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Emma opened her eyes and gasped.
Her therapist handed her a box of tissues. “How do you feel now?”
“Emotional. Sad. But also relieved.”
“Whenever you hear that inner voice trying to cast blame on you for your mother’s choices, I want you to do the same exercise. Remind yourself of how vulnerable you were as a child in that difficult situation.”
“Okay.”
“How have the urges to self-harm been?” Dr. Ruby was always straightforward but kind in her approach.
“It’s . . . less. The medication I’ve been taking is helping me have more good days than bad.”
She nodded and scribbled something on a pad of paper in front of her. “How are you sleeping?”
“Better.”
“Do you feel rested when you wake up?” Dr. Ruby’s attention focused back on Emma.
“Yes . . . but how long will this take? To feel whole?” Emma asked.
Her mental health was the priority, but her band couldn’t wait too long before they’d have to make some decisions. The label company would only hold off forever. The new manager had negotiated an extra thirty days off for Emma’s rehab. But she wasn’t feeling halfway there yet.
Dr. Ruby set her paper and pen on the coffee table between them and leaned forward. “Healing is not linear. You can have everything going right in your life, be surrounded by people who love and care about you, and yet still have the urge to harm yourself.”
Emma’s stomach sank. “Don’t I just need to learn to love myself? Isn’t that the key?”
Her therapist offered her a sympathetic smile. “Loving yourself is vital to your healing and to living a happy and enriched life, but unfortunately it isn’t a cure-all. Love doesn’t heal all wounds completely. You will always have scars from your childhood trauma. You may feel broken at times. But there is beauty that comes from pain. Your scars tell a story. And you have an audience.”
“Will it always hurt this bad?” Emma asked.
“No. And yes. You may go years with everything being better. You may even come to a point where you feel almost completely healed. But some event in your life may trigger things for you, or your depression may spike, and you’ll go through a difficult period. You will have to learn how to live with and manage your depression. You will have to use the outlets we discussed when the urge to cut happens: distracting yourself, using other sensations, talking to your accountability partner or a therapist.” Dr. Ruby sat back to take a sip of water before she continued. “You have to grieve your losses. The loss of your childhood. Your mother. Your biological father. And the man you view as your father . . . this will take conscious effort from you. A choice you make every day to not stuff down feelings that are uncomfortable for you. That will drastically reduce your urge to harm yourself.”
Emma took a deep breath, crossing her arms in front of her as she digested this. She was disappointed that she would never be “normal” and intimidated by the work ahead of her. But Dr. Ruby was right; if she committed to this healing, she had a whole audience of young men and women who could hear her story. What if she could save just one person from ending up devastated on the bathroom floor, bleeding to death all alone?
No matter what it took or how long, she’d get through this. She had to because she had people counting on her.
The image of her inner child flashed to the forefront of her mind. I’m doing this for me. I may not have had the power to save my mother, but I can save myself.
41
Link
Another month later.
Link wiped the sweat from his brow as he closed the hood of the Chevelle. It had needed a tune-up, and his hands had itched for something to keep them busy. He’d already been to the gym and had dinner. But sitting alone in his house watching mindless television wasn’t enough to keep his mind from worrying over Emma.
He’d had no contact with her since she’d left the hospital and he and her bandmates had driven her to the airport. She was somewhere in California at a rehab center that looked more like a spa from the pamphlet he’d glanced at and then the website he’d scoured for hours.
Would she come back after all this was done? Even if she did, how would they work things out? She was going to be on tour for seven months out of the year, and she’d told him she wouldn’t let him give up the shop.
The rumble of a motorcycle got closer. His stomach flipped. Every single time he heard that sound he got his hopes up that it was Emma, but it never was.
He wiped his hands on one of the rags as he leaned against the steel table in his garage. Sure enough, the motorcycle passed by. He couldn’t even bother to look. He picked up the bottle of beer, gulped it down and wiped his mouth before washing the rest of the oil from his hands in the sink. He crossed his arms over his chest, staring at the front bumper of the Chevelle. Memories of working on this very car after it had been towed into his father’s garage, half-rusted and in need of a total restoration, blinked through his mind like an old television reel. He’d learned so much from the vehicle. And it held so many precious memories in it.
“Thinking hard over there.”
Link’s gaze whipped up. Mason walked into the garage.
