Page 83 of This I Know
“So how’s it going, Avery? How’s everything been?”
The therapist’s office is surprisingly dark and gloomy, considering the message she’s supposed to be sending – that I’m not supposed to be feeling all dark and gloomy.
The room itself is small, so at least I got that part right. It fits only her big desk, which the therapist is sitting at now with full-sized notepad covering her lap and a pen in her hand, and there’s a red apartment sofa that’s built like a rock and didn’t give at all when I sat down. A miniature waterfall sits on the end table, and its cheap trickling is making me anxious. Isn’t it supposed to calm me down?
The therapist is an older lady. Her dark brown hair is in desperate need of a re-coloring (I can see her gray roots peeking through) and she’s dressed in a pair of black slacks and a light pink top that flows away from her body in some of the right places, but is almost see-through in others. A bulky, distracting necklace hangs across her chest and it jingles whenever she shifts around.
Today I was brave enough to wear a cute sundress that exposes my leg. It’s shorter than anything I’ve attempted so far, and I’m not sure I’d be willing to brave it to school, but this one little accomplishment feels good. I pull the fabric down a bit from my seat on the therapist’s sofa.
“It’s going okay.”
“Oh, good,” she says a little too enthusiastically.
Doesn’t she knowit’s okayis one of my automatic replies? I better go along with this. I really do want to get the all clear so that I can be discharged from my treatment plan, but I’m not sure what she wants to hear.
“No more pain, really,” I say.
She sits back and crosses her legs. I feel even more analyzed right now than when the doctors were prodding me.
“And do you know why you’re here today?” she asks.
That tone, though. That professional, almost mocking tone.
“Not really.”
“The reason you’re here, Avery, isn’t so much because of your physical pain.” She reaches over to the desk and flips through a stack of papers, pulling out a file. “It looks like you told your doctors that was under control, correct?”
“Mm-hmm.” Yep. There aresomany other places I’d rather be right now.
She slaps the file closed. “Yes. That’s your doctor’s area. So the reason we had you come here, Avery, is to make sure everything’s going well in every other way of the healing process. You know, how you’re adjusting, how your relationships are going, and how your mental health is doing. Those are the things I’m concerned about.”
I stare at her blankly.
“Why don’t you start by telling me how you’ve been coping?”
“With what?” I don’t get it. I really don’t. Healing from this, to me, isn’t something that I consciously think about. It’s somethingI turn over to my body and let it do on its own, and it seems to be doing a pretty okay job. I mean, there was that little episode on the stairs, but that’s to be expected.
“With everything you’ve been through. It sounds like you’ve been through quite a lot.”
I look down at my hands. “Am I going to have to do a lot of these sessions?” I wish she’d turn off that silly little waterfall.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Avery. We’ve found that this kind of evaluation is good for most people. Most people benefit from it. And to be honest, your mom is paying for this.” She scoots her chair forward on its wheels, closer to me. “So come on. What do you think? Is there something you want to talk about?” She smiles at me. “Anything at all.”
“Well…” There is something. But to be honest, I didn’t even know this was an issue until this very moment. “Sometimes I get these feelings, and I’m not sure where they come from.” I twiddle my fingers. “Does that mean something?”
“It might.” She writes something down, that necklace of hers jingling away as her arm hits her chest. “What’s happening when you get these feelings? Can you give me an example?”
Sure I can. But I’d rather not. I’m afraid if I talk about it, it’ll bring the feelings back. I take a deep breath and uncross my legs. I have to do this.
“It’s hard to explain. Sometimes I’ll see something that sort of reminds me of what happened that night, but I have no idea why it reminds me of that night.”
“That makes perfect sense to me.”
“It does?”
“Sure.” She sets the notepad and pen down on her desk. “Avery, you’ve been through a major trauma. It looks like your body has healed just fine, but you’ll need to give your mind some time to heal, too. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
