Returning Red

session 04/06

NEW YORK - 4 years ago

session 04/06

"Katherine?" I call out as I enter her driveway and see her front door lying open. It's almost dark and the sky is a dark shade of light blue if that makes sense with the last tinge of orange slipping away from its canvas.

"Bella," she yells at me and I look up at her terrace. She waves at me, grinning. "Come on, up." She beckons me to.

I enter her house and Helen gestures for me to go upstairs. I run toward the stairs keeping my bag near the kitchen aisle where I decorated cookies last week. I gulp as I run up the stairs until I reach the door to her terrace. I push the door open and storm inside. I see her throwing wooden logs at what looks like an early stage of an unlighted campfire. She throws the last of her log and sits on the stone bench in front of it, her posture poised and straight. She smiles as she sees me walk in but I don't.

I sit on the stone bench beside hers. I ignore the campfire as I turn completely toward her. My palms are tight fists and this is when I realize I am biting my lower lip.

Katherine is happy, "How was your--"

"I took the pills," I cut her off, clenching my jaw.

She stopped talking and she frowned. I started to panic watching his expression turn from shock to disappointment. She cocked her head, furrowing her eyebrows and narrowing her eyes.

"What happened?" She softly asked me.

I begin to fidget with my fingers, holding them, pulling them, squeezing them, and fisting them. I just want my palms to stop sweating so I could speak to Katherine.

"I--" I couldn't meet her gaze. I felt so ashamed. "--I met a guy at the interview of my internship. His name is Ryder Harvey."

"Okay," she nods, inching closer to me.

"I've known him for about three weeks now." My voice almost sounded like I was sobbing. "He talked to me and I finally thought, I-I made a friend. We were preparing for t-the interview and I was h-helping him s-study," I looked at my palms and I took a deep breath.

Katherine bent over the bench and pulled a water bottle. She came over to the bench I was sitting on and she handed me the bottle. I took a sip from it and I felt her hands hold my palms. I looked at her and she nodded, moving her other hand on my back, trying to relax me. She massaged my back in vertical motions and that seemed to warm my chest.

"Slow down, slow down, tell me everything very slowly. You have all the time in the world today." She muttered softly.

I kept the water bottle beside me and I took a deep breath, nodding at her words. "Ryder's parents separated recently. He was having a hard time coping with it, b-because he said he was attached to both his parents," I shrugged.

"Right," she nodded.

"S-So, I thought maybe I should stay around so h-he wouldn't feel alone. And I did. Except, it was t-this evening, I was at his place and I was not prepared but he kissed me." I bite my lip closing my eyes. "A-And I went blank." I squeezed my eyes shut. "I felt s-suffocated and I just pulled my stuff and I-I, I ran, Katherine. I ran away as fast as I could f-from that place."

She was nodding and her hands behind my back were still moving in a vertical pattern, trying to relax me. She licked her lips but she was still intently listening to me.

"I c-came to my house. Everything was dark. My g-grandma is in LA with my sister so I was staying alone. Everything started to spin. My walls started saying these horrible things to me, I could hear voices, conversations, old memories, flashes of old memories, too much noise, yelling and screaming, and the feeling of being chased and t-touched and I felt dirty, guilty, and sick of myself. Tears just kept streaming down my f-face and I hated that I was--"