“Oh yeah, she’s fine. You’re the one on thin ice, so you better not fuck it up.”
cleo
. . .
“Deep breath in.Okay, great. Hold it, Cleo. One, two, three, four. Now let it out. Four, three, two, one. Perfect.” Squeezing my old stress ball, I did as instructed, closing my eyes and letting Laura walk me through a guided breathing exercise. We’d been doing this for the past three minutes, and I was beginning to get restless. This part of our sessions usually only got me so far, but I humored her nonetheless.
“How’re you feeling?” she asked, settling back into her chair. “Any better from yesterday?”
When I texted her on Friday night asking for a session, I hadn’t understood the depth of my despair. I’d made it through the majority of the week unscathed, but when I woke up on Wednesday, I couldn’t get out of bed. My body refused to cooperate. At first, I thought I was getting sick, but when I checked the date, I realized what it was.
My wedding anniversary.
I wasn’t sure how my body subconsciously knew what my mind hadn’t caught onto yet. It was the first one since our divorce had been finalized. While I hadn’t planned a celebration, I didn’t think it was going to completely knock me on my ass either. I’d spent themajority of the day in bed, squeezing my stress ball, crying, and eating my weight in the cookies my mom had baked just for me. She and Dad both tried to get me to come out, but I refused.
That was when they sent in the cavalry, which came in the form of both my sisters and takeout from my favorite Chinese restaurant in town. We spent the night watching early 2000s rom-coms and taking turns falling off my full-size bed.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Yesterday was hard. It was, well, it was tough.”
“Do you think it has to do with the kiss you shared with Grady? Or is it mourning what you thought you had with Thomas?” Laura asked, tilting her head to the side. “Or perhaps both?”
I sucked in a breath. “I don’t think I ever mourned anything with Thomas, except for the loss of myself and the years I wasted. I guess at one point I thought we had something special, or else I wouldn’t have married him, but I don’t even know if that’s the truth.”
“What do you think the truth is?”
“Aren’t you supposed to tell me?” I muttered.
She smiled patiently. “No, my job is to help you work through this yourself. The fact of the matter is the truth is relative. It depends on who you ask. Even then, it can have variations depending on your feelings on the matter. So, tell me what you’re thinking about it.”
That was a loaded question. I wasn’t even sure I knew what I thought. Most of that time in my life was such a blur, like I was looking out of a car window at the passing scenery that was my past. The only parts in focus were the ones with Grady.
“I think I was lonely. I saw my life passing me by so quickly, and none of it was turning out like I thought it would, so I felt the need to catch up. And when Thomas showed up, I don’t know, he didn’t leave. He stayed. He was persistent. And afterGrady let me walk away so easily, I guess I wanted the opposite? Not that I blame him, honestly. I told him to go, and he listened, but—” I paused, swallowing down what was left of my pride. “It still hurts. And even more so when I realized he was engaged. I think I wanted to hurt him back, but it ended up hurting me more. I’ve always been guarded, but I’ve struggled to let anyone in—even those I love the most.”
Like Grady.
“I think that’s an important realization, Cleo. And I think it must be complicated to mourn a failed marriage, even if it wasn’t the one you always dreamed of. Especially if you’re also mourning a failed relationship. And that kind of grief can make us do things that are out of our normal characterization, which for you, would be marrying Thomas,” Laura said. Her fingers tapped against the notebook in her lap.
“So, then why am I sad if I can realize how horrible the relationship was? Thomas made me question everything, and I’ve been fighting to get back to the girl I used to be. I don’t want to feel like this. I don’t want to mourn, or whatever. I don’t want to be scared of the future.”
“You once told me you were scared of being so broken you couldn’t be fixed. Is that still how you feel?”
Honestly, I was scared of a lot of things. I was afraid of becoming inconsequential, of my family not needing me anymore. I didn’t have anything of my own to occupy my time without them. Maybe that was the saddest part of it all. My life existed to please others, never myself.
But there was one thing, one person, who scared me more than anything.
Grady had the power to hurt me more than anyone else ever could. If he walked through the door right now and told me whatever this was becoming was over, I would crumble. I didn’t know if I could watch him walk away again. He’d alreadyworked his way under my skin in less than two weeks, which seemed crazy. Absolutely wild.
Except it wasn’t just him. Charlie was there right beside him, making me fall for her in all her wild, innocent glory. She loved so thoroughly without fear of falling, without fear of getting hurt, or rejected. I never thought a six-year-old would be able to teach me much about life, but she already had. She’d already made me question my current life choices and the ones I wanted to make for my future.
For what seemed like the first time during our session, I met Laura’s gaze and she smiled. I wasn’t sure what she saw in the woman staring at her, but I felt a strange kind of peace settling in my chest.
“What’re you scared of, Cleo?”
“Myself,” I whispered, meeting her gaze. “I’m scared of letting my fear rule my decisions. Of listening to all the awful things my mind tells me—that I’m not worthy of love, that everything is my fault, that I don’t deserve good things. It’s miserable living like this, but I feel trapped in my own mind. And while I used to be afraid of these things themselves—maybe part of me still is, if I’m honest—I think I’m more afraid of letting them rule me. I’m afraid of missing out on my chance for happiness.”
Laura leaned forward. “Well, they don’t call it ‘growing pains’ for nothing. Sometimes it hurts to grow, but it might hurt a lot more if you never give yourself the chance.”
It’d beenages since I’d climbed out of my bedroom window. Still, here I was doing it anyway, so I could avoid the barrage of questions I’d face if I stepped into the hallway and ran into one of my parents. Mom had been hovering outsideever since I refused to come out for lunch. The sound of her pacing back and forth, likely debating whether to barge through the door or let me be, had driven me to the brink of insanity.
