To Build A Home || c.h

Chapter 28

Calum's POV:

"How was your trip?" That's Claudia's first question today. I only arrived yesterday and I'm already sitting in a therapist's office. It's just mildly depressing to think about (note sarcasm).

"It was good," I reply with a small nod.

"How did it feel being back?" she asks, clearly ready to write everything down on her notepad once I actually say something of any importance.

"Not as bad as I thought. I had a good time with my mom, and I managed to stay away from the things I knew would be too painful to be around," I say with a small shrug.

"Did anything special happen while you were there?" she questions while she writes something on her notepad. Or doodles something. Who knows. She might be as bored as I am.

"Well, I talked to Jake's parents." She calmly looks up at me as she stops writing or drawing or whatever she was doing.

"How did that go?" she asks. I look down at my lap, wondering whether I should tell her about the plectrum or not. I mean, it won't exactly do any harm, so why not?

I lift myself up enough to access my back pocket and take out the plectrum. I have carried it on me all week, it kind of comforts me knowing that it's in my back pocket at all times. I don't want to risk losing it.

"Good, they said that they don't blame me for what happened and then they gave me Jake's plectrum," I explain quietly, not taking my eyes off it.

"How did it feel hearing them say that?" Her voice holds that therapist tone, the one that always tries to show that they care only because of you and not the money, when you're both well aware that that isn't the case. I don't have anything against Claudia, though. I mean, if she hadn't actually wanted to help people she wouldn't have worked as a psychiatrist.

"I felt... Relieved," I mutter, letting out a small breath in between the sentence. "It lifted some weight off of my shoulders."

"And how about the plectrum? How did it feel receiving it?"

"Really good, it means a whole lot to me. It was Jake's first plectrum until he lost it; I never thought I would see it again. Especially not after everything that happened." I mutter the last part and let out a small sigh before a couple of seconds pass in silence.

"Do you feel ready to talk about the accident?" she asks after a little while, disrupting the peaceful quietness that had settled between us. I know that she knows what happened that night, my mother must have told her, she just wants me to talk about it. What I'm not sure about, however, is whether I'm ready.

I trust Claudia, we've reached that stage by now, but I don't like talking about what happened. I haven't actually talked through the accident since it happened. It's a whole new territory and it frightens me to go there, but at some point I guess I have to...When I don't reply Claudia sighs lightly before she speaks again.

"Alright-"

"He was going to sleep over at my house the night it happened," I say, cutting her off. She immediately stops talking and looks at me, clearly surprised over the fact that I'm actually going to talk about it. "We were bored, and a guy in our class had a party that night, so Jake said we should go. We weren't really the type to go to a lot of parties, but we thought why not go out and have some fun. If only we had known...." I chuckle bitterly, not daring to meet Claudia's gaze.

"None of us had our driver's license at that time, but we knew how to drive, so we took my mom's car. It was nothing big, we had done it a few times before, but it was usually to go to McDonald's, not to go to parties. We thought it would be okay, we agreed to stay away from alcohol so we could drive home again and we'd be back before my mom even noticed, it seemed like foolproof plan." Memories of the event swirls around in my head as I talk about it, and it almost feels like I'm reliving the whole night.