“And I get it, Ellie,” Meredith says, gentle and coaxing again. “You have parents who are shit heaps. Linds and Jed suck, and you thought being perfect and never failing was the only way you could avoid becoming them. But your trauma is something that happened to you; it’s not who you are. It’s time to talk-therapy your way through it so it can stop controlling your entire life.”

I snort a laugh and a little bit of snot comes out with it. Meredith reaches for a tissue and wipes up my snot, and if that’s not love, I’m not sure what is. “Jed and Linds don’t love you,” Meredith says bluntly, cutting me off at the emotional knees. “But that doesn’t mean you have to be perfect to deserve love.”

The thing is, I used to dream about someone who would always choose me above everything else. There was romance in that dream, sure. I wanted someone who would see all my flaws and still lean in and tell me I’m beautiful. I wanted someone who would hold my hand in public and hold the rest of me in private, a warm body in my bed, a constant presence in my life.

I wanted someone who would see the whole mess of me—all the feelings and the perfectionism and the desire for control and the shape of my heart and the ache of my dreams, the wild, imperfect hunger of me, and the fear that keeps me from ever feeling full—and wouldn’t get freaked out or turned off. Someone who would kiss me anyway.

So yes. It was a romantic delusion. But beneath the desire to be cherished was the ever-present thrum of my desire to be chosen. I wanted someone who would pick me to be their family. I believed that somewhere out there was the person who would want to spend every holiday with me. The person who would pick me as their partner for every duet, the person who would always care about what I had to say, who would get me off the couch and into the world. The person patient enough to build trust and connection with me first; the person who would notice when I’m hurting and still never calculate the cost of loving me. Despite all my cynicism, I had to believe that person existed.

And last Christmas I thought snow magic had delivered her to me. And when I saw Claire standing there in front of the Airstream, I took it as proof that my belief was childish and naïve. My own parents hadn’t loved me enough to stick around. Why did I think someone else ever would?

“Are you sure I can’t just blame my parents for making me believe I’m unlovable?”