Page 72 of Strong Side
“I know you will be. We have a lot to look forward to. I just need a little time. To be clear, this isn’t a breakup. Just give me time to get moving in the right direction.” She kisses my lips. “Like, you can’t go dating other girls while I get my head on straight.”
“Not a chance. You’ve always been the only girl for me.” My voice is hoarse from me trying not to lose it. “We’ll still talk every day, right?”
She starts to cry again and hiccups. “I honestly don’t know. I worry if we do, we’re going to fall into our normal pattern of you fixing it.”
I feel like I’m losing my girlfriend and my best friend at the same time. Since we’ve been friends, from middle school on, we’ve talked at least once a day. There’s no way I’m going to be able to handle this.
“Case, this is going to be hard for both of us, but you have to trust me. Trust us. Please be patient with me.” She climbs onto my lap. “I love you more than you know.”
“I love you too, pretty girl. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here, waiting for you.” I place my hand on her cheek and lean in to kiss her, then rest my forehead against hers.
We sit together for what seems like hours, her head resting on my shoulder, soaking my shirt with her tears. When she says she should go, it takes everything in me not to drop to my knees and beg her to stay, to let me be with her through this.
But I don’t. I walk her to her car, give her a kiss that says everything that I can’t say right now with words. Because if I do, I’ll break down, which will only make things harder for both of us. Once she’s buckled in, I watch her drive away, my stomach in my throat.
I walk back into the house and straight to my room, thankful that no one is home right now. I slam my bedroom door, nearly making it come off the hinges.
“FUCK!” I scream until I nearly lose my voice.
I can’t sit here. I can’t sit here and feel sorry for myself. I need to do something to burn off some of this anger and hurt. Because this is not about me.
So, I strip my clothes and change into gym shorts and grab my running shoes. I’m out the door within minutes, and I start running. I don’t stop until I can’t feel my legs anymore.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
NOELLE
It’s beena few weeks since I forced myself to walk away from Casey. It was literally one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Since we’ve been friends, my first instinct—and I think his—was to let him fix the problem.
The first two weeks, I was seeing a therapist twice a week. Until now, it was hard to see how badly I had been treated by Trey, but once I started explaining it all to her, it was worse than I’d thought. The frequency seemed like a lot at first, but the initial sessions were more like information-dumping on my part and assessments to determine my primary challenges. My therapist prefers to call them challenges rather than issues. Each session left me completely emotionally drained. It was exhausting.
I’m down to once a week now, but I have homework on the days I don’t see her. After one of my sessions, my therapist suggested I journal. So, every time I had insecure thoughts or feelings, I went in the journal and wrote until the trigger came to light. I didn’t see it at first, but once I started to recognize the patterns of the triggers, it became pretty obvious.
My parents have been included in a few sessions so that they understand what I’m working on. They were so upset when they learned about some of the things that had happened with Trey. But they’ve been so supportive, and I feel like it’s made our relationship stronger.
Then she told me to start including Casey in my journal entries. Every time I wanted to reach out to him and ask for help or tell him I needed him, I would write it out instead. This has been one of the hardest parts of this process. I miss him so much.
“Why don’t you start journaling to Casey?” she says as she writes something on her notepad.
“About what?”
“Well, you can start by just explaining how you feel and even what you’re working on.” She lifts her hand and smiles.
“Like Dear Diary?” I ask.
“Yes, exactly. A Dear Casey, if you will.”
She’s suggested that I not have regular contact with him right now, but I text him little updates here and there. When he texts me back, it’s so hard not to keep texting and even harder not to call. I miss his voice.
In my latest entries, I’ve explained what exercises I’ve been doing in the reprogramming process. It’s not been fun, but I can slowly feel the progress.
Casey,
Today was … not all that fun. We have been working on a lot of body image stuff, which I’m coming to realize might not have been completely triggered by Trey, but he definitely didn’t help it either.
Anyway, she rolled out a sheet of paper and asked me to make an outline of how I thought I looked. It felt a little crime sceney, to be honest. Then I had to lie down on top of the tracing, and she outlined my body.
