I'd be lying if I said the next few weeks weren't a blur. Each day blended together. It was the same routine every day. The only change was a doctor's visit or a trip to the therapist. Repetition was what kept me sane. I didn't care that every day felt the same because at least I wasn't in pain.
Our football team had made it to the state finals which was coming up this next weekend, but I couldn't even get excited. I didn't even want to go, but I knew I had to. I had begun to focus on Grayson a lot more than I probably should have, and things just started to feel normal, comfortable.
Pierce and I continued our 'hating' each other at school but the moment school disappeared we went back to how things always were. Sneaking behind everyone's backs, because that is what we were good at.
After the state championship for football there was only a short three weeks before winter break and I was looking forward to that more than anything. Back when I lived with my parents, I dreaded it. Having to be stuck in a home for weeks on end with them was difficult, but here I didn't have that problem. I knew I could curl up in my bedroom reading every novel I could ever want. I would be able to find peace, and maybe I'd be able to wrap my head around my life here at Lincoln High.
I had been nonstop going since I got here, one bad thing after another. I needed a cleanse from life and drama. I knew that this new life I had was supposed to be easier, and it was, but I still thought that I would be better than I was. I wanted everything to be easier, less complicated. I did make all the issues for myself though. Therapy, I hoped, would help fix my issues.
Therapy, though I had just started, I could tell was starting to help mend the broken mess inside my head. It was more than just therapy. It was having Pierce back, along with his sister. It was having Grayson for a constant distraction. It was having my siblings back in my life. But most of all, it was having a family that loved me, a family that was accepting all my flaws and learning to handle the destruction I brought along.
Despite the healing process on the slice in my foot, I still made constant trips to the nurse's office. I couldn't lose sight of my best friend. I had made a connection with someone on a level that only Kingston's seemed to break through to. Thankfully, Grayson didn't really question my constant visits. I opened up a bit to him that Mrs. Bradbury, was very good at listening and she was my confidant.
We had slowly begun to join the group during lunch again. It started off slowly joining them every couple of days before it just began the habit to sit with them every day again. I still didn't engage in much conversation. I kept my focus on the food in front of me before leaving to talk with Casey.
Reece and I had grown closer than we had ever been. Even though we didn't have much time, he was going through a lot with Harlow. He had fought for so long for her, that the little attention she gave him during football season was enough to send him spiraling to the future of the two of them. The thing with Harlow, was that she didn't do commitment. She hated the idea of a label. If things were great how they were, why change them? What was the big deal with having to define what her and Reece were?
Reece's thoughts completely contradicted hers. It caused a rift between the two of them. She distanced herself from the group during the week. But she always found herself climbing back to him on the weekends. Her body still supported his jersey on Friday's. Her lips still connected with his after the wins. They were complicated, but still not as complicated as Pierce and I.
The best part of the state finals was that it was during Thanksgiving break. So, we got a break from the monotony of school. We got one day to see everyone from school but that was it for five whole days. We all needed the break from filling our brains with information we would just forget the next week.
"Charlee did you do the homework assignment I gave you last week?" I sat in front of a face that had become a part of my routine for the past few weeks. It was the last visit I'd have before we started Thanksgiving break.
I flipped open a notebook that had therapy written across the font in calligraphy. My fingers ran over the words that nearly filled the book already. So many thoughts and ideas ran over the once blank pages. "Pros and cons of 'my situation'." I used air quotes avoiding having to say the drama I had created between two boys.
"What exactly did you come up with?" I shrugged my shoulders. We had come so far. This woman had learned to dig deep within me. To pull out emotions I tried to force away. "You know I don't accept shoulder shrugs. What have you written down?" She pointed to the notebook draped over my legs. "You wrote down what you did in the moment, don't overthink it now that you're reading it over again. Your raw emotions are what fill those pages. You need to let those words now leave your mouth."
"I did two sets of this really." One page in my lap had the pros and cons of Pierce the other had the pros and cons of Grayson. Both lists contradicted each other as I looked at them.
"One for Pierce, one for Grayson. But my love will always be with Pierce. Ally is his con. If no other people existed, and it was just Pierce and Grayson with no outside forces, I'd pick Pierce over and over until I'm blue in the face. But other people exist. We have so many secrets and that's the biggest con there is when I truly get down to it. It's not just Ally. It's everything between him and I that gets held back between the presence of others. But we've proven time and time again we can't be without each other. Well even that's a lie. He lived without thoughts of me for months, I didn't. He got the joy of living without me. I couldn't find joy without him. He says he missed me and tried to keep me in his life but, he was able to let other people in. I couldn't even leave my bed unless I was physically dragged from the dungeon. I feel like I've put way more into this boy than he's put into me. But then I try and move on and there he is like a leech sucking all the blood from my body keeping me for himself. I can't even begin to try and love Grayson the way he deserves. I feel guilty for it. I try, and when Pierce sees it, he makes sure to make it known that no one can have me but him. But I have to be behind closed doors. He can't let anyone else know that he loves me. Besides Reece of course, but that wasn't even our choice to tell Reece, he just figured it out. I literally showed up in Pierce's clothing in front of our group of 'friends'" I still didn't classify them as my friends but there wasn't any other way to put it, "and no one even took a second glance to see that I was wearing Ally's boyfriends clothing. I couldn't have been more flaunt while wearing his shirt for the whole world to see. I was literally standing in front of them in nothing but Pierce's shirt and they had no idea. Not even Grayson who ran his fingers along the shirt time and time again."
I thought back to the night when I fully slept with Grayson for the first time. Pierce's words about my choice to show my skin stung like a bee in my brain. But even then, Pierce could see the way his clothes hung on my body begging to get him in trouble. "No one pays any attention to me the way Pierce does, not even Grayson, he tries but it's still not enough. That is why no matter what, Pierce's long list of cons will always be overruled by his major pro which is, that he notices the stuff that matters."
"You have a lot of pain built up around Pierce. You talk about him with so much emotion and Grayson you shrug off. I think you've had your mind made up from the beginning of it all Charlee. As much progress as you have made with Grayson, don't you think it would be a lot easier on yourself to stop dragging him along? You've been through a lot in your life so far, and maybe taking a step to ease the pain you feel would be a good start for you?"
"But what if Pierce doesn't feel the same way? What if I'm only what he needs when he doesn't have her?"
"You need to stop thinking about the what if's because they will literally make you go insane. If one of the what if's does happen, you figure out what to do once it happens. There is no reason to go through every single situation out there that could happen because we'd be here forever doing that. You have to start off with bettering yourself before you can involve other people right?"
"Well yeah, I guess."
"Remember that list I made you write the first day I met you?"
"What do you love about yourself?" I said confidently.
"And what did you write?"
"When I came back to you the page was blank. I didn't know what I loved about myself. So I wrote a page of what people said they loved about me."
"And you thought to do that why?" A smile played at the corners of her mouth.
"Because if they loved this stuff maybe I could learn to love the same stuff too."
"And did you go out of your way to ask people what they loved about you when you made this list?" I nodded my head and flipped through the pages of my notebook until I landed on the list. "Who is the first person you went to?"
"You know." I sighed reading his name across the page followed by the long list of things he forced me to scribble between the lines on the page. His list by far was the longest, followed by my parents combined list. "We've gone over this already though, why are we doing this again?"
"Because you keep saying what if Pierce doesn't love you in the same way, when the proof is in the pudding Charlee. He tells the only other person who knows him like you do that he loves you more than life itself. I'm trying to show that the what if's aren't worth the pain they give you. We need to cleanse your mind and get it thinking about the brighter things. So tell me what makes you feel good?"
"Besides the obvious, there's my family, there's talking with Casey and you, reading, journaling, watching movies, hot showers, the bad habit I've gotten since moving here which is drinking." I shrugged.
"So the things that make you feel good are things that allow you to escape or relax?" I nodded my head. "That is good to have things that allow you to do that. But escaping or numbing pain isn't always a good coping mechanism to rely on. We also need to deal with the situations at hand which you seem to be doing by talking with both Casey and I, which is good. I just want to make sure that you keep your coping mechanisms healthy."
"I'm trying to keep a healthy balance. I'm talking with Casey every day during the week. The weekends are really when I stick to more of the 'unhealthy' options. But I'm trying so hard to keep an equal balance in everything. I'm only struggling when it comes to Grayson and Pierce. But hearing you say that I need to pull away from Grayson, though I know it's what needs to happen, is also scary."
"Scary isn't always a bad thing."
"I know." I smiled.
"So for this next assignment I want you to work through your feelings on Grayson and Pierce. It isn't my life to decide who you keep around. It would be healthy, in my opinion, to have both of them around. It's just at what extent do you need them. I want you to work on figuring that out while you have a break from the two of them."