Falling Into Sunday

16- I Am Going To Therapy

“Don’t you think that if I was crazy, I’d know it by now?”

“You’re not crazy,” The doctor across from me denies with a shake of her head.

“Yeah, that’s what everybody says but if nobody thought that I was crazy, why would I even be here in the first place? Riddle me that, doc,” I mumble, leaning back in the puffy chair that I’m sitting in across from this therapist. Dr. Rosen is her name and today is my first “session” with her per my father’s request. I have to go every Monday after school, as if Mondays aren’t terrible enough already.

“I think that you just need somebody to vent to,” She informs me. “Because you’ve kept so much bottled up inside of you for a while. That doesn’t make you crazy, Venice. It makes you afraid to open up.”

“And what makes you- or anybody for that matter- think that I’m going to open up to you? No offense or anything, you seem like a nice lady, but I don’t know you at all,” I remind her.

She gives me a small smile, obviously not thrown off by my question. “Because I’m sworn to secrecy. No matter what you did or what you’ve seen or experienced, I cannot tell anybody unless somebody is in danger. Is anybody in danger?”

“Not anymore,” I mumble, running my fingers through my soft hair.

“Well, there you go,” Dr. Rosen chirps. “So, just try your best to answer my questions as honestly as possible, okay?”

I sigh and put my face in my hands because I really don’t want to do this. Especially not with some complete stranger that my dad is paying God-knows-how-much every hour that I’m here and each session is an hour long. “Fine,” I finally agree, looking up at her from between my fingers.

“Great,” She smiles- which she does a lot. Her smiling doesn’t bother me or anything, it’s actually kind of nice, but I’m sure after she’s dealt with me for a whole hour, that will change pretty quickly. She looks down at the clipboard on her lap and then speaks again. “So, let’s start with your home life. You live with your parents and your two brothers, correct?”

I nod. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“Can you tell me about them?”

“Um, well my dad is really great. He works a lot though, but that’s obvious since he’s the governor of a state. Emmett is really great too. He’s really overprotective but that’s okay and understandable, I guess. Eli and my mom are pretty terrible but they’re still there. Like the mucus of my life. Or part of it, at least,” I explain.

“You don’t get along with your brother or your mother? Was it something that they did or do you just generally disagree with them?” She asks me, writing something down on her clip board like I’m a science experiment or something and that’s so annoying but I just look away and ignore it because I need to do this. Not really for myself, but it makes my dad feel better and I think Emmett feels more at ease that I’m trying this therapy thing too.

“It’s…” I trail off. “It’s a long story.”

She looks up and smiles softly at me. “That’s why we’re here, Venice, for you to tell me your long stories.”

“Well I don’t want to tell that one,” I say stubbornly.

“Okay, we’ll move on for now,” She suggests but I catch on to that ‘for now’ and I don’t like that. I don’t say anything about it though, I just listen to her as she continues with the questions. She asks me about my friends and she asks me about my grades before she asks me about Nate.

“You had a boyfriend before you left, correct?” Dr. Rosen asks me.

I nod. “Nate. I don’t want to talk about him.”