“It’s a little bit hard to control that,” I reply edgily. It’s been a week since Megan left. The Wrong Things have all but vanished. It probably doesn’t help that I’ve barely left my house in the past three days.
“It shouldn’t be. Stress starts to overshadow, transform sadness when you’re overcommitting your time, keeping yourself awake all night, spending time with people when you need to rest and be alone.”
“You’re the worst therapist in the world.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m a research psychologist, not a therapist. Look, I’m starting to see some threads forming in your history, and I agree with what your last doctor said—there’s some other trauma there, something you haven’t worked through. All of your behaviors, your decisions and habits suggest so.”
“What behaviors—?”
“The fact that you can’t pinpoint a new aspect of the memory,” she cuts me off, “or recall any other event indicates that either you’ve suppressed the memory or it’s something that seemed really mundane to you at the time. I once read a case about a girl who was abandoned by her father, who went through EMDR and recovered a memory of opening the mailbox on her birthday. It wasn’t her parents’ fights or the memory of the day he walked out. It was the absence of a stupid birthday card. We’ve got to find your missing birthday card.”
“What if I don’t have one?”
“You do,” she says. “I feel it. I’m going to start bringing in a colleague to do hypnotherapy on Thursdays. We’ll keep having our normal one-on-one Tuesday sessions. Meanwhile, you need to push yourself. Do things that make you uncomfortable; overextend yourself. In the long run it’ll be good for you, and in the short run it will overrun you.”
Mom gets back from a run looking like a Nike advertisement, dressed in her sleek pink and gray workout clothes and only dewy and bright with sweat. “Hey, honey,” she says, ruffling my hair from behind the couch. She takes a long swig from her matching pink water bottle then comes to sit beside me. “Everything okay?”
The tone of her voice tells me she knows it’s not. “Yep,” I lie.
She nods, her eyes intense on mine. “It must feel really weird around here with Megan gone, huh?”
“Yeah.” I want to be in my room, waiting for Megan to get done with practice so I can call, but thanks to Alice, I’m down here instead.
Mom puts her arm around me and squeezes me. “College goes by so fast,” she says. “I honestly felt like I blinked, and it was over. These are going to be some of the best years of your life, and when they’re done, you can go anywhere, you know?”
“I know.”
“Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t we go see a movie tonight?”
The thought of going somewhere I’d likely run into classmates makes me feel sick and anxious. I don’t know who knows about Matt and Rachel, but I’d bet money the answer is everyone, which of course makes me feel embarrassed. And angry. It makes it look like he rejected me, completely hides the fact that he practically forced himself on me then ran off to hook up with Rachel for revenge.
“A movie sounds fun,” I tell Mom.
“Really? You don’t have to,” she says hesitantly. “If you already have plans. I would just love to spend some time with my girl.”
“No, no plans,” I say, as if she didn’t already know.
“Great! I’ll just take a quick shower and then we can go.” She kisses the side of my head and walks off.
An hour later, we’re heading over to the theater. Following Alice’s orders, I chose the movie that looks the most disturbing: a drama about a girl who was kidnapped and forced into the sex trade for ten years, until she manages to escape.
“Are you sure about this one?” Mom says, trying and failing to not look horrified. “This kind of thing usually upsets you, doesn’t it?”
“It has a happy ending, I think,” I say.
Mom pays for the tickets and we go into the theater. “Let’s use the bathroom first,” she says. She’ll have to go again in the middle of the movie regardless. It’s the Davidson family curse, apparently, which she inherited from her father. I wouldn’t know what that’s like since I don’t have any Davidson blood. I could probably hold my bladder if a tornado picked me up.
I pee anyway and wash my hands, waiting a minute in the bathroom for Mom to come out. “I’ll meet you in the lobby, okay?” I say finally. When she doesn’t answer, I bend over to look under the stall but her feet aren’t in there. “Mom?” I’m alone in the bathroom. She must’ve already slipped out.
I turn and push through the door, immediately colliding with someone in the lobby. I stumble backward, apologizing, until I see who it is. All the blood drains from my face. “Matt.”
He looks confused, glancing almost impatiently between me and the ticket-taker. “I’m so sorry,” he says, clasping his hands in front of his chest. “We’ve met before, haven’t we? I’m horrible with names.”
“Are you serious?” I say, fuming.
His gaze cuts across the lobby again. “I’m really sorry. My girlfriend’s waiting for me inside. It was great to run into you.”