Page 96 of Watercolor Skulls

“He said you jumped off the golden gate bridge?”

I nod, wiping a bead of sweat from my temple. It’s so hot in here.

“It’s amazing you survived. I’m curious to know your thoughts after you jumped.”

My eyes dart to his. “I regretted it. I immediately regretted it.”

“That’s what I’ve read. You know there are only a handful of survivors, but they’ve all said the same thing.”

Maybe this guy will understand me after all. I rush to explain, “I…god I thought I had made the biggest mistake of my life. When I realized the fall didn’t kill me it was like I had been born again. I knew I had to do something drastic.”

“What did you do?” he asks, his pen scratching over the notepad on his lap.

I turn to Raffe, reaching over to squeeze his hand. “Thank you but I think I’m okay now.”

He smiles wide and stands. “I’ll wait in the lobby.”

When the door closes behind me I turn to the therapist and purge myself of the day I jumped, the day I ran, and the day I met Jesse.

He shakes his head. “I think it’s a very lucky thing you met her that day.”

“Me too. She’s amazing. I’m sure Raffe’s spoken about her.”

He gives me what I’m assuming is a rare smirk. “He has.”

“Then you already know how amazing she is. All of them actually. They’re the family I’ve always dreamed of. Well not exactly.” I laugh lightly. “Truthfully, they are more than anything I could have imagined.”

“You must be something special too, for them to take you under their wing the way they have.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I say, embarrassed. “I’m nothing like them. I would love to be brave like Jesse but I’m nothing like her.”

“You don’t think of yourself as brave?” he asks, setting his pen down and focusing all his attention on me.

I laugh. “Um, no. I’m the farthest thing from brave there is.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s true. If I would have been brave I would have been able to help those girls.”

“What girls?”

Oh.

I tap my finger on my leg. He is a trickster. I thought maybe Raffe had told him about them.

I take a deep breath and give him a quick non-descript version, my eyes glancing up at the clock. My time is just about up.

He picks up his pen and points to the clock. “I’ve scheduled you for two hours today.” He tips his head. “I find first time patients need a little extra time.”

I drop my head against the loveseat. Great.

“If you could go back what would you do differently.”

My mind clatters around as I look for an answer to his question. What would I do differently?

When several minutes pass he answers for me. “The reason you can’t answer that is because you aren’t the same person you were then. You were a child when this started. Experiencing something as a child is completely different than experiencing the very same thing as an adult.”

His words roll around in my head. Some of the guilt eases a bit. A tiny bit but it’s a start.

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