𓈊 Petal's Diary

Therapy and Picnic Dates

For context for this chapter:

This takes place in Scott's junior year of high school. Joel and Lizzie graduated at the end of the first book and they got married a few months after graduating. They're both in college, officially adopted Grian, and bought a small house together about a month before this chapter takes place.

TWs: mention of abuse

*  *  *

"Wow," Pix sighs as he reads the last sentence of the diary. It's been almost two years since I started therapy, and he has finally finished reading it after reading one every other session.

"I... would've written more about recently," I say, "but I, uh... ran out of pages."

Pix looks up at me. "Scott, you have come such a long way," he says, closing my diary and handing it to me. "Going from believing you deserved everything that Zach did to you to blindly trusting those that tell you you're important because you know it's good for you and that's what you truly deserve... That is such amazing progress, especially in the amount of time that it took. Most people don't heal so much so quickly. I'm very proud of you."

I feel my face heat up as tears fill my eyes. "R-really?" I mumble. I didn't know I needed to hear that. "You- you're proud of me?" At his nod, I start bawling, covering my face with my hands.

"And though you have a little ways to go still," he continues, "you really have come such a long way. You've done an amazing job overcoming so many obstacles."

I look up at him, still sobbing. "B-but I relapse like- like all the t-time," I hiccup. "How is that-"

"We all have setbacks, Scott," he tells me. "We all have bad days that make us want to fall back to where we were before. But what matters is what happens after. What do you do when you have a meltdown and harm yourself?"

I sniffle. "I-I talk to my boyfriend," I cry. I don't know how Dr. Pix put up with patients sometimes, I'm practically hysterical at this point. "And I-I- I spend t-time with my par- parents-"

Pix smiles at me. "Good," he says. "And what would you have done before all of this? When you were with Zach?"

"I wouldn't have told anybody," I sob, then I shove my face in my hands again as I wail.

"See how much better you are now?" he asks me. "It isn't about stopping these habits and these feelings, it's about dealing with them in a healthy way. We do have medication that suppresses bad feelings, but we also need to learn how to cope with them when we feel like that. That's the important part."

I cry for probably ten whole minutes after that before finally calming down. It was so fucking relieving to hear him say that, even more so to believe him.

I never trusted anyone in the beginning when they would tell me I mattered, but once I started to listen and trust them even though I didn't believe it, everything seemed to get better. And having my boyfriend Jimmy, my best friend Fwhip and my parents Amanda and Nathan with me made even the bad days good.

And eventually I did believe that I matter, and I believed that I deserve better than how Zach and his stupid friends treated me. I deserve better than Zach.

"Feel better?" Pix jokingly asks me, and I laugh.

"Yeah," I answer, nodding. "I do feel better."

"Crying makes me feel better, too," he says, then he changes the subject, "As for what you still need to work on, I think your anger is a big one." I wince at that. "From what you've told me in previous sessions and from what I've read in here" - he lifted up the diary - "I think most of your anger comes solely from being hurt."