Page 26 of Into Pitch

The word makes my head rear back a bit. “Good?”

“Yes,” he murmurs. “Not because it feels good, but because it’s clear. We have something concrete to work with.”

We do?

Part of me wants to argue that none of this is new, that I already know all of this, that talking about it won’t change what has happened.

“Here’s what I’m hearing: your relationship with your mother taught you that you are not chosen, and that needing is dangerous. You adapted by becoming self-sufficient and by leaving first. That kept you safe, but it also kept you alone."

“I’m not alone,” I argue.

“You have people,” he agrees. “Imogen and community. A routine even, but emotional closeness is different.”

I look away, deciding that the muted rug is exactly the right place to glare for now on.

He doesn’t push harder though. He doesn’t pry into the boyfriends. He stays where we are, right on the edge of the wound that shaped everything without ripping deeper than I can handle today.

“I want to give you homework.”

I grimace. “Of course you do.”

A faint shift crosses his expression—not a smile exactly, but something amused. “It’s not punishment, Sadie.”

“Feels like it.”

“It’s work and it’s meant to be difficult.” He snorts.

I sigh, already bracing for whatever bullshit he’s bound to spew.

He starts, “This week, I want you to write two letters. You won’t send either of them.”

“Okay?”

“One letter is to your mother and you will write it as if she will read it. Tell her what she did and didn’t do. Tell her what it cost you.”

That sounds like buckets of fun, said no one ever.

“The second letter,” he adds, “is to the version of you that was left behind. Seventeen or younger, if that’s what comes up. You will write to her as if you are the person she needed.”

That’s cruel, in a precise way.

“That’s a lot,” I manage.

“Yes, and you will bring them next week. You can read them aloud, or you can hand them to me. You decide.”

My fingers tap where they now rest against my thigh, my thoughts all over the place. What could I possibly say that would fit onto paper. How could I possibly say it? How does this help outside of dragging up old memories and feelings?

“Why?” I decide to challenge.

“Because you can’t heal a wound you refuse to look at and because the belief that you weren’t worth choosing needs to be challenged—not with reassurance, but with evidence. Your words will be that evidence.”

I sink back into the couch, suddenly exhausted. A part of me wants to laugh and a whole other part wants to cry. Although, a very large part wants to bite at him for even suggesting it.

And then a small—stubborn and buried—part wants to do the homework.

“Fine,” I mutter.

He nods once, satisfied without making a show of it. “Good. Now we know what we’re working with.”