After school has finally ended Molly is picked up by Pam and is driven across town for her counselling appointment. Molly has been in therapy for four years. In that time she has had ten different therapists. They pass Molly's notes along as though she is a sold animal. Each new therapist knows of her history before Molly has even stepped through the door. They know exactly what to say, exactly what not to say, and exactly how she is feeling even though they're the ones that ask it.
The only thing they don't share, what they cannot share, is what is said in the therapy sessions. And that is very little. It had taken Molly an entire year before she had spoken a word in her therapy sessions and then after the deaths of her grandparents it had taken her another year to talk about it. Her new therapist, Helen, is a replica of all the others. She's good at words but nothing ever changes.
Helen smiles at her as she enters, as always, but Molly doesn't smile back. She takes to the comfortable green, lounge chair against the wall and stares at the window. Helen is wearing her usual white suit with expensive pants and heels which makes her seem more professional than necessary. The eye-glasses around her face are rounded like the shape of onion rings and are so large that Helen's eyes look enormous.
"Hello again, Molly," Helen says as she sits on a wooden chair near her desk. "How was school?"
Molly just shrugs. "Okay I guess."
"That's good. And are you making progress with any of your classmates? You said in our last session that you hoped to make a friend."
Molly swallows down the lie before she speaks it. "Yes, I've made progress."
"Good, that's good. Is there anything you want to talk about today? Anything specific that has you worried or anxious?"
"I'm always anxious," Molly admits.
"Tell me about feeling anxious. Tell me what triggers it. What do you worry about more than anything else?"
Molly clicks her tongue across her teeth as she keeps her gaze on the window. "That he's out there. That he's watching me."
"Who, Molly?"
"The person that killed them. The monster that took my family."
"How often do you feel anxious about that?"
"Always," Molly says. "I know that he's coming for me. I can feel him. He knows where I am. The weird part is, I kind of want him to find me. What does that make me?"
"It makes you a victim of severe trauma," Helen replies. "Survivor's guilt is common in situations like this. A part of you wishes that you were there when it happened so your family didn't have to go through it without you and you didn't have to be left behind. Is it a fantasy of yours that the killer takes you, too? Because you believe you should have been his victim to begin with?"
Molly nods in shame. "I should be angry at him right? I should be blinded with rage and vengeance. Yet all I can think about is why he didn't kill me too. I should have been taken too."
"No, Molly. Your family wouldn't want that. They wouldn't have wanted you to go through that fear and pain. They would have protected you no matter what. You have so much more to give, so much more."
"The only people I have ever loved in this world are dead," Molly says numbly. "Every single one of them. I have nothing left to give anyone or anything."
"Not everything is gone. Riley isn't gone. Do you want to talk about him?"
Molly stares at her and shakes her head violently.
"Okay," Helen says. "We don't have to talk about that. What I'm interested to know is what you want for yourself."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, where do you see these sessions heading? Where do you see yourself in ten years? Do you think about that, your future?"
"I can't even think past the next five minutes. Is this normal after four years? To still feel like this?"
"There is no right answer to that," Helen says. "Everyone deals with grief and suffering in their own way and their own time. You were very young and you're still very young. What you have been through in your short life most adults would find impossible to cope with. Every day you can only get stronger."
"No," Molly whispers. "That isn't what this is. I am not grateful to be alive. I am not healing in any way. Every day I endure these random memories of my family. They come to me when I am feeling sadder than usual and they only make me feel sadder. Remembering them doesn't give me strength, it does nothing."
"Because they remind you that they are gone," Helen says. "Each memory is a happy sentiment when you are reliving it because you were happy in that memory. But afterwards it hits you."
"Like a train at ninety mile per hour."
"So maybe that is something we can work on. Reliving those memories without the trauma and sadness attached to them. Your family gave you wonderful memories and putting them side-by-side the darkness will only grow to confuse you and isolate you from the memory of them all together. You cannot allow yourself to forget them, Molly."
"It will take the pain away." Molly sniffles while rubbing her nose. "Not completely, but if I don't remember them then I won't be hurt by losing them."
"That isn't how grief works. Grief isn't just in the mind. It's in sound, it's in smell, something familiar, something like home. Grief is there to remind us that we shared time with that person and that we shared a part of our lives with them." Helen pulls her chair closer to Molly, her huge eyes beaming through her glasses. "If all we have left is the acknowledgement of that then why would we want to take it away?"
"I don't want to take it away," Molly says. "I just want it all to stop. I just want to stop feeling like I'm alone in the world."
"You are not alone in the world," Helen says reassuringly, to no avail. "You just have to look around. There will be someone there."
Molly dismisses it. She knows there is always someone there but it doesn't make a difference. The world keeps spinning, people keep living, children keep growing and Molly keeps wishing. Wishing, hoping, that she doesn't have to be part of it any longer.
She cannot see a life for herself. She cannot see herself married with a loving husband, kids, and a house full of joy. All she sees is coffins. Blackness. Words scribbled onto stone.
All she sees is death.
She takes a deep breath, followed by a quiver of her lips. "I don't want you to think that I'm not trying to be strong. I know you think I am paranoid and mentally unstable. But I am trying my damn hardest to be strong. I am."
"I do not think you are mentally unstable," Helen says. "Paranoid, yes. Emotionally detached from yourself, yes. But mentally unstable? That you are not. We have had conversations in this office when you have described to me in detail of what you gain from each day, and how you feel if you do or don't succeed. You are capable of exploring parts of your mind that have been unexplored for a very long time and that to me is progress."
"That isn't strength."
"Forget about strength," Helen dismisses. "Forget it. Shake that from your head, it's gone. Healing isn't about strength or weakness, it's about finding something new. That something new can be a mood or a person, a place, a hobby. Some turn to religion or find a new culture. I know of a woman that overcame grief by starting a protest against an animal testing facility in her town. It has to be something that makes you feel good, that makes you feel like there is still a purpose for you."
Molly smiles just a little, but her smile is more sad than happy. "What do I have left to care about that much?"
"That's why it is something new. I believe you are at that stage of your grief now. The something new finds you, you don't find it. And when it finds you you'll know, because then you will begin to heal."
Heal. That word sounds delicious in Molly's head. She would love nothing more than to heal and to get better and to leave her pain behind. The problem is, healing doesn't just happen. It takes work. Hard work. You have to correct yourself in a way, cast out parts of yourself that are functioning wrongly. Correcting the mind could be simple but how can Molly ever correct her heart? Her heart isn't just broken, it's beating for all the wrong reasons. It's beating to merely pump blood around her body. Nothing more. Molly's heart beats to keep her alive and trapped and tortured, it does not beat for any other purpose than to keep her here; sitting in the comfortable lounge chair, watching light rain graze the window.
"Would you be open to the something new?" Helen asks quietly.
"It's been four years," Molly says. "If something new was going to heal me then it would have by now." She lightly touches the chain around her neck, keeping her eyes on the window as though she is waiting for something to appear. "Maybe the something new will be that everyone around me doesn't die anymore."
"Why would you say that?"
Molly stands abruptly. "I'd like to go now."
Helen glances at the clock against the wall and then back to Molly's gaze. "We have another twenty minutes remaining."
Molly begins to scratch against the inside of her left wrist. "I'm feeling unwell. I've talked a lot today."
"Yes, you have," Helen says. "I'm proud of you. Okay, if you wish for the session to end now then we'll call it a day. I'll see you next week."
Molly nods, moving towards the door. She feels bad for leaving so abruptly but she cannot last for much longer. "Goodbye, Helen."
"Goodbye, Molly."