The Etiquette of Smoking

Run

Trigger Warning: Self Harm

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"Are you ready?"

"I can't confidently say I am, no."

Kevin walked back to his chair across from me with his hot mug of tea in one hand and his clipboard in the other. He smiled wryly as he sat down and settled into his seat. The steaming mug was placed on a coaster on the table between us.

"Well you said you were ready to get this over with but if you want to wait another month then be my guest." He said jokingly, making me frown.

"No, no, I want to get it over with but I don't know if I'm ready to talk about this in particular." I admitted, looking to the left where the window of Kevin's office let in a ton of light. I could see the blue sky peeking out between thin clouds that moved slowly across the sky.

"You don't have to talk about certain things but in order to ensure none of this happens again, we need to work through most of it. We can go back to simpler exercises again if you'd like." He offered to which I shook my head.

"This isn't going to go away just by me talking about it." I mumbled, looking back at him.

"You're right, but it's one step closer to getting better." He nodded in agreement as he picked up the mug once again and blew on the steaming surface. I knew he was right but it didn't make how I felt about talking about Goblin any better. I let out a deep breath through my nose and nodded as well. I brought my legs up on the couch with me, tucking one under the other and getting myself comfortable before we got into this.

Kevin sipped quietly on his tea, the sound of his sips being the only noise in the room for a minute as I thought about where to start. He knew a fair amount of it already of course, but there was so much I kept to myself, pushed down and hidden away in the hopes of forgetting.

"It doesn't need to be all today." He reminded me. My eyes moved from the cup in his hands to the wall behind him. Nearly every session I stared at the photos on the wall and I really wasn't sure why.

"So um," I sighed, gulping down the initial nerves that overcame me as the dread slowly inched up. "I mean, you know the story. We met when we were kids, we ran away together, and history ended up repeating itself."

When I didn't continue, Kevin looked down at his clipboard and shuffled through his notes before looking back up at me.

"Do you want to talk about your adolescent time with him?" He asked gently, unclipping the board so he could keep whatever notes he'd been looking for front and center. I shrugged as my eyeline drifted away from the clipboard and back over to the décor of the room.

"I don't know what there is to say. We both had fucked up families and gravitated toward each other because of it. I guess we felt like since we both understood that we could make it out together. The problem was he channeled all of it into anger and I guess he didn't know how to manage it so he took it out on me."

"Did you ever take your anger out on him?" Kevin readied his pen and held it to the paper awaiting my answer.

"I mean, not in the same way but yes. I'm not perfect obviously, I was mean to him and started a lot of fights when I was angry. It was wrong, but at the time I didn't know how to deal with my feelings. We're two kids living on our own with mental issues, shit was bound to pop off." I rolled my eyes as I recounted just how unhealthy our lives had been in general in the last few years.

"Granted, I'm still not sure how to deal with my emotions but at least I cry all the time instead of yell so that's better, right?" I joked, making the corner of Kevin's mouth twitch in response but he didn't reply as he scribbled notes down.