of blonde hair appears in the bathroom doorway before she does.

"Lydia?" House asks, shocked. He usually doesn't see his patients arrive at his apartment.

"Yeah," she replies.

"How?

Why?" he utters while looking at the Vicodin in his hand.

"Long story. I wanted to see you."

"I miss our conversations."

"I don't do house calls, least of all to my house," he replies in his usual sarcastic way.

"What happened to you?"

Lydia asks as she notices the blood on the floor and rushes to grab some hand towels from the storage cabinet above the toilet.

"Oh, nothing. I'm bloodletting. Red cell count's too high and all that jazz."

House answers with a half-cocked smile.

"I'm sure that's not the case, and you don't have to do that, you know," she says while cleaning the blood from his hands, pressing the warm, wet cloth against his dry, dusty, bloodied skin.

"Do what?"

He asks, focusing now on her appearance. Her clothes are bright and colorful. She sports a bob haircut. She looks healthy, and he wonders for a moment if she has anyone special in her life.

"Joke," she replies, now noticing his bandage.

Lydia looks through the cabinets under the sink for a first aid kit.

"If you're looking for a first aid kit, it's in the kitchen." House pauses as his voice becomes hoarse, the fatigue from the day setting in.

"First cabinet on the left."

She leaves and returns seconds later.

"So, are you going to tell me what happened?"

"You first," House fires back.

"I lost my best friend today. We met at my support group. She got me through a lot of hard times since you saw me last."

Lydia says, trying to hold back tears. Her voice begins to break.

House takes off his black leather jacket and stares at the woman as she removes bandages from the kit.

"So you took my advice."

"Yeah," she replies. "But I did miss talking to you."

His T-shirt is covered in sweat and dust, and blood is seeping through it. Lydia tries to work around his shirt, but eventually gives him a look that says, I can't work with this on, silently beckoning him to remove it.

"Sorry," she says softly.

"For what? It's an old shirt," he replies while removing it.

"Look, it even has holes in it," he points out.

"No... for whatever happened to you today," she says while looking at the rugged man.

He notices the pills are now scattered across the floor, a tipped-over bottle with doses spilled about.

"You lose a best friend today, and you're more worried about me?"

"I'm flattered, but really... I'm fine."

He utters it with an almost convincing expression on his face.

Still, after all the conversations they'd had, Lydia knew this was anything but fine.

She looks at him more intently now as she cleans and re-bandages his wound.

"You know, I've said that too many times. If I had a dollar for every time I said I was fine, I wouldn't be taking the bus, that's for sure," Lydia says as she throws the dirty items into the trash bin and places the kit on the counter.

"I lost a patient today," House mumbles.

"She shouldn't have died."

He looks noticeably pained, and the man's eyes fill with tears—tears he, too, tries to hold back.

Lydia takes another hand towel from the shelf, wets it with warm water, and begins wiping the dust and blood from his face.

She studies his deep blue eyes, his rough skin, and the downturn of his lips.

He stares back at her just as intensely, as though he were looking into a mirror.

Wanting to break the intimacy, Lydia asks, "Want to see a picture?"

"What?" House responds, breaking his stare.

Lydia pulls a small wallet from her purse and unfolds a miniature photo album.

Three of the pictures are group photos, including one of her and another young woman.

House looks at them in disbelief.

"That was her. My best friend, Hannah."

"You knew her?" House asks, the words barely escaping his lips.

Lydia looks at his expression in confusion.

"She..." House pauses. "She was my patient."

"Wait... you were there?" Lydia replies.

"It was all over the news. I..."

House interrupts her.

"I tried to save her. I tried..."

His voice breaks as he rubs his leg. The pain is too great to ignore now. He reaches for the pills scattered across the floor, picks up three or four, and knocks them back like they were shots of alcohol.

"I'm glad she had you there."

Lydia sobs, wiping away the tears almost as quickly as they fall.

House grabs two more pills. When Lydia asks if he needs water, he points to a whiskey bottle sitting on top of a nightstand in the living room beside a crooked lamp.

Lydia brings him the bottle while picking up a cup from the bathroom counter.

"Oh, I won't need a cup," House says as he unscrews the bottle.

"Why drink alone?" the young woman remarks as she takes the bottle from his hands and pours herself a generous amount before handing it back to him. Both trying to hide the pain.

"I'm not in the habit of turning my patients into alcoholics."

He remarks wryly as he washes down the Vicodin with a hit of the good brown stuff.

"Guess I'll have to risk it. Cheers!" Lydia says as she takes a shot herself before asking,

"What is that? And can I have one?"

"Vicodin."

House hands her a pill.

"Well, you're already drinking.

Might as well add drugs."

"If you're going to get wet, might as well go swimming," Lydia fires back.

The two share a broken smile of sorts and make small talk about things like the weather before she asks,

"So, what happened to the mirror?"

"It got what was coming to it," House replies.

"Never liked looking at myself anyway."

"Me either," she answers as the Vicodin starts to kick in.

"Wow... I feel so much calmer. Do you want to stay in the bathroom all night?"

"No, but I should probably take a shower," he replies.

"That's gonna be a little hard with all that mirror in the way."

Just then, Lydia springs up and walks out of the bathroom.

"Do you have a broom or something?" she yells from the kitchen.

House is lost in thought for a moment. Taking a shower with her would feel so damn good. Then he thinks about everything else he'd like to do.

A moment of imagination runs through him. Things he knows he shouldn't act on.

Yeah... that's what he needed. Another complicated relationship with someone who probably needs help as much as he does. They'd both just end up falling into a ditch.

"Found it," Lydia says as she returns to the bathroom and begins sweeping up the glass.

House eases himself to his feet, picks up his cane, and walks into the living room. He stops beside an old-looking table. Sitting on top of it is a record player.

A track begins to play at the push of a button.

Lydia walks into the kitchen to throw away the broken pieces of the mirror.

When she returns, she hands House the bottle of whiskey.

He sets it down next to the record player before turning to her, a new kind of hurt in his eyes.

"I don't want to use you."

He utters it almost under his breath, the weight of the words too heavy even for him. Knowing well that they're both too raw and vulnerable right now for any of his thoughts to become actions.

She looks at him as he places his hands on her shoulders, slowly running them down to hold her hands in an almost soothing manner, as if he is desperately trying to comfort her without thinking about his own selfishness for a moment.

"What if I want you to use me?"

The words escape her lips without any thought beforehand, as if the mirror wasn't broken and she was looking at herself. A kindred spirit, perhaps.

"I...

I don't want to hurt you," he says as he relaxes into her, leaning forehead to forehead while looking down at the ugly gray carpet.

"Like I've hurt everyone else."

As their eyes meet again, he utters, "I don't want to need you."

Lydia embraces the rugged man and kisses him.

A sudden rush of warmth. A blissful pressure. A flush of heat across the skin of his face.

If life is a series of rooms, then what are the chances they'll end up in another one again?

House pulls away and grabs a towel and a change of clothes from the closet. He walks to the bathroom to take a shower, unable to say anything to her, let alone process the kiss.

In the kitchen, Lydia looks through the refrigerator and decides to make something to eat.

When House returns to the living room, Lydia brings him a plate of eggs and toast.

They both sit on the couch and eat while listening to music, saying nothing more.

Afterward, Lydia washes the dishes, and when she walks back into the living room, their eyes meet once again.

She moves his legs into a stretched-out position and lies beside him on the couch, wrapping her arms around him in a comforting embrace.

A soft moan escapes his lips as he places his arms around her. She lays her head on his shoulder as the two drift off to sleep, an easing of pain for a small moment.

Still knowing there can never be more than this, but also knowing there doesn't need to be.