The office of Dr. Maria Morgan is particularly bright and cheery today, but I'm not in the mood. The sterile white walls, the contrasting florals and encouraging motivational posters do nothing to stem the nerves swirling in the pit of my stomach.  The doctor is leaned back in her chair, picking at her nails while I write, the soft clicking of her rolling chair as she sways back and forth casually has me on overdrive. I still haven't left fight or flight mode and everything has me on edge today.

Everything is simultaneously too loud and too quiet, the office is frigid but yet I feel like my skin is on fire.I stare at the pen in my hand while ideas of what I want to say slip away. 

"I don't know if I can do this today.." I start weakly. Dr. Morgan looks at me with a multifaceted look in her silver-grey eyes, her olive-toned skin of her brow wrinkles in concern, but she offers me a tentative smile. After my outburst a while back, Dr. Morgan is decidedly more careful with her wording and overall regards me as if she is talking to a wild animal.

Her voice is gentle when she finally speaks. "I believe you can. What happened this week that has you so guarded? You've been much more open about how you've been feeling lately, something awful must have happened.." 

"What made you take my case, specifically?" I don't even really know what prompted me to ask her, maybe I was just avoiding my own feelings about the events of the last 2 weeks, but her answer catches me off guard.

She hesitates a moment. "You remind me a lot of myself as a teenager. I was so, so angry at the world and my family." This was a side of her I had never seen. She had always been aloof, no nonsense and blunt, here she was being a bit vulnerable herself.

For a moment, I don't feel like I'm talking to Dr. Morgan the psychiatrist, but another wounded soul who is just trying to make sense of this life. Dr. Morgan let out a long sigh. She seemed to contemplate her words for a moment before continuing. "Dad was always 'running around' on my mom, and she pretended she never knew.. she defended his long nights at work and perky little assistant, but I knew since I was a child what he was doing. I hated them both for it."

"I ran away from home at 16 with my boyfriend; it was just us against the world. We were poor, young and in love...and it was brutal. I got pregnant weeks after we left, so I was working double shifts as a waitress just to try and make ends meet. He managed to land a job doing construction. He started working lots of overtime when I gave birth to 'take care of us' I had my suspicions then, but I had no proof and a newborn that needed my attention. Years passed, money got better as he got promoted and I was able to quit my job and go back to school for Psychology. I got my degree and started interning right about the time our daughter started high school. I thought we had everything together. Nice house, nice car, a loving daughter, good relationship. We were really and truly happy."

Her watery smile turned bitter. "Until I caught him in our bed with one of our daughter's friends a year ago. I don't blame the girl, she's a victim; too young to know any better. I started looking through his computer and phone records, he's been cheating on me for years with different women, all younger then him by at least a decade. "

I was, unfortunately, correct about her being divorced. I looked at her hand, where the pale line on her finger was slowly fading away.

She glanced up at me, blinking away tears. "I tried marriage counselling, tried to work it out for months. I called my mom to apologize, but dad had put her in a nursing home and she couldn't even remember my name."

I tried to speak, but there were no words. "I'm sorry, I never knew.." I hated saying something so simple, so patronizing to this woman that was pouring her heart out to me, but no other thoughts would come to mind.  

"It's not your fault. We may have come from two very different backgrounds but I can relate to some of your struggles." She leaned onto her elbows on the desk, gently patting my hand.

"I spent so much time being angry. Why me, what did I do? What didn't I do? Why was I not enough? I withdrew from my friends, my family and most of all my daughter. She needed me most at that time... I missed so much of the life in front of me because I was chasing demons in my past." 

She took a sip of her water before continuing. 

 "I want better for you.. I'm just now trying to do the right thing at almost 40 years old. You have more time to change, to go another path. We are more then where we come from and if we spend too much time in the past... we wind up repeating it, giving the same trauma to the next generation. "I did the same thing that my mother did, I ignored my daughter to fix my relationship with my husband. I resented her for so long, and now I understand what I did wrong, but it's too late. I'm trying to give you the tools to do better, while you're still young." 

Her speech left me without the words, any comforting thing I could say seemed hollow right now. I admit, I felt a little silly telling my problems to her when she had clearly been through so much. But she was still here, listening to me, even when I had been rather awful to her. As she wiped a tear from her eye, I looked down at the notebook in my lap and opened it to a page and began writing. 

I left out the snarky commentary this time, and I let myself be vulnerable, too.

Kris and I didn't fight often as kids, and when we did, it was usually petty things. Unfortunately, the morning after Taylor and I went to Galaxy Coffee, she was in a mood. I knew it from the moment I stepped foot out of my room. Kris was out in the kitchen, slamming cupboards looking for something to eat for breakfast. As I approached the kitchen, she looked at me and then pointedly turned away from me and turned to walk back to her room abruptly.

"Kris.. I-" She cut me off before I could get anything out of my mouth.

"Save it. I was so worried about you! You didn't tell anyone where you went, Dylan came home to an empty house, your backpack was gone, we thought you'd gone off and tried to hurt yourself again! I tried to call and text you and no response. And come to find out, Kayce Richards tells me your hanging out with some lesbian playboy all cozied up together!" 

I could see the night before had taken a toll on her, her normally wild mane of red curls was pulled back in a messy ponytail and her chocolate eyes were aflame with anger."I just can't with you, right now. I need some time to cool off" With that, she stormed off into her room, slamming the door behind her.

The rest of the week was spent with Kris and I avoiding one another. Taylor came and picked me up several times during the week, and we formed a ritual of coffee, tea and working on the computer, job hunting or searching for scholarships. I wrote countless essays and entries for contests, with Taylor encouraging me every step of the way. 

Yesterday, I came home from a particularly productive day of essays and job applications to an irate Kris. 

I burst in the house just after dusk, giddy with accomplishment, to see Kris curled up on the ancient couch, glaring at me. Assuming she was still ignoring me, I turned to walk down the hallway to the safety of my room when Kris caught me off guard.

"So, I guess you're just replacing me for a dyke then, huh?"

"What?!" I spun on my heel to face her, mouth agape. Kris could be dramatic at times, but this was unlike her. "How am I replacing you!?" White hot fire leapt to the back of my throat, I was furious and hurt at the same time. I had done nothing wrong, I was trying to get my life together and make her and her brothers proud of me. I hadn't hurt myself in weeks and I was actually eating and showering on a semi-normal basis. 

Kris was on my ass in a minute, red in the face with fury. Her eyes were burning pools of amber and she pointed a finger at me. "You've been running off with her for a solid week! You haven't been around, you haven't given me so much as a hello... you're constantly gone! Are you even my best friend anymore?" 

I couldn't stop the torrent of words that came gushing out of my mouth. "You all want me to get a job and go to college and grow up and that's what I've been doing!" I couldn't stop myself now, the inferno of rage burned the pit of my stomach. 

"Taylor has been helping me apply for scholarships and jobs and helping me get my shit together.. I'm not running off to flirt with her! I'm not gay! I'm just doing what I can to not burden y'all anymore then I already have!"

My chest was heaving when I finished, tears streaming down my face. I felt awful, I wanted to stop her, apologize and run away to my room, but Kris wasn't done. She scoffed. "Taylor Harrison doesn't help anyone without an ulterior motive, genius. I'm the one who's known you for years, I'm the one that saved you from shitty parents and the cult life."

Her voice rose, louder still. "I'm the only person that has ever given a shit about you and saw more then just a sad little sheltered homeschool kid that cuts herself when things don't go her way!" By the time she'd finished her sentence, she was screaming at me.

All the fury in my body drained out of me. Fresh tears brimmed up in my eyes and I turned away from her with my first balled.

 "I'm sorry if that's how you see me. I'm trying to get better, Kris, I really am."

With that, I ran down the hall to my room and slammed the door, sliding down the door and sobbing.

By the time I had finished writing, I was sobbing, tears dripping off my nose onto the pages below me. I passed the book to Dr. Morgan wordlessly and cried into my arms again. I left out the parts where I had hurt myself after both fights. I wanted to be vulnerable with her, but I also didn't feel like having another grippy sock vacation under my belt.

Dr. Morgan read my writing with a look of disgust on her face and for a moment, I thought she would scold me, but instead she addressed me with a gentle tone in her voice. "Are you okay, Luna?"

Through my sobs, I shook my head vehemently. "I couldn't believe she would say something like that to me... we've been best friends for years."

Dr. Morgan shook her head. "Sometimes when people assume things, nothing you can say will ever change their minds. Can you think of any other stressors Kris may be having in her life right now?"

I thought for a moment before responding. "Well... Kris and her brothers grew up in a rough situation and now all have to work and pay the bills to keep us all afloat. Aside from Dylan, he's still in high school. Kris and Matt won't let him get a part-time job right now, they say he needs to be a kid and finish high school first."

Dr. Morgan looked down at my writing again, running her finger along the paragraph chronicling Kris fighting with me. "I think Kris is a very stressed young adult who is doing the wrong thing or the right reasons, if I'm honest." Her silvery blue eyes were trained on me as she spoke, looking for a reaction to her words. 

"She seems fixated on the fact that, to her, you are essentially abandoning her, whilst you are trying to get your life on track to make her and her family happy. You are, conversely, doing the right thing for the wrong reasons."

I looked at the blonde doctor with a confused expression. I wasn't upset by her statement, but I wanted to know more about her thoughts. "What do you mean?"

She continued, looking over her glasses at the paragraph, reading part of my writing out loud. "I'm just doing what I can to not burden y'all anymore then I already have!"

"That, to me, sounds like the only reason that you are doing this is to make people you see as family happy with you, but that is the wrong motivation. Work on yourself to better yourself, not to make yourself easier to deal with, or to make yourself fit in a box defined by people you love."

Her voice deepened for a moment, thickened with an emotion I couldn't quite place. "It's not wrong for you to be motivated by Kris to get better, but you are also not responsible for her feelings and emotions. You can't control other people's actions, you are only responsible for your own. Does that make sense?"

I felt small in my chair, but something about today was actually a bit cathartic. I had come to therapy today expecting to get my ass chewed for being rash and yelling at Kris, but what I found instead was support. Sure, I wasn't totally in the right, but neither was Kris, and that made me feel a bit better about our fight.

"What can I do now... I don't want to get in another fight.."

Dr. Morgan gave me a small smile. "The fact that you're asking me that means you're learning something from our sessions. I think you should give her some space for a few days, keep working on yourself, and write down your feelings before you talk to Kris. That way, you can keep yourself on track when you talk to her next."

She took another sip of her water before speaking again. "Don't accuse, don't make excuses, apologize to her for making her feel that way, but stand your ground that you are not replacing her with Taylor and that you will not tolerate her screaming at you."

I nodded and before I could stop the thought, it tumbled out of my mouth. "Um... there's something else, but I'm afraid to tell you."

Dr. Morgan gave me a knowing look, but feigned surprise. "You can tell me anything, this is your therapy session...now, if you are a danger to yourself or others, I have to report it."

I held my hands up to dissuade her notion, panicking. "I'm not suicidal, I promise! I just... I got so upset that I hurt myself a bit. I'm sorry! I have been trying to do better! But I was just so upset.. I-"

She held up a hand to silence me. "Your self-harm is an addiction just like any other, dear. There are bound to be relapses occasionally. You have to look at it as a temporary setback, but you have not erased your progress."

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. "Are you going to tell the psych ward?"

She looked at me with concern. "Is that what you're so worried about? No. I will report you if I think you're in danger of seriously injuring yourself or someone else, or if you come to me telling me you're suicidal and need to go there. But one slip up is not going to cause me to call."

With that, I told her everything. I told her about my nerves around all the new things I was trying to do, the fight with Matt, how discouraged I was about trying to find help paying for college, job applications. I told her how accomplished I had been feeling and how Kris' comments had made me feel worthless all over again. For the first time, I was truly honest with my therapist.

For once, the therapy appointment flew by, and before I knew it I was saying my goodbyes and walking out to the parking lot, feeling lighter then air. 

Until I looked at my phone and saw the text from Matt that he got called into work and couldn't come pick me up.

Fuck.