Page 6 of Born in the Spring

He forced the words out, talking like he had no choice in letting me go—again.

And he left me with no choice, either.

I did have reasons to stay, many that Jasper couldn’t see through his pain, but without him being a part of them, and with him unable to even smile at the sight of me, I couldn’t stay.

He breezed past me, his footsteps as quick as my heartbeat, and I didn’t follow. He needed his space to grieve his brother, and I needed to give him that.

I also needed to take mine.

I didn’t know when I started breathing again, but the pulls were shallow, and my chest burned deep as I picked up theglass of liquor and finished it off. I tasted salt when I licked my lips, and I swiped at my face, not daring to glance around and make eye contact with the rush of silence around me.

Another pair of footsteps sounded after Jasper’s, then a different pair after me. I waved Vanessa away as I moved toward the nearest set of double doors, ones that led me into the restroom, needing a moment to gather myself alone.

I left that night.

Amie and Vanessa both tried to talk me out of leaving, but only one person could do that, and he couldn’t.

I was depleting in the wake of the worst four days of my life, and I didn’t have to be strong anymore.

Thankfully, my body waited until I made it off the mountain before breaking down. I had to pull off the road, my hands too weak to steer, my eyes too blurred with tears, my lungs working so hard for air as I crumbled right there on the seat.

I sobbed until I was drained.

Then I picked myself up and forced the hours drive to the only other home I had.

Three

Elara / Now

Irock side to side on the couch with a sigh into my phone, holding the throw pillow on my lap closer to my chest, as I wait for Helena, my therapist, to respond to everything I just told her about that day. She’s just breaths over the line, processing, and pinpointing the best questions to ask to pull out more.

Bestquestions, because I don’t always answer to what’s consideredrightin her field.

Helena learned this early on. I didn’t want our meetings to feel like therapy sessions, ironically. I needed some place stable to release my chaotic thoughts. I just wanted to talk. I needed to talk. To someone who didn’t share in my grief. I was also aware enough to know I needed the help only a doctor can give. Someone who can seem like a friend, but who has a degree that says she’s qualified to give the life advice I should want to listen to.

Still, most times, she’s the better listener.

Vanessa and Amie—and my mother—were trying too hardto take care of me, when I was trying to do the same for them, all still through a phone, and the rallying started to become too overwhelming. I didn’t want that sort of attention. I would withdraw, my muscles aching with the constant clenching, so they stopped nudging my wounds.

My mom is the one who directed me to Helena. She’s here anytime my draw back adds more weight and I need the nudge. She’s a break from everyone else in the moments I need a breakthrough. Some professional coaching through the dark.

That day—that I’ve eloquently only started to refer to asthat day—has been a black hole in my head. It’s been difficult to work around the worst day of my life, while it was all I was left to live with. I had a block that decided to ravel out at two in the morning after I decided to take a firm step toward having more control.

“It’s good you’re finally talking about it,” Helena finally says, a lead that coughs a laugh through my chest.

“It only took six months,” I say back as a chastising to myself. Six months of sitting with and dwelling on that day, staring at nothing until I feel something other than this hollow heaviness on my heart.

“What’s changed?” Helena sounds as inquisitive as she does hopeful.

“Nothing,” I tell her, low, reaching from that place as I blink myself out of staring to stay clear in this moment. “Too much changed at once, and then…nothing. I’ve been nothing. Just some dulled version of myself, and I can’t be this way anymore.” I can’t sit with the returned detachment anymore while being unable to detach myself.

“Well, firstly, you’re certainly not nothing,” Helena leads now to reassure me, then follows with the honesty. “Youstruggle withdoing, but your grief has dulled you, to use your word, which as we’ve talked about, is perfectly normal.”

“I need actual normal,” I say, with a strength that’s dawned inside the murk. I’ll never have the normal I knew, but I can’t keep living without something real.

“Knowing what you need hasn’t been a problem for you,” Helena affirms, with a subtle pointing in her tone to dig deeper. “Moving forward, not movingon”—she emphasizes the distinction with a more prominent pointing, putting an amused twitch in my lips, until my eyes trail upward toward the closed door across the room—“is what we’ve been working toward, and this is the first time I’ve heard true ambition in your voice.” There’s the touch of praise in hers that always tells me I’m making a good choice, and with this one, that I also haven’t spoken aloud yet, is the more assuring of any she can give me tonight.

“Can you keep going?” she nudges to my silence, using her more encouraging tone now, as my eyes trail back down. “What about before the accident? What about that night?”

---