The Swan 2: Taking Flight

Chapter 2: Memories

Milo's POV:

"So you found out you were being sent to boarding school the night your mother killed Trixie," Josiah said, blowing out a long breath. "That's really fucked up, Milo."

I'd been seeing Josiah for a few months and eventually we got to this topic. My parents sending me away to boarding school, things that happened at home that I couldn't erase from my memory, no matter how much I wanted to. As much as I knew those things were wrong, there was a strange sense of validation when Josiah said the way my parents behaved was terrible. Maybe it was that him saying that made me feel less like it was my fault. He wasn't as bad of a psychologist as I was afraid of at first.

"Aren't you supposed to make me feel better about my life?" I sighed.

"I'm not going to make you feel better about something you have a right to be upset about," he said, shaking his head. "You've kept too much in and not let yourself properly feel all this out. In my opinion, it's better for you to be angry and upset, at least long enough you let it out, that way you're not keeping it in all the time. Your mother shooting Trixie in front of you was abuse to both the dog and to you, you understand that, I hope."

"I suppose I do now," I said, shifting my eyes away.

"All right," he nodded. "I know this isn't something you like to talk about too much so why don't you just tell me what you can, what happened that night after your mother killed Trixie?"

"She wanted me to bury Trixie."

"She wanted you to bury Trixie?" He repeated.

"Yes," I nodded, looking towards the window. "It was part of the lesson."

"And this was twenty, almost twenty-one years ago, correct? When you were seven?" He asked, flipping through his notebook.

"Yes," I nodded, still staring out the window. "Almost twenty-one years ago. She wanted me to bury Trixie but I couldn't. My father took pity on me and came to bury her but told me not to tell mother, to say I did it. He almost stopped because I started to cry and-" I stopped, looking towards the window.

"And what?" Josiah asked.

"He told me not to cry. He said men don't cry. That's when he brought up boarding school to me, then we went inside and he told my mother that's what we would need to do because he couldn't have me around ruining things for him. They got in a fight and I went to the closet until it was over like I always did."

Josiah leaned forward, his forearms resting on his legs, remaining quiet until I finished. "Okay," he said, sitting back and shaking his head. "I feel like there's a lot of things that need addressing but let's try to start with something simple."

"I thought you wanted to know about how I got out of boarding school," I pointed out.

"I did," he nodded. "But that story you just told me unleashed quite the can of worms, Milo."

"I'd rather just tell it all at once," I said honestly, darting my eyes away. "Can't we come back to what we need to learn from it later?"

"Of course," Josiah said, leaning back and crossing his legs. "So what happened then? You said you finished boarding school at sixteen."

"Yes," I nodded. "Eleven, almost twelve years ago."

"Well I'm just not sure what to do with him," the woman said into the phone in a way that told me she thought she was being quiet. She sent me a friendly smile before focusing on her conversation. "His parents haven't responded to any correspondence and his father paid for the full tuition for him being here but he's finished two years early." There was a pause and the woman nodded along for a while before speaking. "But he's not an adult, we have to make sure he'll be with an adult if he flies back to America."