She visited the snack table then joined me on the sofa, placing the small paper plate of chips and cookies in her lap. “Thanks.”
“No problem. When did you get in?”
“Early this morning.” Her voice was soft, shy. Between nibbles on her cookie, she only spared me a glance or two. “How long have you been here?”
“Almost a year.” And yet, it seemed like a decade. “What’s your name?”
“A—I mean, Delilah. My name’s Delilah.”
I extended a hand. “Gwen.”
Grip soft, she shook it. “Is that the one your parents gave you? Or the one you gave yourself?”
“The latter.”
Another smile, this one more genuine than the last. “How long did it take you to get used to using it?”
“A couple weeks. Sometimes I still have the reflex to say my old one, but I was answering to Gwen in the first few days.” Settling back in on the sofa, I stifled a yawn. “It’s all surreal at first.Leavingis surreal at first. This place makes it a lot weirder. A lot better, too.”
A humorless laugh escaped her. “Better than where I was yesterday.”
Behind Delilah, the metal door to the room clicked open again. This time, a familiar face walked through.
Rhiannon was in her usual: a pair of barn-stained blue jeans and a Carhart hoodie. Tightly braided black curls hung to the center of her back, ending in a rainbow of brightly colored beads, covered with a beige beanie. She wore a bit of makeup, as she always did. Just a pop of pink on her thick lips and a speckle of golden eyeshadow at her inner corner. The only thing out of the ordinary were her white thick-rimmed glasses.
She glanced around the room, her warm brown eyes settling on Delilah. When Rhiannon saw Delilah with me, she smiled. Grabbing a couple of cookies from the table, she said, “Alright, ladies, we’re gonna get started.”
The room quieted, only dull pop music playing softly from a speaker in the corner.
“Digging the glasses, lady,” one of the women in the back said.
Rhiannon cozied into one of the sofas across from me, propped her legs up on the chaise, and covered her mouth between chews on her cookie. “I ran out of contacts, and it’sgonna take a couple weeks for new ones to come in. Gotta deal with these damn things sliding off twenty-four-seven ‘til then.”
“They are cute though,” I said.
“They’re a damn nuisance,” she said. “Anyway. Everybody, this is Delilah.” She waved at her. “Just got in this morning. We all know how rough it can be the first few days, so try and help her feel at home.”
With bright red cheeks, Delilah waved awkwardly around the room.
“It’s been a while since we had a newcomer on a Wednesday,” Rhiannon said, “so I thought we’d start out today’s session with something I haven’t done in a while. I want to talk about our last straws. The ones that broke the camel’s back. We all have something, big or small, that was our, ‘I’m done,’ moment. I think talking about them might make Delilah feel a little bit more secure in her decision to leave. So. Anyone want to share?”
Not me. Hearing other people talk about what happened to them, the demons they battled every day since, was more therapeutic than talking about my own.
“I will.” A girl on the other end of the room raised her hand. When all eyes were on her, she pulled a throw blanket from the back of her sofa and snuggled it around her body. “I’m Eve, by the way. I’ve only been here a few months, so I’m still adjusting, too, Delilah. If you ever want to talk, I’m around.”
Delilah muttered a thanks.
“My last straw probably seems small,” Eve said, glancing around the room. “Me and my fiancé were remodeling our basement. We got into a fight one morning. I can’t even remember what it was about.” Snorting, she shook her head. “I was six months pregnant, and he shoved me.
“He went to work after that. I was upset, so I figured I would go paint some trim down there. Ease my mind, you know?” She twiddled with a fraying string on the fleece blanket over her lap.“Anyway, I started working on it and I dropped my paintbrush. We hadn’t put in the floors yet, so it wasn’t a huge deal, but I bent down to pick it up, and I saw this hole in the wall.”
The door in the far left of the room clicked open again. This time, Simone walked through.
It wasn’t her late arrival that had me squinting, though. It was everything else.
Wearing a pair of yoga pants and a black hoodie, she mouthed, “Sorry,” as she tiptoed across the room to join me on the sofa. Her long dark hair was tossed up in a messy bun. Not an ounce of makeup rested on her cheeks, nor her eyes. Which wasn’t uncommon among the girls here. I wasn’t wearing any either. But it was uncommon for Simone.
“The memory hit me like a bomb.” Eve’s voice grew somber. “I was looking at that hole in the wall, and I remembered when he put it there. I don’t remember what that fight was about either, but I remember him kicking that hole in the wall. He tried to punch one first, but he hit a stud and broke his hand, so he started kicking it, over and over and over again.”
