All Chapters of Mesmerize Me: Chapter 61 - Chapter 67

A little over a month had passed since I started my sessions with Clara, and although life still felt fragile, something inside me had changed. The days were no longer a string of empty hours or a constant waiting for something to go wrong. There was still fear—yes—but it no longer occupied all the space. I went back to school a few days later, and the noise in the hallways still cut through me. That’s when I learned to anchor myself—to name colors, sounds, textures. And when Kate noticed I was getting overwhelmed, she would simply take my hand. No words. No questions. As if she knew that sometimes, that was enough. I started doing yoga at home, reading a little before bed, cooking with Dad on Sundays, and, every now and then, letting Jacob join me in spaces that had once felt impossible. That afternoon, he suggested we go out for ice

For a long time, I believed time was an enemy—an endless line of days that didn’t belong to me, hours that existed only to remind me of what I had lost. But time, like most things, proved more complex. It didn’t give me back what had been taken. It didn’t erase the wound. But it did something quieter, more decisive: it stopped reopening it every time I breathed. It was still there—sensitive, alive—but it no longer bled the way it used to. I had survived things that, at another point in my life, would have seemed impossible. I hadn’t come out unscathed—I wasn’t the same—but I also wasn’t the broken version of myself I once believed I would be forever. I had learned to stay afloat, even when the sea was still rough. Maybe that’s why they say sailors aren’t born in calm waters.

The man took a deep breath, as if he had been rehearsing what he was about to say for a long time. “Camila… things got out of control. I didn’t mean to hurt you, and I certainly didn’t want anyone else to hurt you.” I looked at him without rushing. I didn’t feel the urge to interrupt or correct him right away. I let his words settle in the air—clumsy, incomplete, insufficient. “There’s no apology in that,” I said at last, calmly. Not as a reproach, but as a statement. He frowned, uncomfortable, and nodded once, as if that w