Two Broken Souls

chapter seventeen

When you go to therapy, one of the first things they have you do is fill out a form and then ask you some basic questions. You'll talk about your past and how you are feeling. And then once they feel comfortable enough, they'll ask you the hard questions.

One for example: have you ever thought about hurting yourself? And if so do you have a plan? And when that happens, you have one of two options.

Option one. You can lie right to their face. Put on a big smile, keep your body language steady, stare at them in the eyes and say "no, never."

Or option two. You can be honest, well not too honest. You can't really dive into all the raw and honest details about how you envision killing yourself, when you can't fall asleep in the middle of the night. But you can say how you really feel.

I always like to mix both options when I see a new therapist. I'm honest, well honest enough because when you're trying not to sound like a crazy psycho in front of them, then lying is acceptable at times.

Because I've always wondered what it would be like if I actually killed myself. I want to know what it would feel like to watch myself bleed to death. To have my heart rate slow down and eventually stop beating.

I'm curious about what I'll think about in those final moments.

But I could never really go through with it because no matter how much of a fuck-up my life is, I could never put my family through that.

I refuse to be the villain in their story.

Inside the snowglobe that sits on my white bookshelf, there was a single penguin wrapped in a tiny red scarf. My father gave it to me one day and when he first showed me, he turned it over allowing all the snow to collect on top, then quickly inverted it. The two of us watched as the penguin stayed in place while the snow fell around it.

Dr. Vaughn likes to split her professional time between the hospital, her practice downtown, and her home. The latter being where she saw a few select patients at her home. I'd always kind of admired Dr. Vaughn for her ethics towards her patients and how much time she dedicated to making sure they got the help they needed.

There was a Evian bottle sitting next to her mug, along with a small plate that had a different kind of muffin on it every time and it was always untouched. The time it would take for me to have my coffee was usually long enough for the guy to remove chunks from the top of his muffin of the day and nibble on it without taking his eyes away from the screen of his computer.

Here I was, sitting across from Dr. Vaughn in the living room of her brownstone. It was extremely clean, tastefully decorated, and rather inviting. During our sessions, she had this habit. She would close the double doors that led to the living room and would put some relaxing background music on, never too loud so as to become a distraction, but just loud enough for it to be acknowledged and to provide a warm and comfortable environment, designed to make someone feel safe.

"How are things at home?" Dr. Vaughn asked with her head down. She was looking at me from above the frame of her black glasses.

"Fine," I simply said, not too keen on being here, with her, in the first place, let alone going over just how badly I felt. Dr. Vaughn was good, though. She remained quiet, staring back at me until I finally caved. "Everything's fine," I assured her.

Dr. Vaughn just nodded at me as she kept looking through the forms she had me fill out. "How are you sleeping?"

I can't remember the last time that I got more than eight hours of sleep. Let alone more than two consecutive hours without waking up in the middle of the night to cry.

"I sleep fine."

I was fixated on the clock, seemingly trying to make it move faster and end this time in purgatory. Absentmindedly, I tapped my fingers on the chair's arm unintentionally matching the rhythm of the ticking clock.

I don't really feel like talking right now, but I know that I need too.

Dr. Vaughn surprises me when she puts away my file. "Tell me one true thing about yourself?" She said.

I pause for a minute to really think about my answer. "I care too much about what people think of me." Which is true. I can pretend that the whole newspaper thing didn't have an effect on me, but it did.

As she reads the questionnaire she made me fill out, we make small talk. Or rather, she makes small talk and I just give her one word answers.

"Have you ever though about harming yourself?"

I kept a straight face. "No."

I've learned the hard way that the best thing to do is say nothing about what you're really thinking. If you say nothing, they'll assume you're thinking nothing. People can only see what you let them see.

I can never really be fully honest with her and I don't want to be. I don't want to let her into my life only for her to leave.

I look at the clock again. Twenty-nine minutes and counting. I'm trying to see if I can end this meeting if I start crying, but that doesn't even seem to work. No tears will come out no matter how hard I try and will my eyes.

"Do you think that if you lived a perfect day, it would be okay to die?"

This catches her attention.

She sits back and crosses her left leg over her right. "What do you mean?"

I lean forward and place my elbows on my knees. "Say you have a perfect day from start to finish. It's like a dream come true. No other day could even compare in the slightest. Would that be okay for you to die?"

I mean really think about it. The perfect day can exist and nothing will ever live up to it again so why bother even trying.

"Well, if you died wouldn't that mean something bad happened?"

I sit back. "I guess."

After a few moments of silence. Dr. Vaughn says my favorite words. "That's all we have time for today." And before she finishes, I'm already out of my seat and heading towards the door.

"I'll see you next week." I tell her.

As I sign myself out, I almost bump into another patient. "I'm so sorry." The person apologized and I realized that it was Sutton.

"Sutton, hi." I said.

Her face lit up when she realized that it was me. "Mia, how are you?"

"I'm doing good."

"I should get going," she points behind with her coffee cup. I forgot that Sutton was a therapist. And I didn't realize that she worked here. "But it was good to see you."

"Yeah, you too."

Then it dawned on me that Harry might not have told his mother about our fight. I haven't been to school for the past three days and I don't think that I'll go back this week. And even if I do go back, I doubt that we'll even talk.