“And that’s the story of how I almost died,” I said, leaning back in an oversized chair.
Dr. Heichman looked at me over a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. The literal embodiment of every old-school psychologist, the guy’s expression had barely shifted from neutral to annoyed. At least my parents gave me a reaction whenever they wanted to talk about the accident.
“Are we done?” I said, turning my attention toward a window. “Or can we at least move on to something less exciting and more important, like, I don’t know: how and why there’s a horrible Rembrandt knockoff hung on this wall? At least try to find a painter people won’t recognize. This one is terrible.”
“Not all of my clients are as interested in art as you,” he said.
“Guess I’m the special one.”
Dr. Heichman lowered his pen and closed his notebook. “We could spend the rest of your session discussing the qualities that are truly a reflection of your uniqueness, or we could focus on why you recount the car accident in such an unattached fashion.”
“You asked me to talk about it,” I said, staring at him. “I gave you a play-by-play for the millionth time. It is what it is.”
“True. You can’t change what happened.”
“Then why are we still talking about it?” I said. “We’ve been talking about it for, I don’t know, six months.”
“Because I’ve been at this long enough to know when a client is burying their feelings and refusing to acknowledge the implications of something as traumatic as the death of a friend,” he said.
Breath hung in my chest, suffocating.
“Well, I think I’ve managed just fine,” I said after a pause. “Maybe I don’t have to grieve the way you think I should.”
“Okay. How do you think you should be grieving?”
I shifted in the chair, my fingernails digging into the fine leather armrests. Conversations about this were like a nick in my Achilles tendon. Destructive. Painful.
I swallowed, facing the window again.
“You can’t keep your emotions bottled in,” he said, his voice like sandpaper. “That’s like funneling helium into a balloon until it reaches full capacity. You need to release the pressure before it pops; let out some of the tension and slowly adjust. If you don’t, you’ll break.”
“I already broke,” I said, blinking at him. “My friend died. High school went down the drain. Now here I am, stuck in an office with you while you tell me how I should and shouldn’t handle my grief.”
“Being abrasive is completely understandable.”
“This isn’t abrasive,” I said, standing. “This is me.” I grabbed my complimentary water bottle from the coffee table and crossed the room. “We’re done for today.”
“Sit down, Alex.”
I shot him a peace sign over my shoulder and headed for the door.
“Alex.”
I closed the door behind me, my sandals flip-flopping against polished tile floors as I headed for the lobby. Inside, my mom sat reading a copy of Good Housekeeping. I crossed the threshold, earning her attention as I closed the door.
“Well, that was quick,” my mom said, closing the magazine.
“What can I say? He was on a roll today.”
She stood and slung her purse over her shoulder, following me as she eyed her watch.
Our Thursday routine of afternoon therapy sessions started the previous November. With seven months of physical therapy finished and a Thursday time slot open for Dr. Heichman, Therapy Thursdays were our new norm.
Outside, late afternoon heat wrapped itself like a blanket around my skin. The lights on my mom’s Equinox flashed, the car humming to life as we neared.
“We’re meeting your father for dinner tonight,” she said as I reached the passenger side. “He got off early. Thought crawfish étouffée sounded good.”
“Yay for family dinners,” I said, yanking open the door.
Having dinners with the both of them was like doing a swan dive into shark-infested waters. You had to watch your back or one of them would take a bite out of you before you realized they were there.
“So, did you and Dr. Heichman have a good visit?” my mom said a minute later. She pulled the car onto the street, adjusting the volume on the radio to a conversational level. “You got out fifteen minutes early. I don’t want to make assumptions here—”
“Then don’t.”
“—but every time you get out early it’s because he’s hit on something you don’t like. Was it the wreck again?”
“It’s always the wreck,” I said, settling my attention on the buildings outside. “That’s why you signed me up for sessions with him, remember? That’s what we talk about.”
“We signed you up for sessions so you would have someone to talk to,” she said.
“And a therapy app on my phone wouldn’t do the job?” I said, glancing at her. She stared at me, expressionless. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“Apps aren’t the same thing as a doctor, Alex. Besides, I like having you there in front of someone. It lets me know you aren’t fiddling with other things while someone is trying to talk to you.”
“Wrong. I’m always mentally fiddling with something. Today, for example, I was thinking about all the great knockoff paintings I’ve seen in my life and how crappy the one in his office is in comparison. I mean, he’s rich enough to buy a decent one.”
“That’s what you do in there?”
“I also watch him write notes about me,” I said, shrugging. “He has this notebook. It’s huge. But he probably sends you the copies, so I’m sure you already know that.”
“Wrong. Him sending me copies of anything would breach doctor-patient confidentiality,” she said.
“Ah! I forgot. Those rules changed when I turned eighteen.”
“Along with your voting status and your insurance premium,” she said.
“Funny how things seem to shift as people get older,” I said, raking overgrown bangs behind my ears. “Ooh, I bet curfew changes too. As in, there isn’t any.”
“As long as you live in our house, you abide by our rules,” she said.
“I can fix that.”
“You can’t,” she said, turning onto another road. “You have one more year in Crighton. You’re stuck with us.”
“Or I could just not get my diploma.”
She glanced at me over the console, her lips a thin line. Conversations about graduation were her sensitive subject. It was either graduate or get cut off. She didn’t care that the last part of my junior year was spent in the hospital. No. Make the eighteen-year-old go another year. Make your daughter the rainbow fish in a small bowl of crabs.
“Don’t start that conversation,” she said.
“It’s called freedom, Mom. Get on board or get over it.”
She rolled her eyes, an exasperated sigh passing her lips. “You’re always like this after therapy.”
“What? I happen to think I’m being nice,” I said.
A cell phone rang through her car speakers. My dad’s name flashed across the radio console.
“Deputy Doom,” I said, wiggling my fingers at the screen.
“Hi, Jim,” she said into the speaker, ignoring me.
“You two already out?” my dad answered.
“Yeah,” my mom said. “Your daughter decided to end the session early, again. We should be there in five.”
“She ended it early? Why? He charges too much money to skimp on any minutes.”
“I wasn’t interested in the conversation topic,” I said.
“I don’t know why we keep paying him all that money when all she does is waste that poor man’s time,” my dad said.
“I don’t waste his time,” I said, straightening. “I just choose what I do and don’t want to talk about. It’s called being independent. Making my own choices.”
“He’s the most prestigious therapist in Shreveport!”
“No number of flashy certificates and awards can handle me,” I said. “If Dr. Pain in the Rear wants to help me navigate my feelings, he needs to figure out a better way to do it.”
“Oh, Lord,” he said through the speaker. “If he can’t get to her, Loraine doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Loraine?” I said, staring at the radio.
My aunt, who I hadn’t seen in years, was rarely talked about. She kept to herself in the backwoods of Texas, while we stayed in our quiet little corner of Louisiana. It worked, usually.
“That was random,” I said, looking at my mom.
“Random how?” my dad said.
“I haven’t gotten to that part of the conversation with her yet, Jim,” my mom said, switching the call from hands-free to her cell phone.
“But now that it’s been brought up and you’re acting super shady, why don’t you go ahead and continue with that conversation?” I said, shifting in my seat.
My mom glanced at me in her peripheral, her brow furrowed as she intentionally moved the phone to the left side of her face.
“No. No. I will,” she said after a pause. “I was just waiting until we had a confirmation on her assignment. Was it cleared?”
“Was what cleared?” I said, looking at her.
She held a hand up but I batted it away, clutching the oh crap handle as the car shifted slightly. I surveyed the right of me, my pulse racing as I searched for cars in our blind-spot. Clear. Everything was clear.
“That’s fine with me. Might be a bit challenging, but I’ll take it,” my mom said, slowing at a stoplight.
“Take what?” I said.
She held a hand up again, but my hand was safe and secure on the handle. Cars made me nervous. Swerving even more so.
“Okay. We’re coming up on Ellie’s now,” she said, navigating downtown Shreveport. “Don’t worry. I’ll get it out of the way, in case she makes a scene.”
“Scene? What scene?” I said, staring at her wide-eyed as she ended the call. “Like the screaming, crying, fighting kind, or the I’m going to break a vase in your face kind?”
“The second one sounds pretty vicious,” she said, slowing into a parking space.
“Mom, what kind of scene?” I said.
“Before I say anything, I want you to promise to let me explain everything to you before you make any assumptions.”
“Started every terrible conversation ever,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“I wouldn’t say it’s terrible.”
“Let me be the judge.”
“Fine.” She put the car in park, turning so her back was to the door. “Your dad and I have arranged for you to attend Loraine’s summer camp.”
Images of a hokey campground filled my brain. Loraine’s delinquent camp for troubled youth was three hundred miles away. In Texas. In the heat. Negative. Not happening.
“I’m not going to Loraine’s,” I said, laughing. “But funny joke. Great job.”
“It’s summer camp or boarding school,” she said. “Take your pick.”
Spit caught in my throat, choking the life from me. Boarding school?! Hold up. Was she serious?
I checked the back seat for cameras, then stared at my mom again when I realized it wasn’t a hidden camera game show. “Hang on. You really just said boarding school, didn’t you?”
“We would prefer camp.”
“Uh-uh,” I said, holding my hands up. “I’m sorry, but the last time I checked this was a free country and I’m legally an adult. I pick option C. Neither.”
“You have a college fund that might convince you otherwise,” she said.
My face warmed. That college fund was mine to do whatever I wanted. If I went to school, great. If I took a gap year and explored all the artwork in Europe, great. All I had to do was graduate.
“We’ve been saving for you for college since you were a baby,” she said. “But I speak for your father and me both when I say we’re concerned about whether or not you’ll be able to buckle down and focus on school the way you should focus on it. Your absences weren’t the only thing that held you back, Alex. Your grades were abysmal. You’re repeating your senior year more for that than anything.”
Anger snaked its way up my spine, and I balled my fists against my legs. “Okay. The last time I checked, government and economics wasn’t worth being high on my priorities list,” I said. “I was focused on getting out of PT. You know, trying to be the girl who almost died. And now you want to sit here and give me some crappy ultimatum? That’s messed up! That’s my money.”
“It’s ours until we think you’re fit enough to handle it,” she said, shaking her head.
Red flooded my vision. “This is your way of getting revenge, huh?” I said, narrowing my eyes. “I tarnished your glowing reputation. Now you’re forcing me into stupid therapy sessions, while stealing my money and shipping me off to camp! What kind of parents are you?!”
“I couldn’t care less about my reputation,” she said, looking at me with an unreadable expression that boiled my blood. “What I care about is you. I care about you throwing your life away. I care about you failing to see all the positives going for you, because you’re too wrapped up in what happened last year.
“I genuinely hate the idea of you being that far from us. I hate the thought of something happening to you while you’re there. But don’t make me fight you on this. I don’t want to fight you when I feel like I’ve spent the last year fighting a battle trying to save you from yourself.”
Her words sliced me like a knife, shredding my heart and biting through any attempt I could muster at being difficult or distant. Overbearing or not, at least she cared.
“Then maybe you should quit trying to save me and let me save myself,” I said.
Silence buried its way between us, a suffocating silence turning my anxiety on overdrive. I bit my lip until blood tasted copper against my tongue, a mountain of terrible words battling the few pieces of sympathy I had left.
“If I go, I can’t promise I’ll come back.”
“If you want this money, you will.”