“So,” Lucy said gently, leaning toward me just a little. “Blair, as happy as I am to see you, your monthly appointment wasn’t scheduled for another two weeks. Is something on your mind?”
I took a breath, carefully choosing the words that would make the smallest ripples in otherwise calm water. “I called earlier. I tried to cancel my future sessions, but Paula said I needed to talk to you first.”
A small scowl formed on my lips at the receptionist’s name. While Lucy had always felt warm and comforting, Paula was the opposite. Cold. Sharp. Still, I couldn’t quite bring myself to blame her. If my job involved answering phone calls from people who needed therapy all day long, I’d probably be short-tempered too. I blinked away my thoughts and studied Lucy’s face instead, searching for any sign of how she felt about what I’d said. I wasn’t sure why I bothered. I’d been seeing Lucy long enough to know I could tell her the most alarming thing imaginable and she’d still meet me with the same calm, reassuring expression.
“Is there any particular reason you want to cancel your future sessions, Blair?” Lucy asked. An uncomfortable sensation twisted in my stomach. I hated lying to her. But I needed to do this. For my parents. For Holden.
“Well,” I began carefully, “I was just thinking… it’s been two years since, you know, everything happened.” I hoped my words sounded convincing, though I wasn’t practiced at telling lies like this. “I don’t think I need therapy anymore.”
Lucy nodded slowly, her response gentle enough to feel like a breath. “I understand the sense that you’ve regained control,and that’s an accomplishment worth acknowledging. What if we tried reducing your sessions instead? We could meet for an hour every six weeks to start, then reassess from there.”
“Um,” I stammered, my hope sinking as I realized this wasn’t going to be simple. “No. I think we can just stop now.”
Lucy tilted her head, her gaze moving over my face, searching for what I wasn’t saying. “I’ve known you for a long time, Blair. I just want to be sure there isn’t anything going on beneath the surface.” She paused, giving me space to respond. I couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come, and lying to her had begun to feel too heavy to carry. I dropped my eyes to my shoes instead, silently wishing she would keep talking.
“How has your relationship with food been since we last met?” Lucy asked softly, using the voice she always used when she wanted me to answer honestly.
“It’s been fine,” I told her, and that part was the truth. That wasn’t the reason I wanted to stop seeing her. I wanted to stop because this was another bill my parents had to pay. Another charge on their credit card for me to sit in an office and talk about a speed bump in my life that happened years ago. There were no more speed bumps ahead of me. I am stronger now. I knew how to handle life. I knew how to handle fate. And I was doing everything I could not to set off alarm bells, because I knew if enough of them rang, my parents would hear them too. That was the risk I took when it was their card paying the bill.
“Have there been any triggering behaviours lately, Blair?” Lucy asked gently. “There’s no judgement here. Have you been having any controlling thoughts about food?” I felt a tightness in my chest. Of course she was alarmed. I’d been foolish to hope she wouldn’t be.
“It was never about a number,” I reminded her. I didn’t need to. She already knew.
“The best way to prevent the urge to restrict is by recognizing the behaviours that prompted it in the first place,” Lucy said calmly. I nodded. I knew that too.
“It’s been years,” I said, a quiet pride threading through my voice. “It’s not going to come back.”
Lucy’s expression didn’t change. “You know as well as I do that eating disorders don’t truly go away. They’re something you learn to live with. You work through why they formed, and then you remind yourself every day to fight them.”
“It was barely an eating disorder,” I said, pressing my lips together. “It was a momentary struggle for control. It doesn’t define me.” That was all it had been. Control. Something I could hold onto after the first time I found Holden overdosed. The only thing I could manage when my brain kept replaying the image of his body, unmoving and terrifyingly still.
Restricting gave me something else to focus on. Something quieter. Something I could direct. It wasn’t until I dropped an alarming amount of weight that I understood what I was doing to myself. And by then, it was already too late. I hadn’t regained control at all. I had lost it completely. But I was better now. I was.
“You’re right, it doesn’t define you,” Lucy echoed my words. Though really, they were hers. She had said them to me a thousand times before. “How is Holden?”
I wanted to roll my eyes at the fact that she knew me so well. I wouldn’t have, even if I hadn’t been worried about being rude. That was why I had been seeing Lucy for as long as I had. She knew me. She knew when I was worried, or stressed, or anxious.And she knew when I was pretending. And the fact that she knew all of those things was usually immensely comforting. Today, it just made lying to her even harder.
“He’s, well…” I shrugged. “He’s in a rehab facility in Idaho.” Lucy’s eyes narrowed, just slightly. If I hadn’t known her reactions so well, I wouldn’t have noticed it. She nodded a second later, taking a moment to scribble in the notepad that was perpetually perched on her lap.
“He relapsed,” Lucy said quietly. It wasn’t a question.
“He has,” I sighed. “But it’s going to be okay. He’s going to do the hard work, and he’s going to get better, just like he does every time. And I know how to deal with it now. I’m not struggling for control in the way that I was the first time it happened. I know myself better. I know how strong I am.”
“Blair,” Lucy removed the glasses I could have sworn were permanently attached to her and crossed her legs. “Do you think this is the best time to stop therapy completely? I know how far you’ve come, and I’m so proud of you for it. I’ve seen the strides you’ve made, and I believe you when you say that your struggles with eating were only a small part of your journey.”
I did my best to keep my face impassive. It wasn’t that I wanted to stop seeing her. I just had to. I couldn’t be selfish in this sense. I couldn’t afford this luxury while my parents struggled. I couldn’t pay for the cost of mental health care on my tips from The Pitt either. There was only one option. This was it.
“But,” Lucy continued, “you are eighteen now, and you don’t need anyone’s permission to cancel your future sessions.”
“Okay,” I said quickly. I stood almost immediately, desperate to escape the lies now coating the room. I didn’t like lying. I wasn’t a liar. I hadn’t been a liar for years now, and revisitingthat version of myself, the one who chose specific words to hide truths she didn’t want seen, made me want to escape entirely. “Thank you, Lucy.”
“Blair,” Lucy said as I reached the door. I took a breath and turned back to her. “I want you to remember something,” she said gently. “Holden’s actions are his own. His decisions are his own. While you can stand beside him and encourage him to make better ones, you cannot punish yourself when he makes the wrong ones.”
There was worry in her eyes, and I wanted to tell her she didn’t need to be worried anymore. I wasn’t that Blair anymore. I was better now. I was happier. I was peaceful. I was bright. I knew how to shine. I wasn’t those frightening shades of blue any longer.
I was…
7
