Life Can Be Beautiful

Therapy

January 12, 1998

JD's POV

I walk into Dr Holleran's office. "Jason! It's nice to meet you." He says, sitting in his chair. "JD." I correct him. "Ah yes. Sorry. Please sit." He motions to the couch across from him. I sit down, my leg bouncing up and down from nerves. He asks me a bunch of basic questions but then he really gets into it. "So when you called, you mentioned that your friends were concerned about you. Why don't you tell me about that?" He looks at me over the top of his glasses. "Well for me it's very annoying. They think I'm drinking too much. And my friend Owen compared me to my father." I lean back. "And why did that hurt so much?" He asks. "Because my father was a horrible person. He abused me and my mom. My ex girlfriend had to take us in to get him away. But that still wasn't enough. It took me accidentally killing him to get him to go away." I try not to tear up. "Oh. I see. And what are you doing to cope with that trauma?" He writes in his notebook. "Nothing. I don't have trauma." I'm fine. "Jason- JD. That is a deeply traumatic event." He stops writing. "I don't even know why I'm here. I mean, I'm only here because my fiancé begged me to come." I roll my eyes. I love Eva, but I find this whole thing a little stupid. "Well I'm glad you're here. I think after what you've told me, therapy is definitely something I recommend you do." He tells me.

"I just- I don't drink as often as they say I do." That's a lie, JD. Don't lie to this man when you're meeting him for the first time. "I'm sorry. That's not true. I do drink often." I look down. "Well I'm happy you're being honest with yourself. Because lying about that kind of thing doesn't hurt me. It only affects you." He says. "Okay. I do drink quite a bit but I don't see the issue. I'm not hurting anyone..." Not physically but I am hurting people verbally. I probably destroyed the trust between my mom and Hank. And I hurt Veronica when I separated her and Alyssa at the New Years Eve party. He must have noticed my face change. "What happened while you were drinking?" He asks. "I got drunk on Thanksgiving and accused my stepdad of cheating. It wasn't true. And then on New Years, my best friend was kissing her girlfriend and I separated them." I explain.

"And why did you do those things?" He taps his pen on his notebook. "Because I was drunk. They know I wouldn't do those things sober." I say. "I also may have kissed my best friend." I admit. "I see. Were you drunk when this happened?" He does the thing again where he looks at me over his glasses. "Yes. But lately I've been wanting to do it sober. But I don't think I have feelings for her. I mean, I'm getting married in three months. I love my fiancé. I want to marry her." I really do. I don't know why I'm doing this to myself. And I know that's technically a lie since I did tell Eva I had feelings for Veronica but I'm starting to think they aren't really feelings."Have you ever had those feelings for her before?" He asks. "Well, yeah. We dated in high school and in college." I tell him. "Oh. Okay. But you don't have feelings for her now." He nods. "Yeah. And besides, she's in a happy, healthy relationship. We were good for each other until we weren't." I don't know why but it's what happened. A timer goes off. "Well that's all the time we have. I certainly hope you'll come back in one week. Can I schedule you for then?" He picks up a different notebook. "One week? Isn't that a bit soon?" I raise an eyebrow. "Just for our first few sessions. Then we can push it to two weeks." He says. "Sure." I shrug. Why not? This wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. "Great. I'll see you then Jas- JD." He corrects himself.

I show up to rehearsal. "Hey. How was therapy?" Veronica approaches me. "It was fine. I told him I'd come back." I shrug. "That's good." She smiles. We go through "Don't Go" and then move on to "Lavender Haze." We have a sweet sixteen on Saturday to prepare for. "So when JD shushes me on that one part, I want all of you to do it." Veronica looks at Sam and Owen. "Okay. Cool." Sam nods. "Awesome. I can't wait to shush you and not get yelled at for it." Owen jokes. "Whatever." I roll my eyes.