Before any of this, most people my age had no idea what they wanted to be when they grew up.
I did.
It sounded stupid now.
Embarrassing, even.
But I wanted to become a therapist.
Not because I was some saint. Not because I liked people that much. I just…understood what it felt like to be trapped inside your own head. To wake up every morning already exhausted. To smile at people while something underneath kept rotting.
Maybe I thought helping other people would fix something in me too.
Track had been the realistic dream. The scholarship. The escape route out of Chicago.
But if that never worked out?
Then yeah.
Therapist.
Funny as hell considering where I ended up.
The room they shoved me into barely qualified as a quarters. It looked more like something pulled out of an old prison documentary. Concrete floor. Concrete walls. Metal toilet in the corner. No windows. Just a vent above me coughing out cold air that smelled like rust.
