Cry Until You Bleed

33- Ghosts

“So how is your day going, Ana?” Dr. Lombardi asks me on our Monday meeting.

“Oh, I’m alright,” I assure her with a small grin. “My weekend was pretty amazing and today is pretty good too so I’m happy.”

“That’s really stunning to hear, Ana,” She grins at me, for some reason looking excited and proud at what I’d just told her. “How was Saturday? With Niles? I noticed that you took one of the two pills that I gave you.”

“It was… interesting, I suppose,” I tell her slowly as I try to decide how to describe how that day went. “We had a nice lunch and then I helped him with his math a little bit. But yeah, his friends came over- he didn’t know that they were coming and they kind of surprised him by dropping by- but just the surprise of it all kind of freaked me out and I took the pill to calm me down. I had a panic attack but it wasn’t really that bad and I was okay.”

“How do you feel about Niles seeing you like that?”

“He didn’t. I locked myself in the bathroom for a few minutes until I calmed down. I was still pretty embarrassed but I was okay, I guess. I think it’s worse when I go through panic attacks in front of family because they completely lose it. Niles, though, he got scared a little bit, I think, but I wasn’t as embarrassed because I don’t feel like Niles judges me as much as most people do and it’s just better, I guess.”

“Okay, that’s good,” She nods, writing down something on her notepad. “And what about yesterday? How was your party committee meeting?”

“Oh, that was fun too,” I say with a nod. “We pretty much just kept painting our sign. I think it’s going to turn out pretty well, even with Desiree’s glitter. She’s going to put it in the sky instead of on the letters, so I think that it’ll turn out pretty well. I talked to my dad yesterday too, so that was pretty nice.”

“Have you talked to Penn yet after you two had that argument?” She wonders.

I shake my head. “No, I haven’t called him yet. My dad told me that Penn wants to talk to me but I won’t do it. All he’s going to do is tell me that being friends with Niles is stupid just because he’s a guy. Like, he always is trying to get me to make friends but God forbid it be male. But it’s not my job to make sure that he likes my decisions.”

“I think that it’s important that you welcome comfortable communication,” Dr. Lombardi starts her therapist talk on me.

“I know that it’s important and I’m going to be openly communicating with my brother through my dad so that he can’t directly yell at me. Ironically enough, my dad knows about me being friends with Niles and he isn’t even as upset about it as Penn is. He’s so overprotective which I get, but sometimes it’s just too much.”

“I understand that. It might take some time to get on the same level. You probably want to be treated like an adult whereas your brother wants to always be there to protect you. Once you’re back home, maintaining a healthy relationship with your family will be easier but for now, I suggest that you call your brother and talk things through.”

“But he’s so stubborn,” I tell her. “He won’t hear any of it.”

“Well, it can’t hurt to try, right?”

I shrug with a long sigh. “Sure, I guess so.”

“Good,” She chirps. “Now, onto our next thing of business. I know that we’ve talked about this a lot before but I have to keep pressing the issue to keep you thinking about it.”

I purse my lips and sink down in my chair, knowing what’s about to happen and I really wish that she would stop bringing this up because I really hate even thinking about it.