Her Last Wish

Chapter 7

"Anyway, your injuries, though bad, are now healed but you have to stay here for three days so you can heal properly and to make sure the cut doesn't tear open. In those three days, you are going to have to go for therapy sessions-"

"No!" I exclaim before he can finish.

"Look Tiana, I know it's not something you want, but it's something you need because-"

"No!" I exclaim, interrupting him again. "I refuse to talk to someone I don't know nor trust about my problems!"

"Tiana," Tyson says, speaking up for the first time since my mom came in like a tornado of desperation, sadness and guilt. "I know it's hard, but it'll be good for you."

"Oh? And you know me well enough to know whats good and bad for me?" I ask back angrily, sudden rage taking over me.

They don't know me. I don't need this. I can get through this on my own.

"Please, my little Tiara. I'll do it too," my mom, mom, pleads.

"I can't mom... I can't be hurt by another person I trust, if I trust the person. To that person it's just a job. I'm just a job to that person, a way for that person to gain money. But to me it'll be so much more because it will be the first time I'll be opening up to someone. I can't bear losing another person I trust if I trust this person. I can't bear it," I say. My mother flinches. She knows I'm talking about her. I don't pretend to be talking about anyone else.

The doctor's eyes soften.

"Do you want to know something?" the doctor asks. I don't reply. He continues anyway.

"My daughter was in the same position as you a year ago. Vehemently denying help even though she was on a hospital bed for an injury she created herself. She told herself that she could go through it on her own. But I convinced her to go to therapy. Now she's the happiest that I have ever seen her and she has told me, repeatedly, how thankful she is that I convinced her to go to therapy. Sometimes you don't know what you need until actually get it. Sometimes what seems like the worst thing in the world will actually do you a lot more good than you can do yourself. And sometimes you have to learn how to lean on someone else because sometimes your burdens may be too much for you to carry," the damn doctor says, looking at me expectantly.

He had a mesmerizing way of convincing others.

But I too had an irritating way of being stubborn.

And he knew it too.

"Anyone can say anything. I can say I have the most perfect parents and I just did this to get their attention. I can say I am the happiest person in the world. I can say I love life and live it to the fullest. But that's not true. So how can I be sure that you aren't just saying that so you never have to get me as a patient again?" I challenge. From the corner of my eye I see my mother flinch.

He sighs.

A young nurse in her early twenties, my nurse, comes towards us then. She has startlingly red hair and blue eyes.. About as blue as the doctor's eyes.

Oh....

"I see you now know that he's my dad. It's the eyes, isn't it? Well anyway, what I want to say is that things do get better. They do. Life doesn't just give you obstacles, it gives you blessings as well. You just have to know when it comes along," she says.

I still stay stubborn.

"I was raped," she says abruptly, startling me. "By my boyfriend. When I didn't give him what he wanted, he took it from me. Without consent. I hated it. I felt so dirty. I felt so used. I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to relive the pain. But therapy helped me get back on track and now I get to help others in shitty situations. And I love it. I would like to hope that one day you too will get the chance to be someone you like," she says. That last line hit me like a brick.