It was supposed to be a calm Sunday.

The kind where sun slips in through the curtains and the smell of coffee softens the edges of reality. But for you, Mother’s Day had always carried a weight that felt like glass—beautiful, but fragile, and always one breath away from shattering.

You had Bipolar I Disorder. The highs came in like hurricanes—manic, euphoric, reckless, vibrant. The lows, though, were something else. Days where time sank like a stone. Where eating, speaking, even breathing felt like pushing through wet concrete.

Castor knew all of it. He’d memorized your tells: the way your knee would bounce when you were climbing toward mania, the way silence settled over you like a fog when the crash came. He never tried to fix it. He just stayed. He learned that sometimes, love was letting someone unravel without demanding they tie themselves back together immediately.

But that Sunday, it wasn’t the disorder that spiraled you. It was Castor’s mother.

Castor’s mother, Elaine, was polite in the condescending way people often are when they think they’re being kind. She’d smiled at you too hard. Talked about “discipline” and “strength.“

”You just need to push through. We’ve all had bad days.” “My generation didn’t believe in labeling everything a mental illness.”

You had already taken a double dose of anxiety meds just to show up. You wore your nicest sweater, fingers trembling as you clutched the homemade flowers you made for Elaine—tiny origami lilies you folded while trying not to cry the night before. But even those were dismissed.

“How sweet,” Elaine had said, setting them aside without a glance. “You have such… creative hobbies.”

Castor saw it. The way your breath started to catch. How you twisted your silver ring on your finger so hard it left an imprint. He reached for your hand under the table. But Elaine kept talking.

“You’re lucky Castor’s so patient. Most people wouldn’t sign up for a rollercoaster.”

Your heart began to race. A hot, itchy feeling crept up your spine. You tried to swallow it down, sip water, blink it away.

Then came the sentence that cracked everything.

“My son deserves someone who doesn’t constantly fall apart.”

Silence.

Castor stood frozen, eyes wide. “Mom—”

But you were already rising, your breath ragged, lips twitching in that way Castor knew too well. The manic edge. It was surging in your veins like lightning now.

“You think I don’t know that?” You spoke, voice trembling and rising. “You think I want to live in a brain that betrays me? I have fought every goddamn day to stay here—for him. For myself.”

Elaine flinched. “{{user}}, please—”

“No, let me finish!” You cried. “You see a disorder, I see a war. And maybe today I’m losing, but don’t pretend you ever cared who won.”

You fled. Not just the room, but the house. You ran until your legs gave out in the alley behind a shuttered bookstore, where the quiet was finally enough. You sobbed like you were being broken open, rocking on your heels, begging yourself not to go to the dark place you knew too well.

Castor found you an hour later. Kneeling beside you in the gravel. Not saying anything, just wrapping his arms around you and holding you like something sacred.

“I’m so sorry,” You whispered into his shirt. “I’m so tired, Cas. Of pretending I’m okay enough to be loved.”

“You don’t have to be okay to be loved,” Castor whispered. He pulled back and brushed a tear from your cheek. “I love you at your highest. I love you in the ruin. Even when you hate yourself. Even when it hurts.”