Jasmine's childhood had been a stage, and she had been both the performer and the audience.
She learned early how to smile when she didn't want to, how to laugh at the right moments, and how to gauge a room for approval like it was oxygen. Her mother was too tired, her father too absent, and love was not a constant—it was a performance bonus.
But when Jasmine twirled like a ballerina in the living room, when she brought home perfect grades or impressed a stranger with her precociousness, something strange would happen: for a moment, she would be seen. Not deeply, not lovingly, but enough.
Enough to matter.
Enough to feel like she existed.
But even as a child, she could feel something off inside her. A restless buzzing beneath her skin. A hunger to be wanted not just today, but every day. To never be forgotten. To never be left behind.
At twelve, she began noticing the difference. Her classmates were light, easy, whole. They didn't flinch at silence. They didn't calculate how to cry in a way that made people come running. They didn't need to be chosen to feel real.
She watched them and thought: I have to be more.
More dazzling. More exciting. More worthy.
So she learned how to craft herself. When to pout. When to retreat. When to explode. She became the kind of girl people couldn't stop thinking about—even if they didn't like her, they needed her.
By fourteen, she had perfected the art of the pull.
The pull that kept people orbiting her. She didn't even need to touch them. Just a look. A perfectly timed silence. An invitation paired with just enough distance to make them ache for her attention.
But it never lasted.
She burned through friendships, through boyfriends, through mentors and admirers, all with the same result: they left, or she discarded them before they had the chance. She convinced herself she didn't need anyone.
At sixteen, she believed it.
She watched her mother cry into a wine glass one night—sharp words slurring out like spilled poison. "You think you're special, Jasmine? You think you're untouchable? You're just like me."
Jasmine swore she'd never be.
But deep down, the cracks were already there. The mood swings. The high-highs where she could conquer the world, followed by days of emptiness so vast it swallowed her whole. Some days she loved the world. Other days she couldn't stand to look at herself in the mirror.
But she never let it show. She performed. Always.
Then came Cameron.
Cameron, who didn't try to tame her. Who adored her. Who saw through some of the performance and still stayed. It had felt intoxicating—and terrifying.
Because Jasmine didn't know how to be real for very long.
So when Cameron said therapy, when she said help, Jasmine recoiled like she'd been touched by fire. Because if something was wrong—if this wasn't just her being complex and passionate and hard to love—then what did that make her?
Who was she if the story she had written about herself was flawed?
Who was she if she wasn't in control?
She wasn't ready to answer that. But the words had started coming anyway, rising in her throat like they had been waiting for years to escape.