Dream Boy

Ch9. Me Time

Nia Williams - P.O.V.

The next day, I called my therapist to see if she was available. Luckily she was. There were too many things to say. Too many things running around in my mind. I needed someone to talk to.

Not my friends.
Not family.

It was too hard for me to open up to them and they wouldn't know how to help me.

"Morning Jean..." I knock on the open door drawing the attention of my therapist who was writing out reports for what I'm assuming is her previous client.

"Come in, have a seat." She said standing up to close the door as I stepped into a huge room. The only things in there were a filing cabinet, a couch for patients, and a desk with a spying chair behind it.

"How are you feeling today?" Jean asks, I watch as she moves to her chair in the room.

"I haven't been doing too well, it was uh my dad's birthday yesterday," I said, swallowing hard as she quickly wrote a few things down. "I went to the cemetery and talked with him ... but it's not the same. I still don't get why he's dead. Of all people, it had to be him. Shit, it could have been me, should have been me. I was there too." Tears began to fall and they caught on my shirt before a box of tissues was handed to me.

"You can't keep doing this to yourself. Blaming yourself for his death. When you love someone no amount of time ever really feels like enough." She took off her glasses rubbing her temples. "I get it. I've been there not as recently as you but, it still hurts. I understand that it's not something you can just forget, especially not one like this." Jean snapped her fingers.

"I just want to know when it's going to be better." A sentence that left me breathless as I spoke, the air slipping past my lips like a whistle. "It's like every day, I walk around pretending that I'm ok. I know I'm not. They know it ... It's just a big lie that no one wants to catch."

I look down at the ground as she continues after me. "Things like this, healing, it takes time. No matter how much you want it to be over, that day won't come until you can think of them with a smile. And even in those moments you might cry, and reminisce on the memories. It takes time, not a few months or days."

"I know. I know. My mind, though, won't let me forget. It's been only six months and I can't stop thinking about it. I can't imagine what it's gonna be like in a year." Jean gave a tight-lipped smile before flipping through my file and making another note.

"When was the last time you cried? Like had a real cry?"

"Not since—" I pause. "Since the funeral."

"I think that's what you need. To cry. To feel your feelings. Let them be real."

I thought about it for a moment, I know. Yet I was still hoping she'd skip the topic and let me go around it.

"What about my dreams? They make me feel like I'm losing my grip on reality."

"Are you?"

"I mean, I–I hope not. The dreams are so vivid, my nightmares too. And when I get them. It's like I'm living another life that should have been my own."

"Do you think this has something to do with your father?"

"No, I don't think so." I swallowed dried spit as it filled the back of my throat, I realized it was mucus. "I've been so tired. Drained. I feel as if... I need to be doing something else that I haven't been doing."

"I think you need to stop dragging yourself down." She nods to herself. "It could be due to a feeling of underachievement in classes, how's your class work coming along?"