One Last Thing

s e v e n

0 7

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    THE ROOM FALLS silent in Dr. Allen's office when I finish speaking. I can't even count on my fingers the number of times I've talked about my Dad and everything that happened. Each time though, my voice starts to break at the end, and I have to sit on my hands to hide the fact that they're trembling.

    The effort is futile though—she always notices, because that's her job.

    So I don't look at her. I focus my eyes on one of the many bright-colored posters on the wall. This particular one has a cartoon rainbow on it with the words 'PUT YOURSELF FIRST' written in large bubble letters.

    The first time I walked into Sabrina Allen's office, I scoffed at the fake plants, the posters with positive affirmations all over it, the smell of burning incense and the pink couch littered with stuffed animals. It didn't help that the first question she ever asked me was whether I was a cat-person or a dog-person.

    This has to be a joke, I thought.

    And because I thought that, I didn't take anything she had to say seriously. I let my mind wander while she talked about stress tolerance. I gave short answers and offered nothing more than what she asked. When she gave me informational brochures with things like Ways to Emotionally Regulate, I'd throw them out without another glance.

    It must have been our fifth session. I was staring at the clock behind her, watching the hand tick by and counting the moment when I could leave. She asked me something along the lines of whether or not I ever processed not just what my Dad had done, but the emotional toll of watching my mother deal with everything. It was a good question, but I spewed some half-assed answer—said I didn't really think about it and that it never affected me.

    I expected her to move onto something else like she always did, but she didn't. Instead, she slowly took her glasses off, uncrossed her legs, and looked me dead in the eye.

    "Cool," she said. "Now are you going to keep bullshitting me, or are you actually going to tell the truth if I ask again?"

    I blinked at her, utterly surprised.

    I'd been to other therapists, but she was the first one that had dared to call me out on my passivity, the way I clearly evaded answers to avoid the topic as much as I could.

    And it was her bluntness, the way she saw right through me and cut to the point, giving me nowhere to run to, that made me give in. That was the first session I really talked about everything, and when I broke down crying she didn't even blink, just grabbed a tissue box from the shelf and handed it to me.

    At the end of the hour she guided me to the door, a light hand on my back. I turned to her, red-eyed and swollen. A thanks was in order, I knew, or a sorry. I couldn't get either out.

    She beat me to it. "For this to work, all I'm asking is for your honesty. It's okay if you're not ready to talk and it's okay if you need time. But if you really want to get better, then I need you to try. Can you do that?"

    "Yeah," I said.

    She offered me a kind smile and gave me another brochure. It read, Dealing With Trauma and Its Aftermath.

    I kept it.

    And I kept my promise, too. I told her the truth, and I started trying—really trying. I stopped evading questions. I stopped throwing out the brochures. I stopped counting down the minutes until therapy ended.