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“I don’t know,” I laugh. “I guess I didn’t expect to talk here.”

“Ah, yeah. I figured we could make this a bit more casual than what you’re used to,” he says. I know what he’s doing, actually, and it’s smart. He’s dramatically changing my environment so he can try to trigger me to see how I handle it. The last thing he or anyone needs is for me to act on the violent thoughts I get when I am overwhelmed. Now I am able to turn those thoughts into something a bit more productive by exercising when I can. If I can’t, and it’s overwhelming enough, I write all of those thoughts out.

“Interesting,” I say.

“I have to remember that you are very well educated in psychology,” he says with a kind smile. “Let’s talk about Gabriel.”

“Alright,” I sigh. “What about him?”

“If you could go back and change anything from that day, what would you have done differently?”

“I would have told Ricky the truth about Gabriel when I spoke to him after finding Alex,” I say.

“No,” he says. “In that moment. Not before.”

“Oh jeez…” I say. “I don’t know. I wish I had been more self-aware of how far I’d fallen, and maybe I wouldn’t have killed him.”

“Do you really?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“No. That’s a lie. I would have hit him a little harder,” I say. “That was a joke, by the way.”

“Dark humor can be healing,” he says. “Honestly. What would you have done differently?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Wanting to go back and change it all doesn’t serve reality for me. It’s how I get stuck and spiral back into the same feelings of blaming myself for Gabriel’s actions. Truth be told, it’s probably my father’s fault for fucking his daughter into psychosis.”

“I can’t argue there,” he chuckles. “What is your plan when you leave?”

“Short term?” I ask.

“We can start there.”

“I want to visit their graves,” I say. “Ricky and Sadie said their parents had them buried next to each other.”

“Are you ready for that?” he asks. I shake my head, and tears roll down my cheeks. “You have a voice, Nora. Use it. You’ve fought hard to be heard.”

“I’m scared I’ll fall apart again,” I admit tearfully.

“You will,” he says. “It will be the hardest thing you’ve ever done, next to walking into this facility. It will fucking hurt, Nora, but you know what?”

“What?”

“You’ll survive it,” he says. “You have more tools to use now than you did before.”

“Would it be weird to ask you to come with me there?” I ask.

“Because you are afraid you’ll drown again?” he asks.

“Yes,” I admit. “I haven’t cut since Liam helped glue my arm back together. I’m so fucking afraid I’ll go back there.”

“I’ll go with you, but I need you to understand that you have to be able to trust yourself to be alone,” he says. “That’s not to say you can’t call, because I will always be one call away. Intensive outpatient care means if you call, I’m there. I don’t care if it’s two in the morning and you are lonely. If you need support, that’s what I am for. My job is to help you function in reality, so you are allowed to slip and fall sometimes, Nora. I fully expect you to self-harm again, but it’s what you do after that matters the most to me.”

“I don’t want to,” I say.

“And you never did, but you have self-destructive tendencies, even now. You are already setting yourself up for a panic attack at that graveyard, and that’s okay. As long as you take every moment as a way to improve the next, you are making progress.”

“I guess I’m afraid that if I do slip, I’ll end up back here,” I say.

“The only way you end up back here is if you stop making progress and start to go backwards,” he tells me. “Or if you beat someone to death again.”