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Lahat ng Kabanata ng Locked Out of My Heart: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

10 Kabanata

Chapter 1

My legs gave out beneath me. My knees cracked against the storage room threshold, and I practically crawled my way out of the room.My best friend, Vanessa Ridley, stepped back, one hand clamped over her nose. She doubled over laughing. "Oh my God! The smell is unreal."My husband, Pierce Harrington, held up his phone. On the screen, my brother, Curtis Townsend, stared back with a frozen expression."Look at yourself. You're 30 years old, yet you can't even handle a dark room. You're lucky Pierce hasn't given up on you."Pierce was quick to jump in. "Don't say that. Ainsley just needs more time.""Time? It's been three years. You keep babying her, and she'll never get better." Curtis scoffed.I knelt on the floor, the dark stain of urine spreading in a circle around me. Pierce crouched down to help me up.I pushed his hand away. My palms were slick with sweat, and flecks of wall paint from the storage room were still wedged under my nails.Vanessa leaned toward the phone. "Next

Chapter 2

When Pierce finished reading that line at our wedding, Curtis actually smiled from the front row. He clapped Pierce twice on the shoulder firmly. "I trust you with Ainsley."Now I lay in the pitch-dark bedroom, his breathing inches away from me.I felt trapped in a room whose door would never open, and the lock had been installed by his own hands.On Monday morning, I booked an appointment at the anxiety disorder clinic at Clearview Mental Health Center.The confirmation text came through while I was sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast. Pierce walked out of the kitchen with his coffee, glancing down at my phone."Which doctor did you book?"He took a sip, his voice casual. "Nessa says Dr. Garrison from there is a big supporter of exposure therapy. You should book with him."I won't be able to go with you today. Something came up at work. I'll pick you up later."I did not answer as I slipped my phone into my pocket. The specialist was a gray-haired woman in wire-rim

Chapter 3

Pierce had held my hand and pointed at the sky."Look how big it is out here. It's not cramped at all. How about we walk home?"No elevator, no car. We can take all afternoon if we want."That day, we walked for two and a half hours to get home.He bought me roasted chestnuts from a street cart and told me about climbing trees in the countryside when he was a kid. He talked the entire way and kept making me laugh.Back in the present day, Pierce came home carrying a bag at 6:30 PM."Nessa wanted me to bring you these. They're organic blueberries from a farm near her internship site. She says they're good for anxiety."He washed the blueberries and set the bowl in front of me, smiling. "See how much she cares about you?"I stared at the blueberries, each one plump, dark purple, and beaded with water. I suddenly could not remember what blueberries tasted like.It was not a problem with my taste buds. I was simply losing the ability to feel, bit by bit.Two weeks later, I came o

Chapter 4

That weekend, Vanessa sent an invite to our group chat. The venue was an escape room funhouse.She tagged me specifically and typed out a long message. Vanessa: [Don't worry! It's the open kind. There are no enclosed spaces. It's just a bunch of big rooms decorated in different themes. I asked ahead of time!]Pierce replied on my behalf in the group chat. Pierce: [She'll be there.]Right after, Curtis sent a voice note. "Ainsley, go. Think of it as getting out of the house. Stop sitting around overthinking everything. Pierce will be with you."Just like that, it seemed like I had no choice at all.When we arrived, it was in fact an open-layout game venue, spacious and well-lit.Besides me and Vanessa, three of her friends were there too. Pierce sat on a couch in the corner, scrolling on his phone.The game reached the third round. "This round, someone has to go into the 'Fear Chamber' to get the key. Whoever loses goes in!"Vanessa pointed at a small black door in the corne

Chapter 5

In the taxi, I rolled the window halfway down. The night air rushed in, stinging the wound on my hand.I took out my phone and opened the recording app that had been running in the background the whole time.I pressed stop. The recording was five minutes and thirteen seconds.It contained Vanessa's words, her laughter, the sound of the lock, and Pierce's silence. All of it was in there. I was not shaking anymore.The fear felt like it had burned itself out in those five minutes, and everything else had gone with it. The love, the hope, and the reluctance to let go that I held had all burned away.I stared at the screen for two seconds, then closed the app and set the phone on my lap.The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. "Miss, your hand is bleeding."I looked down. Blood was dripping through the gaps between my fingers onto my bag."It's fine."I fished out a tissue and pressed it to the wound.Wind poured through the window, and it was cold. I kept breathing st

Chapter 6

I tore the house apart. In the study, inside the wastepaper basket, I found a crumpled sheet of printer paper.It was a copy of the diagnostic report from Clearview Mental Health Center.I remembered that day. Ainsley had texted me saying she was going in for a follow-up. When she came back and I asked about it, she said it was nothing.I read the report line by line.[Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Severe.][Early-stage panic attack indicators present.][PTSD risk assessment: High.]The last line read: [All forms of forced exposure must cease immediately. If the current rate of deterioration is not halted, the patient will develop irreversible post-traumatic stress disorder within six months.]The report slipped from my hands.The date on it was the same day I had told her to reschedule her appointment so I could drive Vanessa to her internship.She had gone to the hospital alone and brought the results back herself. When I asked her how it went, she said it was nothing.I s

Chapter 7

By my second month down south, I thought I had cut everyone from my past life off. But somehow, Curtis got hold of my landlady's number.I was painting in the yard that day when Mrs. Haddon walked over, looking uncertain."Ainsley, a man called. He said he's your brother and asked me to pass along a message."She looked at me. "He said you need to stop this and come home. He said you're not well and that if something happens to you out here, nobody will be around to help.""He also said..." Mrs. Haddon lowered her voice."He said your husband never did anything wrong. They were trying to help you get better, and you threw it back in their faces. He told me to tell you to stop being difficult."I smiled at her. "Mrs. Haddon, if that man calls again, just hang up. He's not part of my life anymore."She nodded and left without another word.I looked back down and kept painting. My hand was steady.In his mind, I had not fled because I was being hurt. I was just being dramatic.F

Chapter 8

One week later, I was at my easel working on an upcoming project when my phone rang. It was Gordon Slade, Pierce's cousin."Ainsley, there's something I think you need to know."Gordon told me Pierce had not given up after he came back.He had been talking to Curtis, trying to get the family elders involved to pressure me into mediation. His main argument was that I had a mental illness and needed my husband to take care of me, and that the divorce would be to my disadvantage.Vanessa was helping him put together a psychological evaluation report to prove I was not capable of living independently.The day after Gordon called, the texts from Curtis started coming.The first one read: [Ainsley, where are you? Everyone at home is worried about you. You're out there alone, and you're not fully recovered. If something happens to you, who's going to be responsible?]The second came right after. Curtis: [Pierce told me everything. He's willing to change, and he's willing to take you

Chapter 9

The complaint spread through the counseling community fast.The practice where Vanessa had been interning issued a public statement almost immediately to protect itself and cut all ties with her.Her professor posted on social media to distance himself. "I have never instructed or authorized any student to conduct forced exposure on a patient. I ask the individual in question not to implicate others."She was completely cut off.Out of sympathy for me, Gordon screenshotted things Vanessa had said in private and dropped them into a group chat she shared with their mutual friends.One of them was a transcript of a voice memo. "Ainsley is basically a pet that Pierce and I are training. I can do whatever I want with her, and she still has to thank me for it."The moment those screenshots hit the group, everyone lost it.People who used to think she was just blunt and honest were now digging up everything she had ever said, and all those cruel remarks she had made under the guise o

Chapter 10

In the spring, the wisteria bloomed and hung over the cottage wall.I sat in the yard and painted. My new picture book was almost ready for publication. The main character was a rabbit.I could sleep with the door closed now, though I still kept the window cracked open out of habit.The truth was, I understood that safety was never about the locks. It was about knowing that no one on the other side of the door would ever use my fear against me again.Every now and then, I heard things through old colleagues.Vanessa's graduate program had revoked her enrollment. The State Licensing Board ruled that her actions constituted unlicensed psychological intervention, and her name was placed on the industry blacklist.She had moved back to her hometown and was reportedly working the front desk at a beauty salon.Pierce never came looking for me again. After the divorce, he applied for an overseas assignment through his company and was transferred to a remote project office. He stopped s

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