Page 66 of Scar Tissue

“How do they treat you?” she asks as she scribbles something down.

I pause, because I don’t know how to say it without sounding ungrateful. Or worse—selfish. “Normal,” I finally say.

She doesn’t respond right away, and I hate how much I need her to right now.

“Normal feels wrong?” she asks.

My laugh is soft, once again with no humor in it. “Normal feels like pretending. I hear them talk about Dylan and Claire; about how strong they are. How brave. How they’re healing…and no one says that about me.”

“What would it mean if they did?”

I shake my head immediately. “It’s not about that.”

“It sounds like it might be,” she pushes back.

I look down at my hands, watching my thumb drag over the edge of my nail. “If they said that about me, it would mean they knew that I didn’t walk away from it the same way I walked in. They look at me and think I’m fine because I can sit here and talk about it or because I’m not falling apart in public. But the truth is, I’m not fine.”

She stops writing and leans forward once more. “You want to know what I think, Thea? I think that you’ve learned how to survive in a way that doesn’t get recognized in the same way theirs does.”

I scoff. “That sounds like a nice way of saying it doesn’t count.”

“It counts, it’s just quieter.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “Quiet doesn’t get help. And I keep thinking about Dylan and Claire and everyone else who went through it and how…” I drift off for a moment before continuing. “I don’t understand what they went through. Not really. I’ll never understand, and I feel guilty for even trying to compare it to mine.”

Her eyebrow quirks up and I know she’s encouraging me to continue without asking. “Their pain is so much bigger. And mine doesn’t feel like it measures up. I survived, sure,

I went through some awful things all the same, and I know I should feel grateful for the fact it wasn’t worse. But all I feel is guilty because I’ll never know the nightmares they live with or the ways it’s changed them inside.”

She smiles and I find it to be an odd but somewhat calming response, like maybe she actually doesn’t have a script she’s following as we talk through the mess that is my life. “Thea, you’re not them. You don’t have to be. And nobody is expecting you to be besides you. You only have to be you.”

I return her smile, but it isn’t for the reason she thinks it is. “I know. But it doesn’t stop me from feeling like a fraud for even trying to heal or talk about it or even exist as someone who survived and isn’t broken in the same way.”

“Healing doesn’t need to be the same for everyone. Yours is valid, Thea. Even if it looks different.”

“How did it go?”Nathan asks me as he opens the passenger side door for when he picks me up from my appointment.

I wait for him to get in the driver’s seat before I respond. “It wentfine,” I say. Not a lie, I’m just already exhausted from having to talk about myself, but I already know what his next question will be.

“Want to talk about it?”

“I really don’t,” I say abruptly. “But I appreciate you asking,” I add on to lessen the blow.

Our relationship has improved a lot over the last couple of weeks, especially after watching the man who killed Miles get arrested and publicly blasted for all of his crimes. I still don’t know how it was pulled off, but the news specifically focused on the accident and as painful as that was to watch, it brought us a level of closure we’d been waiting for. It was cathartic to see justice come out on top and when I finally built up the courage to call my family and explain everything, it was like the missing piece of our heart returned. Like Miles was there letting us know that we could finally breathe, finally move on, and actually start to heal.

He nods, his hand grabbing my thigh as he runs his thumb up and down my skin. “Yeah, I can imagine. It’s a lot to process.” I know that isn’t what he wanted to say, but I’m glad he let it go.

“How was work?” I change the subject, but I’m actually excited to hear about it instead of just deflecting. He had initially opened his own practice not long after he and Fletcher rescued Dylan. But now he’s made further changes in the way it operates, converting it to a family based one. While there are still some details in its preliminary stages, seeing as he needed a larger space and more employees, I’ve noticed that the weight on his shoulders is lighter.

“It’s good. We just got the approval to start building, and we already have over a dozen applications.”

“That’s amazing, Nathan. A dozen applications already? People really want to work with you.” I smile at him, feeling the tensions of the appointment slowly start to lift.

He nods, a small, proud smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah, apparently a lot of people heard about the work I did before and I guess it’s giving our practice a reputation before we even open.”

I squeeze his hand where it rests on my thigh. “That’s incredible. You’re going to have your pick of candidates, and it’s well deserved.”

He leans back in his seat as he accelerates. “I didn’t expect it. It’s humbling, actually. Knowing that people care about the kind of work we want to do. What we’re specializing in. Makes me feel like this is the right path.”