Saving Amaya

Chapter 12

I've spent the last 10 days just sitting at home and doing my schoolwork. Normally, I would have considered this ideal, but I am so disgustingly bored that I think I would rather go back to school. Luckily for me, today is the day that I've been waiting for. Today I will finally meet the therapist that will clear me to go back to school and live alone. My future of privacy is in the hands of this stranger.

It's kind of crazy to think about the fact that this stranger who knows nothing about me is expected to somehow fix me. What if I lie? What if I refuse to talk to them? What is the point of going to a therapist in the first place?

It's not like I have a choice anyway. I think Blake and Liam would drag me there kicking and screaming if they had to. Both of them keep reminding me how important it is that I go and that I listen to the therapist. It's odd for me to understand that they genuinely want me to get better. They actually want me to heal. I think that my parents are indifferent if I get better or not as long as I stay quiet about it.

Even my father, a very successful psychiatrist and author of psychology texts, doesn't seem to care one way or the other. I haven't spoken to him since his last book tour came through town about a year and a half ago. We went out for dinner, just me and him, and we had absolutely nothing to talk about. He didn't seem to be interested in school or my sports or anything, so I listened to him tell me about his research into identity disorders and he left.

In the almost three weeks since my attempt I haven't heard from him. Maybe he's embarrassed. He is a professor that specifically studies psychiatric disorders and he did his thesis on the declining mental health of teens. For a well educated psychiatrist such as himself to have a suicidal daughter must be like a slap in the face.

I try not to blame him. I try not to think that if he was less focused on work while I was growing up that he could have saved me from my mother and he could have taught me how to feel love. He teaches other parents how to raise kids all the time, why wasn't he able to raise me? Is it me? Is it just that I am so far gone that he knew there was no saving me? He must have known something was wrong with me. It's literally his job. So there's something about me that is either unfixable or not worth fixing.

And I can't decide which is worse.

Still, I get ready to go to my therapist appointment. I have been wearing as many normal clothes as possible. By that I mean colorful and not dripping in chains and studs as I normally wear. It's still hard for me to feel like this is what is best. I can't help but feel disappointed every time I look at the bland clothing draped across my body. My light brown roots are now fully visible through the faded blue of my hair. I haven't worn earrings since I got out of the hospital and flipped up my septum, so the only piercings on my body that remain are the two nostril studs. Every part of me that I used to feel comfort in is gone. But this is what is best.

I tighten the low ponytail at the base of my head, barely noticing the strain on my left forearm. The healing process of my almost severed tendon has been going well and my doctor thinks that I will regain almost full range of motion in my wrist again. Right now, it strains moving side to side and has a significantly limited mobility. It's not too bad though, I'm right handed anyway so it doesn't get in my way too horribly. Though I was told that I won't be able to play football for the rest of the season and I have been advised to take it easy during the wrestling season.

I don't even know if I want to go back to playing sports. It's not that I didn't like playing, it was just something that I could do to beef up my college applications. Does any of that matter anymore?

Walking down the stairs, I find that it is a Blake day as he stands in the foyer talking on the phone with his keys in hand.

"Mom. . . I know. . . Yes, Mama. . . Okay I have to go. . ." His voice drops as he sees me, turning away he mumbles into the phone. "I love you too Mama."