“No. Not right after,” I answered. I relived the entire night, telling her every detail: my unanswered texts and calls, Kia driving me to the hobbit house, and the devastation I felt when we went inside and saw all of his stuff was missing. “He was just…gone. That’s when I had the panic attack.”
Just thinking about it made my palms begin to sweat and my stomach churn. I told her about Kia calling Dallas and Katie and how they found him in his apartment in Kentucky.
“Discovering Luca’s place was empty must have been painful for you, given what happened with your brother.” Dr. Zott’s tone was gentle and compassionate.
“It was like finding out Brennan was gone all over again,” I admitted, my eyes filling with tears. “And it was all my fault.”
“You didn’t make Luca leave,” she said. “That was his choice.”
“But I could have stopped him.” I didn’t know whether I was talking about Luca or Brennan anymore, but it didn’t really matter. It was true for them both.
“I know it’s easier to think that than to accept there’s nothing you could have done, but I need you to understand that you’re not responsible for Luca’s actions,” she said. “And the same is true for your brother.”
“But if I’d just been there,” I managed with a sniffle. “Maybe I could have changed things.”
Dr. Zott clicked her laptop shut and set it aside, leaning forward.
“What do you think might have changed?” she asked.
“I don’t know—maybe they wouldn’t have left me,” I choked out, a sob ripping through me. “Maybe I could have been enough to make them want to stay.”
Her face softened. “Their choices had nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. There’s no amount ofenoughnessthat would have changed that.”
“How can you know that?” I cried, hours…days…yearsworth of pent-up anguish pouring out of me. “If I’d done more, if I’d loved them better, maybe I could have eased their pain.”
“This is a hard truth, but it’s one you need to hear,” she said, her voice kind but firm. “Love is something—a very important something. But it’s not everything, and contrary to what every platitude would have you believe, we need more than that—a lot more—to survive.”
I wiped my face with the sleeve of my sweater.
“McKenzie, the shame you’re feeling is just control with nowhere to go,” she continued. “As humans, we want to believe we have the ability to turn the tides. It’s easier to blame ourselves than it is to believe we are but a small ripple in the ocean, and it’s going to keep moving with or without us.”
“But how am I supposed to accept that?” I asked. “That there’s nothing I can do.”
“Whether you accept it or not doesn’t change that it’s true,” she answered. “So, you’re left with two choices. You can keep swimming against the current, knowing you’ll exhaust yourself and the waves will pull you under, or you can let go.”
I reached for a tissue from the glass coffee table and blew my nose. “Those are terrible choices.”
“The first one is,” she agreed. “But I think there’s a certain amount of comfort in letting go of what we can’t change.”
“Comfort?” I echoed. “How is that comforting in any way?”
“Because when we finally acknowledge the things we can’t control, we can release some of the burdens we carry. We can lighten our load and set our focus on the one thing wedohave control over: ourselves.”
Her words crashed over me as I blew out a breath and tried to imagine what it would feel like to let go of the blame and expectations I’d set on myself. One word came to mind.Free.
She went on. “That kind of change doesn’t occur all at once, but with time, I think we can get you there.”
“Do you think I’ll continue having panic attacks?” My voice came out in a rasp that was barely above a whisper.
She twisted her lips to the corner of her mouth. “It’s possible, but I think we can lessen the chances if we get a handle on what’s triggering them.”
“We have to,” I said. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”
She nodded. “All right. If you’re up for it, I’d like to start with biweekly sessions where we focus on mindfulness and shifting your perspective around the events of your past. In doing that, we’ll also effectively help you change your narrative for the future. All I ask is that you stick with me. If something doesn’t work, that’s okay. There are a lot of things we can try, but we just need to take it one step at a time.”
I sighed. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it was better than the alternative. I didn’t want to live my life being slowly consumed by shame. I’d been holding onto the guilt I felt over my brother’s death, because in a strange way, it was all I had left of him. However, there was no amount of remorse, no sum of love that would ever bring him back, no matter how much I wanted it to.
The same was true of Luca. I didn’t know what lie ahead for us or if there evenwasan us anymore. But I did know that I deserved to find healing. To be the best version of myself for him, my mom, my friends, and anyone else who might come along. Above all else, I deserved it for me.
