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He never said how she died, but after what he just said, I wonder if it was suicide.
Pressing my palm to the nagging ache in the center of my heart, I turn around toward the cab. "I'm going to try. I just have to figure out how." I already know how. The big question is, can I do it? Can I finally say it aloud, confront him, threaten him, make it so that he's so terrified he'll walk away from it. Can I tell my mother, father, and brother? Can I trust them to believe me and be on my side?
Do I have that much power? Do I have that much courage?
In the end, I know I'm going to have to answer those questions and make a decision that's frightened me for the last six years of my life, but maybe it's time to face it.
Maybe it's time to quit being so scared.
Chapter 3
#46 Transform yourself
Kayden
I've been here six days, almost a week, but it seems so much longer. It's just after lunch and I'm in the middle of my daily individual therapy session, which is better than group (I don't bother talking in that one). I'm sitting in my room in an uncomfortable metal fold-up chair. My side hurts like hell and I can't stop picking at the wounds underneath the bandage on my wrist. It's cloudy outside and thunder and lightning keep snapping and booming, lighting up the room with a silver glow.
"Tell me how you feel," the therapist says.
He says it every God damn time.
And every God damn time I give him the same response.
"I feel fine," I reply and flick the rubber band on my wrist over and over again until the skin on the inside of my wrist stings.
This is what they gave me to help my self-mutilation, like a tiny sting can replace a lifetime of cuts, stabs, broken bones, the raw pain of life.
My therapist's name is Dr. Montergrey, but he told me to call him Doug because using his professional name makes him feel old. But he is old, well into his sixties, with gray thinning hair and lots of wrinkles around his eyes.
Doug puts his finger to the bridge of his nose and adjusts his square-framed glasses as he reads over the notes he has on me. I can only imagine what they say: a threat to himself, angry, irrational, uncooperative, self-damaging. He jots down some notes and then looks up at me. "Look, Kayden, I know sometimes it's hard to talk about how we feel, especially when we have so much hate and rage going on inside, but you might find it helpful to talk about it."
I flick the rubber band again and the snap is covered up by the deafening clap of thunder. The room lights up and the rubber band breaks, the pieces falling to the floor. I stare at them as I rub my swollen wrist. I still have a bandage on one of them, the one that I made the deepest cuts on. The other one is starting to heal and soon there will only be scars. More scars. One day I wonder if I'll be one big scar that will own every ounce of my skin.
Doug reaches into the pocket of his brown tweed jacket and retrieves another rubber band, a thicker one that's dark red. I take it, slip it onto my wrist, and begin flicking it again. Doug scribbles some notes down, closes the notebook, and then overlaps his hands and places them on top of the notebook. "You know, the longer you stay in denial, the longer they're going to keep you here." He gestures around at the room. "Is that what you want?"
I stop flicking the rubber band, fold my arms, and lean back in the seat with my legs kicked out in front of me. "Maybe." I know I'm being a pain in the ass and I don't know why. I feel bitter on the inside, unworthy to be here. I feel everything and maybe that's the problem. I clench my hands into fists and jab my fingernails into my palms, which are tucked to my side so the therapist doesn't see them.
