Aisha had saved the therapist's number in her phone for three months before she finally called. She'd typed and deleted the same text a dozen times, each attempt feeling more foolish than the last. Something in her kept insisting she should be able to handle this on her own — whatever "this" even was anymore, some tangled mix of exhaustion, sadness, and a persistent sense that she was failing at a life everyone else seemed to manage easily.

Her older brother had gone to therapy for two years after a difficult period of his own, and Aisha had watched him change — not dramatically, not overnight, but steadily, like watching a photo slowly come into focus.