Afterglow ❃ l.m.j

• chapter forty seven •

Before therapy could even begin, my mother drove me up a wall. She called bright and early on a Tuesday morning to ask where I've been and why I haven't called, and when I told her I've been busy, she reacted as if I had three heads.

"What, so you come for Christmas and now you're too busy to let us know you're alive?" She droned at the end of a long essay she began. I rolled my eyes.

"Ma, I spoke to you guys on New Years and I spoke to dad like three days ago."

"Three days ago? Your father didn't tell me! Luis!"

"Ma—"

"You spoke to Lauren on, uh, what was it, Saturday?"

I could hear my dad grunt in the background. "Yeah, she had a question. What's wrong?"

"Nothing, it's just the first I'm hearing." She put the phone back to her ear, now a bit more snappy. "I'm just calling to see if you're alright. I'm your mother, you know."

"Ma," I chastised. "I love you, okay? I'm not ignoring you. I've just been busy with work and some friends."

She hummed in disapproval. "Right. Well, don't work too hard. You still have a family."

I sunk my head into my arm, shaking my head. My mother was so damn dramatic. It took me forever to usher her off of the phone with a promise to call in a day or two. She always got really clingy after the holidays because it's the most she's ever heard from me at one time. And going from me being in Salinas every two weeks to not at all is always such a shock to her.

When I ended up debriefing with Lottie a bit later, we touched on that amongst other things.

"So, I know that the last time we met, we spoke about you coming back home from your family's house for Christmas and how that was. Now that the New Year is in, how are you feeling?"

I shrugged, shoveling a chip into my mouth. "A lot has happened in the past week. I'm getting deja vu. I think I say that a lot now."

My therapist nodded with a smile. "The holidays tend to be the roughest for a lot of people. What has happened this time around that makes you say that?"

I sighed, swiping a few crumbs from my lap. "I got my car back, the girl who outed me at my job humiliated me again, even after I gave her a ride when some really rude guy left her on the side of the road, my girls got into a fight with her over me, I had a really intense conversation with our house mom Ally, and I think I have a girlfriend now...? Or we're on our way to being that? I don't know, but we've definitely established that there's feelings there now." I took a deep breath. "Now that I say it all out loud, I don't think we can cover everything in forty five minutes."

The blonde let out an easy chuckle. "Maybe not, but that's okay. What is on your mind the most/what would you like to spend today's session addressing? And on the flip side, what would you like to table for a later session?"

I rummaged in my bag again. "I'm kinda tired of talking about the heavy things. Do you mind if we just talk about something light today?"

Lottie nodded, looking to the side of the camera. Her eyes squinted at something. "Yes, we absolutely can. Lead the way."

I took a bit of time to think, eating a few more chips the whole while. She waited patiently. When I was finally done crunching, I gave her a goofy smile and a small sorry.