I blink rapidly as the memory fills my mind.
I’ve only been in rehab for a couple of days, but I was allowed to say goodbye to the daughter I’ll never know. I was escorted off the premises to attend her publicly funded funeral.
I stood there. On my own, staring down at the tiny coffin that held her body. No one was there, no one cared. They didn’t know her, or even know of her existence.
Her burial was witnessed by myself, my case worker, and the minister presiding over the service. That’s it. That alone is devastating to me. Her death is so significant. I feel like the whole world should be mourning in the streets.
With a bunch of flowers purchased from the service station on the way, I farewelled my precious girl, and vowed to never take another drug again and never to bed another man. The cost is just too severe.
“Paige?” my therapist prompts me, my eyes come to focus as a drop of water slips from my cheek and splashes on my hand. I touch my face to find I’ve been crying.
“I’m sorry,” I say, wiping at my tears and frowning slightly. “Um… what was the question?”
“I asked how you feel about the funeral yesterday.”
I move my eyes so they meet his with a steady gaze. “Nothing. I feel nothing.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Group therapy. I’d love to know who the genius is that came up with this one. I feel like I’m sitting in a room competing for the title of ‘The Most Fucked up’. But we’re all fucked up – just in different ways.
“Paige?” Our group counsellor, Edith, calls on me. “Do you think you’re ready to tell us how you got here?”
“In a car,” is all I say in return. It’s been almost a month, and I’m yet to speak up. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to share my experience. I sit here, listening to others breakdown and cry, as they tell their stories. Each one is sad. Each one is hopeless. I don’t want to add mine to the mix. It’s hard enough listening to theirs.
“How does it make everyone feel when Paige gives us an answer like that?” she says to the group.
“It makes me feel like she thinks this is all a joke. That she doesn’t take this seriously,” says Vicky, a small twenty-five-year-old Islander girl, whose voice is thick and gravelly and betrays the fragility of her size.
“I think she’s just being honest,” Liam, a nineteen year old high school dropout, says. Everyone calls him ‘Poor Little Rich Boy’ because he comes from money. But he’s just as lost as the rest of us. “By car is exactly how she got here.”
“Yeah, you would think that. You’re not exactly the best sharer here either,” another girl, Kerri, says.
“I just don’t have anything to say. I took too many drugs. End of story.”
“What? You think you’re better than us. Just ‘cause you’re some rich kid who’s had an easy life?”
“You don’t know anything about my life,” he spits.
“Yeah. ’cause you’re too chicken shit to say anything about it.”
“Fuck off Kerri. We can’t all be tortured souls like you.”
“Alright. Alright. That’s enough,” Edith calls out, holding her hands up to tell everyone to quiet down. “This isn’t actually helping anyone.”
The argument continues regardless. People are on edge in here. It seems like we all took drugs to forget something. Remembering is painful. It’s easier to be angry.
Liam stands and points his finger, moving across everyone in our haphazard circle as he speaks. “Just because you all have a ‘woe is me’ tale to tell. Doesn’t mean I have to as well. I’m sick of listening to your bitching. I’m sick of listening to your fucking judgement. If I don’t want to talk. I don’t fucking have to, and neither does she.” His finger lands on me, and I wish I could shrink down in my seat. I don’t want to be singled out. “I’m sick of this fucking place!” he yells, kicking his chair back from the circle and walking off.