“Oh my God. That’s the same name as my best friend over there.” I pointed over, but my Jessica didn’t notice me pointing. She was deep in conversation with Ben, while Mum and Dad milled around, looking old and out of place. She was leaning into him, mouth close to his ear, smiling. He leaned in closer to hear her, and smiled at whatever she was saying. The intimacy of it unleashed a vile monster that raced through my body, unleashing hell. Ben’s hand was almost touching the small of her back, and it took everything I had not to peg it over there, and smack him away from my friend as if he was a toddler trying to grab a cooling cupcake.

“Oh, cool. So, yeah, thanks again for tonight,” she said, while two of her friends gathered around her, scraps of paper also in their hands, blocking my view of my boyfriend.

“We love your new Gah! series,” one of them said, before giggling at having spoken.

“Yeah, it’s so cool,” another girl thrust her paper into my hand. “Make it out to Mabel,” she instructed. “Yeah, so, I read one of your articles and realized why my CBT wasn’t working. So, I transferred to a ‘person-centered’ counselor and it’s made such a difference.”

“Wow...wow,” I said, while I scrawled my signature. “I mean, that’s so great. Genuinely.” I craned over her head to grab another glimpse of Ben and Jessica. They were still enraptured with one another. Jessica was speaking a lot with her hands, while he nodded enthusiastically. Then, sensing me, they both looked up, and I felt relief surge through me as no guilt passed their faces. Instead they gestured to my swarm of young millennials and gave me a giant thumbs-up.

God, I was such a terrible, insecure person. Thank fucking fuck nobody could ever hear my crazy thoughts. And, here I was, with actual readers coming up to me in actual real life, and I was ruining the moment with paranoid jealousy.

I refocused my attention. “And your name?” I asked the next young woman, taking her paper, and nodding and listening intently as she told me about her own therapy journey. I was transported back into what mattered, what was important. My eyes glazed with tears. I hugged these fragile, excitable girls, and told them what it meant to me. We chatted for a bit about my counseling training, me laughing when they asked if they could book a session with me, then I sent them on their way to queue for Dr. Petra.

I was walking practically two feet in the air when I returned to my family, noticing how heads twisted toward me as I passed. The swell of importance worn like a crown.

“Oh my God, sorry about that,” I said breathlessly. “That was very unexpected.”

Ben hugged me again. “My rock-star girlfriend.”