Confessions of a Queen Bee

Chapter 41

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It turns out Lucy lived pretty close to the Group centre, whereas for me it was a twenty-minute drive out of town.

Driving home, I let myself fall within my thoughts. Using this alone time to try and navigate my own brain.

I had no idea what to do.

Missing my friends came in waves, and this afternoon I felt as if I was drowning.

Spending time with Lucy had honestly been the highlight of this week, I am so glad I agreed with Dr Halpin when he suggested group therapy.

But nothing could stop my brain from wondering back to my friends. From wondering back to Jackson.

Can you actually get home sick from a person? Because my god, that's what this felt like.

I think it's also because I've been in such a bad place because of the whole Layton thing, and for the first time since I really started to develop PTSD, Jackson had momentarily become a trigger. Or at least the thought of everything good about him was tainted by Layton, Layton's words echoing in my head every time.

'He was keeping you safe for me.'

'I told him to.'

'My seconds.'

It physically hurt me to see him as anything other than my favourite person, i mean as anything less positive. I felt guilty, strangely so. 

I needed the space I did, I physically couldn't speak for days. I didn't have the capacity to communicate. But I know I must have hurt my friend's feeling. I freaked out every time they would try and come and see me, pushing away everyone that I loved the most in this world.

Honestly though that wasn't necessarily my fault, because I just wasn't ok. I wasn't thinking clearly. I thought that the next time I saw Layton, that I would die. But I saw him, he fucked with my head, and left me alive to deal with it. I was diagnosed officially by Dr Halpin with PTSD last week, I was experiencing the first-hand effects of trauma all over again since the incident at school. I was struggling.

But I knew Jackson shouldn't have to just accept that, I knew I most likely hurt him by pushing him away. And correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think I have the right to invalidate his pain just because I didn't mean to hurt him.

If he is frustrated, angry, upset with me because I essentially shut him and everyone else out for the past 11 days, then that's what he is feeling.

I don't get to decide whether or not I hurt him.

But what I could do is explain it to him, justify it to him. And hope that maybe he still wants to be my friend.

If that's what we are.

He's my best friend but we all know he means more to me than that.

*

Pulling into my drive I frown a little as I see my Dad crouched in the front garden peering into the front room window, what is he doing?

Grabbing all the paperwork from the session, I climb out of my car and greet my dad.

"Hey, what are you up to?"

My dad startles and falls back on his bum, looking at me in shock. Staring down at him as if he had literally gone insane I don't have any more questions, I just wait for him to answer my first one. There's nothing else I need to know.

"Hi." He huffs and struggles slightly getting to his feet. "I was trying to make your mum jump but she literally hasn't noticed that I disappeared and it's been fifteen minutes." He looks at me in astonishment. "Fifteen whole minutes Ivy, like where does she think I've gone? Why doesn't she care." I can tell he's being playful but I still just stare at him, they have been leaning on each other so much lately that it's as if they're deeper in love now than I've ever seen them before.