The morning sun streamed through the large windows of the Thorton kitchen, painting the marble countertops in a warm, deceptive glow. Y/n pushed her scrambled eggs around her plate, the fork feeling heavy in her hand. The familiar, chalky aftertaste of her medication was absent, replaced by a hollow, buzzing quiet in her head that had started to feel like clarity weeks ago.

Across the table, her brother Topper was scrolling through his phone, a picture of effortless calm. Next to him, their father, Mathias, hid behind the financial section of the newspaper. The only sound was the clink of silverware until Isabella Thorton placed a glass of orange juice a little too firmly in front of Y/n’s setting.

“You took your lithium, sweetheart?” Isabella’s voice was light, but her eyes were already scanning, diagnosing.

Y/n kept her gaze on her plate. “Mmhmm.”

The lie hung in the air for a beat too long. Isabella’s perfectly manicured hand darted out, snatching the weekly pill organizer from the edge of the counter. It was empty for Tuesday morning.

The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.

“Y/N!” The name wasn’t spoken; it was launched, a shard of ice that shattered the morning’s fragile peace. Mathias’s newspaper lowered an inch. Topper didn’t look up from his phone, but his jaw tightened. “You know what happens! You know the next step is psychiatry! Is that what you want? To be locked away with people who can’t function?”

Y/n flinched, the words landing like physical blows. “I’m functioning,” she muttered, her voice small against her mother’s hurricane.

“This is not functioning!” Isabella waved the empty container. “This is you choosing to be sick! We have given you every tool, every advantage, and you spit it back in our faces. Topper never gave us a day of worry. Not one!”

At the mention of the golden child, Topper finally glanced up, his eyes meeting Y/n’s for a fleeting second. There was something there—a flicker of guilt, of helplessness—before it was shuttered away. He said nothing. His silence was a wall, aligning him with their parents by default.

Mathias folded his paper with a slow, final sigh. “Your mother is right, Y/n. This is a very serious path you’re on. If you can’t manage the simple task of taking a pill, then perhaps more… structured help is necessary.”

His words, calm and measured, were worse than Isabella’s shouts. They framed her not as a rebellious daughter, but as a faulty component needing a more severe repair. The “crazy, sick child” narrative, polished and presented as cold concern.

Y/n’s chest tightened. The buzzing quiet in her head began to morph, the edges of her vision sharpening with a familiar, rising panic. This was the harder part. The part Rafe knew about, the part her friends in the Kook group—Kelce, Vanessa, Sarah, Topper, and Rafe—worked to buffer. They were her anchor, the only ones who saw her, not the disorder.

But they weren’t here now. Here, in this sterile, sunlit kitchen, she was just the problem.

Her phone buzzed on the table. A text lit up the screen.

<Rafe: Missing you. Kook lunch at the Wreck later? V & Kelce are being gross, as usual. Need my partner in crime.

A lifeline. A reminder of a world where she was Y/n, Rafe’s girlfriend of almost a year and a half, Sarah’s friend, Vanessa’s confidante. Not just a diagnosis sitting at the breakfast table.

She stood up, the chair scraping loudly. “I’m going to school,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady.

“We are not finished with this conversation, young lady!” Isabella called after her.

But Y/n was already grabbing her bag, the text from Rafe a warm ember in her palm. The storm at home was real, and the crash from skipping her meds was a ticking clock she could feel in her bones. Yet, as she pushed through the front door into the salty Outer Banks air, she clung to the other truth: she wasn’t in it alone. The harder part was hers to carry, but she didn’t have to carry it by herself.