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“So what was the drinking about?” Helga’s smooth voice unfurls through the cool, clean air inside her office.
I shrug. “I don’t know.” I’m looking at my feet, not even bothering to front. Because I’m lazy, I guess. “Self-pity. Or bitterness.”
“Because?”
I snort, and look up at her.
“Not going to answer?”
I inhale and exhale, not too quietly.
“You know what?”
Her lips purse.
“I’ve come in here a thousand times, and I try every time to have a good attitude. To be honest. To be grateful. To be okay with where I am, and how I am. Because that’s the ‘right thing’ to do. Because I want to make progress, to be better than I am, for…some purpose. Just so I can say I did my best, or something. I don’t know. But let me say this now. Nobody knows what it’s like to be in my shoes. To look this different from other people, to have things like this—” I point to my mouth— “that stand out. I was told, as you know, that I might not be able to have children because of the ovary I lost.” A stark chill grips me underneath my throat as I think about Barrett, where my mind can never help but go.
“I’ve got a lot to deal with,” I hear myself tell Helga. “It’s…a lot.” I fold my hands together, looking at them, and not at her face. “I found out my fucking boyfriend is the one who hit me that night. That he lied. He was with me out of guilt, no doubt. So that’s what the drinking is about. If I’m going to be alone forever, why not be alone and drunk?” I throw my hands up. “Why not?”
Helga’s eyes are kind and warm, almost omniscient. I stand up.
“I’ll see you Thursday.”
I have fifteen minutes left, but I don’t care. I’ve never left her office early. Now can be the first time.
Jamie stands up in the waiting room when I come out.
“You’re—”
“Early. Yes. That’s not your problem, is it?”
Her eyes widen.
“Take me home, please. I don’t feel like St. Jude right now.”
Jamie does as I ask, and she’s even nice about it. I’m still in a rotten mood when she leaves half an hour later.
“You’ll be good? No—”
“No drinking. It was like, a week. I drank as much in a week or two than you did the first three days of spring break in Cabo ou
r senior year. Lay off.”
Again, the wide eyes. I roll mine.
“Sorry. Just leave me to my own foul mood.”
When the door shuts, I sob.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Gwenna
February 14, 2016
Valentine’s Day.
It’s when I know for certain he will never contact me again.
