“Before we get started today, I want everybody to give our new friend, Ana, a nice welcome,” The man who is sitting at the front of our circle says with a warm smile as he waves his hand towards me in our wide circle. I shuffle my feet below me and look down at my lap to ignore all of the eyes that are now on me.
It’s Friday now, which means that I’ve been here for a full work week and on Fridays, other than cheesecake for dessert, we also have this thing called honesty circle and it happens right after lunch in some wide open room. There’s three honesty circles in three different rooms and I was assigned to Group B, which is also the circle that Johnny is in so we’re sitting beside each other now because I guess we’re friends. I’m also friends with Mia and Renée as well, because we always eat together and hang out in the common area a lot and play games or watch TV or just talk about random stuff. I like them a lot, which is surprising because I don’t like many people.
“Hello, Ana,” Everybody responds in a monotonous tone, looking over at me but I’m ignoring them until it’s over and then I offer everyone in the group a small little wave.
“Now, does anybody have something on their mind that they would like to discuss today?” Jake, who is the lead speaker dude in the group. He’s about thirty and he has a degree in something but he isn’t a therapist, he just works honesty circle most of the time. At least, that’s what he told us at the beginning of this circle, when he introduced himself, mostly for my benefit since everybody else already knows him. “Ana, since you’re new, why don’t you start us out today? Go ahead and tell us about yourself.”
Have I mentioned how much I hate attention? Because I hate it so much. I just meekly shrug. “Uh. Well, my name is Ana and I’m eighteen. I’ve been in and out of these rehab places for the past three years but I’d been well into recovery for about a year now until I recently relapsed.”
“Why’d you do that?” Somebody in the circle asks me. “If I’d been out for a whole year, I would never come back to a place like this.”
“It’s a long story,” I mumble quietly.
“This is honesty circle,” A girl across from me tells me as if I didn’t already know that.
I nod in agreement. “Yeah, well honestly, it’s a long story,” I rephrase my statement from before to fit her needs.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about right now,” Jake tells me. “You are more than welcome to share whenever you’d like, but we encourage you to share at your own pace. You should never feel pressure to share something that you feel uncomfortable about telling us.”
“Awesome,” I sigh.
“Anyway, what we were talking about last week was communication with your family. How you talk to them about what’s happened to you,” He says. “Some families can find it hard to accept the kind of things that go through your head. Would anybody like to elaborate on our conversation from last week?”
Somebody raises her hand and then when Jake nods at her, she starts speaking. “Well, I called my mom a few days ago and when she asked me how I was feeling, I told her that I was upset because I couldn’t find one of my favorite pictures that I keep on my desk. She got so scared that I was going to go off and try to hurt myself again. I don’t know, it just bugs me that she, and most of the people that I know, don’t realize that just because sometimes, I’ve been diagnosed as suicidal and depressed, that doesn’t mean that I can’t feel upset about little things without wanting to put a bullet in my brain.”
“My parents are like that too,” Another guy adds to the discussion. “They freak out every time I look just a little less than rainbows and sunshine. It’s annoying.”
“It’s important to maintain a strong relationship with your parents, even though they might have a hard time understanding what you’re going through,” Jake tells us. “Sit down and have a conversation with them. Let them know how you feel about their behavior. You should feel comfortable expressing yourself with your parents and the people that are close to you.”
I purse my lips and look down at my lap, which apparently, is an indication that I have something to say (which I don’t).
“Ana, do you want to tell us about your family?”
I shrug and then shake my head. “No, not really.”
“Do you know what the meaning of honesty circle is?” The girl from before asks me with narrowed eyes.
I nod and look back at her, making sure that she knows that she can’t intimidate me like I think that she wants to. “Yes, I do. We are in the shape of a circle and we are being honest. I didn’t say anything that wasn’t honest. I do not want to talk about my family. That isn’t a lie.”
“There’s no need to feel defensive here,” Jake speaks calmly. “This is an open environment, Shayla, and I’m sure that Ana will share with us when she feels like it’s time.”
I don’t open my mouth to let him know that it will never be time. My business isn’t any of their business and it never will be and I don’t think that I’ll ever be changing my mind on that subject. I just keep my mouth shut, though, and let Jake change the conversation to something about how to deal with stress. I listen, trying my best not to zone him out, but I try to make as little movement as possible so that I don’t attract his attention again because I don’t want him to ask me to open up again.
Johnny speaks beside me about how he has a stress ball on his desk that he uses whenever he feels stressed out and he says some other stuff but we don’t really talk to each other at all because one of the rules of the circle is that we have to pay attention to the person talking to the group, which means that we can’t be talking to our friends or doing anything else.
Needless to say, I hate honesty circle and when it’s over, I’m one of the first people out of my chair, making a bee line towards the exit with Johnny by my side.
“It really isn’t that bad. You’ll get used to it,” He assures me, apparently noticing that I didn’t have the best time in the honesty circle.
I roll my eyes. “I don’t think that I’ll get used to it. I don’t want to tell other people about my problems and I don’t want to hear about other people’s problems either. It’s so uncomfortable to me,” I explain to him with a small shrug. “I don’t know, I guess I’m just a private person or something.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” He chuckles. “Really though, I hated it at first but I got used to it after a while.”
“How long have you been here?” I wonder curiously as we’re walking towards the common area, which is where a lot of people are going right now since all of the honesty circles have just ended. It’s really nice out today though, so a lot of people are going outside too. I still have that stupid plastic band on my wrist though, so I’m not allowed to go outside yet.
“Oh, so I’m not allowed to know anything about you but you’re allowed to ask about me?” He wonders with raised eyebrows.
“Fair enough,” I agree. “I’ve been here for about five days now. Your turn.”
He rolls his eyes at me, which I pretend to ignore, and then as we’re sitting down at one of the four-person tables, he answers with, “A little over a year.”
“Do you think that you could get out anytime soon?” I ask him, being careful to not ask him the big question that is always floating in the air whenever I talk to anybody here. The ‘why are you even in here in the first place?’ question. I refuse to ask anybody that question because I don’t want them to ask me in return and expect a long drawn out answer with every detail ever about how I ended up here at this rehab center.
“I don’t know, maybe,” He shrugs. “I sure feel a lot better than I did when I got here.”
My eyes involuntarily glance down at the scar that’s still peeking up from under his blue scrubs but it’s so quick that I don’t think that he saw it. “That’s good,” I tell him. “I really hope that I don’t have to be here for a whole year though. I can’t take another year of this.”
“It’s not so bad,” He assures me again just as Mia and Renée join us at the table with a deck of cards.
“Crazy eights or BS?” Renée asks as she immediately starts shuffling the cards.
“Are we interrupting anything?” Mia wonders, looking up at me and then to Johnny.
“Nope, not really,” I tell her with a fleeting smile- which is the best that I can do right now. “We were just talking about making our grand escape outta here.”
She chuckles a little bit. “Yeah, good luck with that.”
“BS it is then,” Renée chirps when nobody answers her question. “You’re not getting out for a while, Ana, so just sit tight. Trust me, when I first got here, I tried to run but they caught me and through me into the solitary wing for two weeks.”
“Solitary?” I wonder in confusion considering the only time that I’ve heard that term was watching Orange is the New Black and it doesn’t sound like a very fun place at all.
“Yeah, it’s not as bad as it sounds, but it’s lonely,” She explains. “You still get meals and your therapy sessions but during free hours, you have to stay in the room and it’s really boring because you can’t change the channel of the TV since it’s like, inside of the wall. Those rooms are for the really crazy people or the people that try to run away and need short term punishment. It’s basically like getting grounded or something.”
“Anyway, how was your first honesty circle?” Mia asks me as Renée is dealing out the cards.
“She almost got into it with Shayla Roberts,” Johnny tells them with a small little laugh.
“Everyone gets into it with Shayla,” Renée says, continuing to deal out the cards, leaving a pile of them in front of each of us at the table. I didn’t know what this game was until I came here and then a few days ago, they taught me how to play this game called BS which is the polite way of saying bullshit and it’s a little bit complicated but I like it. I’d like to think that I’m good at catching other people in a lie while also being good at lying myself. I’ve spent the past three years lying to everyone around me, telling them that I’m fine and happy when my insides are in turmoil so maybe I’m pretty good at this game, that requires you to be good at lying and catching other people’s lies. “She’s a brat,” Renée finishes.
“She is,” Mia agrees. “Very bratty. What happened?”
“She told me that I wasn’t doing honesty circle right,” I inform them. “But I don’t see why because I was being pretty honest, I just wasn’t in the sharing mood.”
“Well, don’t worry about Shayla, she’s annoying but she’s harmless,” Renée says. “I know honesty circle kind of blows but you’ll get used to it.”
“That’s what I told her,” Johnny chimes, picking up his pile of cards to shuffle through them. “It’s really not so bad once you get to know the other people in the circle.”
“Exactly,” Mia agrees, looking down at her organized hand. “Now, let’s get started.”
We play the card game for a while until Renée has to forfeit to go to her therapy session since not everybody has therapy at the same time and her session is at two while mine isn’t until three and then Johnny and Mia don’t have theirs until six. The game isn’t as fun with just three of us so I decide to go call home before I have to go to my therapy session.
At the phone bank, I dial my dad’s cell number and listen to the ringing. It rings three times before he answers the phone with a polite, “Hello?”
“Hey, Dad,” I reply to him.
“Oh, Ana, hi. How are you doing?” He asks.
“I’m as fine as I can be,” I assure him. “How’s everything going at home?”
“Busy,” He responds. “Your mother is hard at work again and Penn started his job at Vaughn this week.”
“Yeah, he told me that,” I say, remembering how Penn told me earlier in the week that this is his first week at work. During the summer, while he’s not at school, he has an internship at a dance school instructing a dance class. Ironically enough, that’s how he met Sienna a few years ago. “Anyway, I’m already feeling loads better. I’ll be home in the blink of an eye.”
“I hope so, kiddo. We already miss you around here,” He assures me. “Are you making any friends?”
“Yeah, there’s a few people that I met,” I confirm. “They’re really nice.”
“Good. I think that you’ll really like this place, Ana, they seem really… I don’t know how to put it. Genuine. They seem very genuine,” He says.
“I like it,” I tell him, more for his benefit so that he doesn’t worry about me too much while I’m here. I know that he doesn’t want to send me away but my mother is a very stubborn lady and when she smells a threat to her family’s reputation, it gets shipped away like yesterday’s garbage. Including me. “It’s way better than Alaska.”
“That’s really good to hear, sweetheart,” He says, sounding relieved for some reason, probably because he feels guilty for letting my mom send me away, because he always feels guilty about it but I don’t blame him. I know that he just wants what’s best for me.
“Thanks, Dad,” I sigh. “Anyway, I just wanted to call and check in but I actually have to go because I have therapy soon. Maybe you guys can come visit me in a month or so. I don’t know when I get visitation rights though, but I’ll keep you posted.”
“Yeah, let me know when we can come see you and we’ll all fly out for the weekend or something,” He suggests. “I’ll talk to you later, Ana. I love you.”
“I love you too, Dad,” I say into the phone. “Bye.”
“Bye, sweetheart,” He says just before hanging up the phone and then I put the black plastic phone back on the hook and look at the clock to see that I have about ten minutes before my therapy session, so I head towards that wing of the rehab center to talk my guts out to my therapist, like I do every single day.
_______________________________
Picture: Allie DeBerry, who plays Shayla
Song: Everybody Hurts by Avril Lavigne
AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT (If the first chapter of this story gets 100 votes, I'll start updating twice a week)
Story: The Things Our Parents Left Us
Author: xrayz1209
Genre: Romance
Summary: A story where two teens bond over a parental lost that still affects them no matter how long its been for them.
----------------
“What? I’m sorry did you say kiss?”
“Yeah this is really stupid, it’s a stupid idea isn’t it?”
“I never said that--”
“But you wouldn’t want to kiss me anyway, it would be gross right?”
“I didn’t say that either, it is a very weird idea though.”
“Will you do it though?”
“Do you… Do you want me to? I mean I’ve never kissed anyone before either an--”
“None of that stuff matters, I just want to know how it feels so I can be prepared. If you don’t want to that’s fine, I understand.”
“No I’ll do it, I mean it couldn’t hurt.”
“Maybe not you.”
“Right, sorry,” he said as he stepped closer to her.
“Don’t press too hard alright?”
“I won’t,” his voice was almost a whisper now.
Ramona was getting more nervous by the second her heart pounding, “and don’t--”
It was quick, almost as if it didn’t happen. There was no lingering pain on Ramona’s lips, just a short breath of relief. While Adam’s heart beat softly and slow, somehow it hurt.