~Three months later~

Things are moving towards the better, but there’s still so much work to do. Mom and I have been on ever-shifting sands, trying to make ground with each other, but I’m not sure that we have. We talk more and she gets angry less but all the weight between us didn’t simply vanish overnight. We’ve seen Carol once a week since our conversation, on top of my solo weekly meeting, and I think it’s helping, but slowly.

A lot of things have come to light about each of us. We’re both terribly good about shifting blame, and that’s where a lot of our troubles come from. We blamed dad for the downfall of our relationship, but really it was all us. We were both hurt, felt abandoned and, in a way that only humans can, we turned away from each other instead of joining together in our sadness. We are, without a doubt, the strangest creatures on this planet.

For mom, it’s easier to be angry. Anger shows a sort of strength in its blazing outward force, while sadness just makes one appear weak and broken. She couldn’t show that side to me for so long because she was the adult, the one who needed to be strong, even when she wanted to collapse. The anger kept her moving, even though it burnt through the energy it created at a rapid pace.

For me, it was easier to fill my emotional holes. My methods for that have changed over the years. When dad first left, when I was 14, it was food. I’d eat myself into oblivion and then when the regret would settle at the bottom of my stomach I’d force myself to throw it up. My displeasure with vomiting made that filler only last a few months before I moved on.

As I sit here in the waiting room, I can’t help but think of the filler that I used for so many years. It’s easily the most shameful, and in its own way probably lead to that night so many months ago. The thought of even attempting it now makes my stomach crawl and I cast the thought aside, inhaling deeply through my nose.

I’m the only one here besides whoever is in there with Carol now. I’m the last appointment of the day, an unusual Sunday appointment before my big day tomorrow. I start school again in less than 15 hours. I tried the week after Carol suggested it, but I had such a bad anxiety attack that I couldn’t go through with it.

I’m glad I waited, though, because the antidepressants have me right where I need to be, and when we paired it with anti-anxiety medication, most of my problems faded to the background. It’s a sweet relief to feel mostly normal again.

The door finally opens and an older gentleman comes out, giving me a soft smile as he moves past me to the door. He looks so normal, so carefree, that I wonder what brings him here. I can only hope that from the outside looking in I also appear that way to those who look at me. I may carry a billboard to my problems on my arms but those are easy enough to keep covered.

“You can come on in, Destiny,” Carol calls from inside her office.

I push out of my chair to make my way inside, closing the door behind me. I cross to my normal seat on the couch and flop into it, making myself comfortable. I remember exactly where we left off last time, and what I’m going to have to talk about next but I still keep pushing it away until I’m forced to think about it.

Carol comes from around her desk, where I can only imagine she was filing papers or something else therapists do and takes a seat across from me with a smile. I smile back, but there’s no joy behind it, only nervousness.

“Alright, do you just want to jump into our session today, or do we need to start somewhere other than where we left off last time?”

I shrug, not really sure what I want to do here. I’m uncertain of myself in a way that I haven’t felt in several months. It’s in the past, but I still feel like it sits right atop my shoulders, baring down on me with its weight.

“I’m ashamed,” I whisper. For a moment I think she doesn’t hear me, but then she smiles at me again in that reassuring way she has.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of. We all have our ways of coping with our emotions. Some are more healthy than others and some of us need help finding better methods, but we should never be ashamed of what we came from. It makes us, shapes us, into who we become.”

I nod, knowing in some way that she’s right, but still feeling shame burn in the bottom of my gut. I swallow the knot in my throat and look down at my hands so I don’t have to look at her eyes to see how she reacts.

“It was freshman year, and there was a back to school house party that someone threw. I don’t even remember how we heard about it, but my best friend and I decided to go, just to see what all the hype was about.”

“Abby?” she questions, and I nod stiffly so she knows that’s the friend I meant.

“We weren’t going to drink, but there were guys there and they just kept passing us drinks and we kept taking them. We were wasted before we even realized we were drunk. And then this guy shows up, and he’s gorgeous. Tall, dark hair, and green eyes. He was actually talking to me, and I was so surprised I was hanging on every word that he said.

“He took me to show me around the house, and then we were in his bedroom and he was kissing me. I felt so...” I sigh, scrunching up my forehead as I think of the right word. “Needed. I felt needed, and wanted, and so I didn’t push him away. Not when he kissed me, or when he touched me. I had sex with him, lost my virginity to him, and I didn’t even know him, because he made me feel needed.”

For a while she’s silent, and I’m unsure of what she thinks because I can’t bring myself to look up at her. The silence grows heavier and heavier until I finally risk a glance at her and her gaze is open, not judging at all, just accepting.

“And being needed filled that broken piece of you.”

I nod and squeeze my hands together. “He turned out to be a senior, one of the most popular guys at school, a football player, even. After that night, though, he pretended to not even know me. For a while, I was sad, but then I realized that it wasn’t him that I wanted, it was to feel needed. I went to every party, every sports game, anything that would bring me closer to a guy, any guy that needed what I had to offer.”

I squeeze my eyes shut for a second and shudder, disgusted with myself. “I was a whore and I knew it, but I couldn’t stop. Word quickly spread about the person I was and people started to avoid me. Abby even started to drift away from me, and she fully walked away from me 9 months ago, when I slept with that football player one more time. He was her boyfriend.”

“Yet you slept with him anyway, knowing that?”

I shrug because I don’t fully know why I made the choices I did then. I suppose I didn’t even think. “We fought that night and she called me a slut. She fought with him, too, I’m not sure what about, and then she left the party, or so we thought. We were both angry at her and things just happened. She walked in on us. I’d never seen her so angry.”

“Was she really angry, though, or was she hurt?”

I pause for a moment, thinking. Her face had been hard that night, closed off, but her eyes had been broken and full of tears when she’d slapped me. I deserved it, and at least a dozen more, so I’d just taken it. I’d pulled my clothes back on without a word and left.

“She was hurt,” I mumble, feeling like the lowest of the low.

She nods, agreeing, and moves to sit more on the edge of her seat. “I’m sure you understand fully why she felt that way, too. It wasn’t just that her boyfriend slept with someone else, it was that the someone else in question was her best friend. In covering your own hurt, you hurt someone else. Do you understand why you did that?”

“Because I’m selfish?”

She nods slightly. “That’s part of it. We are all selfish in our own ways. I think, though, that the sex was starting to not be enough for you anymore. It wasn’t enough to fill the broken parts anymore. You were hurting, so without really understanding that it’s what you were doing, you wanted someone else to hurt, too.”

I think it over a moment before I realize how right she is about it and nod my understanding. Man, I’m the worst friend ever. Suddenly, I want to reach out to Abby after all this time. I want to apologize, but I don’t even know where to begin with it, or if it would be for her or myself.

“I can’t ever fix what I’ve done, can I?” The question is heavy in my gut and the silence that follows for several beats afterward makes me squirm. Surely there’s something that I can do, right?

“Fix it, no. That kind of trust is something that is only given once, and I want to believe that you know that already. Would you ever be friends with her again if she’d done the same to you?”

I shake my head, feeling sick. Of course, I wouldn’t. I would hate her, regardless of how she tried to explain herself, what excuses she made for why she’d done something so incredibly awful. Nothing I could possibly say to her would make her believe that I was sorry. Maybe, in all reality, I wasn’t. Would I have done things differently if I’d have known she’d come back to the party that night? Probably not.

“We all make dumb choices and mistakes, but not everyone learns from them. The best thing that you can take from that situation is that you made a really careless choice and learn from it. If you don’t take something from it then you caused needless pain.”

“So, learn to be a less shitty friend is what you’re telling me, right?”

She chuckles lightly, shaking her head. “If that’s what you take from it, sure. I can’t tell you the lesson in the mistake, Destiny. That one is completely up to you.”

I force a smile, knowing that she’s right. If someone just gives you the answer, you’ll never learn how to break the problem down and solve it yourself. It’d be yet another band-aid on top of the ones already layered across my heart.

I sigh, leaning back so my head is against the back of the couch. I don’t want to tell what happens next, even though she knows all the gory details. It still makes my stomach churn. There’s no way I can make it through without crying and I don’t feel like crying today.

“Can we just leave it at that today? I don’t think I’m ready to continue.”

Carol nods her understanding and scribbles on her notepad like she always does. Sometimes I wonder if it’s even anything of value or if it’s just shorthand reminders. It could even be the things she thinks and can’t say, for all I know. “Patient is crazy,” I can imagine her scrawling over and over with each of our sessions. If that’s the case, she may very well be spot on with her deduction.

“We’ll call it a night, then. Head home and get some rest. You’ll need it for your first day back in school.” She smiles, warmly, and somehow how sure she seems that I’ll go makes me sure myself.

“Thanks, I’ll do that. Goodnight.”

“Night,” she replies, and I leave the office feeling somewhat lighter. I hope that the lightness I feel tonight will carry into tomorrow and that everything will go without a hitch.