“What? Not gonna try and stop me?”
“No.”
I gawked at her. “Some therapist you are.”
She chuckled with amusement. “I’m not going to try and stop you because it seems you’ve made up your mind. So, tell me, if Bradley moves you, you’ll hurt yourself?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t have a plan?”
“Jesus Christ. You want me to make one with you?”
She laughed again and shook her head at me. She always reminded me of what I imagined having an aunt would be like. The person you went to when you didn’t want to share things with your own mother but knew you needed someone wiser and older to guide you. Maternal, but removed just enough that it removed some of the shame of sharing your darkest secrets. But right now, with her amused expression, I was beginning to think that she didn’t care at all, or that she didn’t actually believe me when I told her I was going to end my life. Why the fuck did she find it so funny that I was contemplating suicide?
“No, I’d rather you lived.But,if you’ve got a plan, I can at least share it with Bradley so he can keep any weapons away from you.”
I rolled my eyes. Bullet to the head sounded real poetic. Go down just like Los Siete would have taken me. The handgun in my apartment was really fucking tempting.
Sarah sighed, folding her hands in her lap. “Emory, you’ve been seeing me now off and on for over two years. And in thosetwo years, you’ve not ever made plans for your future. You refuse to speak about nearlyanythingfrom your past—”
“Because I legallycan’t, Sarah! Because my contract with WITSEC says I cannot speak to anyone, evenyou, about anything to do with my case.”
“Yes, that’s true.But, your childhood…your relationship with Enoch, those aren’t off limits. You’ve put those limitations on our sessions. We’ve only focused on talking through your feelings about the present. Settling in, your job, your relationship with your friends.”
“So? What’s your point here?”
“My point, Emory, is that I don’t think seeing Enoch is really the catalyst for these thoughts of suicide. I think you’ve been having them for a long time now. No, I know you have, as you’ve already stated, your time is up, and you say you have only a little life left to live. So, I take that to mean you’ve been thinking about this, about ending your life, about committing suicide, for a while now. You’ve delayed it for whatever reason, and I think that the real catalyst here, is feeling like you don’t have control over your life, over your future. You do, though.”
I blinked with shock.The fuck?
“What do you mean?” I asked slowly, eyes squinted as I waited for her to explain.
“I mean, you’ve got three choices here. One, you kill yourself. Two, you move to a new location. Or three, you voluntarily leave the program and stay here.”
I scoffed. “Leave the program? And what? Just stay here like a fucking sitting duck waiting for the past to catch up to me? No fucking thank you.”
“Look, Emory, I’m not the US Marshals Service. But I have been working with them to treat other individuals in witness protection for nearly ten years now. All I know is that you do have the choice to leave. I’m not saying that you should. Just likeI’m not saying that you should kill yourself. I just want you to realize that you do have a little bit of control here. More than just whether you are alive or dead.”
I stared at her in shock before the anger flooded my system.
“Why would say that? Why are trying to give me some false fucking hope about a future that will never fucking be reality? Fuck you, Sarah.”
“I’m not trying to give you a false sense of hope, Emory. I’m telling you that you should be looking at the facts. Maybe you should talk to Bradley about your case. Look at the details, look at the risks, so you have a clearer picture of what choice you should make here. You’re…” she sighed, fixing her eyes on the coffee table between us for a moment. “You’re not thriving, Emory. And it’s clear that being in this program is a detriment to your mental health. I think it's time that you discussed with Bradley the reasons why you joined the program in the first place and assess the risks of you leaving it. I want you to see all the cards on the table before you decide to take your own life.”
I scoffed and closed my eyes. Trying to gain a grip on reality.
“You tell all your WITSEC patients they should leave the program? What thefuck, Sarah?” I shook my head. “Why the fuck would you even think that me leaving was a viable fucking option here? I thought you weren’t privy to any details regarding my case. What exactly do you know?”
“I know that you joined after making a deal with the FBI to inform on a criminal organization. That the trial ended before it began, so you didn’t have to testify but you were already in the program and the proceeded with relocating you.”
“So what? They shouldn’t have moved me because I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain? I didn’t testify so I shouldn’t have been in the program? Was I just stupid or something and let them relocate me for fucking fun?”
“No,” she said, dipping her chin as she leveled her gaze on me. “I don’t think you’re stupid. I won’t pretend to believe that the FBI doesn’t manipulate victims into becoming informants. Which I feel like very well could have been the case here, Emory. And even if it wasn’t you have been and always will have the option to voluntarily leave the program at any point in time. It isyourchoice, Emory.”
“Victim? You thinkI’ma victim here? I thought you were the fucking expert here on Witness Protection? If you were, you’d know that most people in the program are criminals, Sarah.”
“That may be true. But most of my patients in the program aren’t nineteen-year-old women who signed a contract to the government atseventeenyears old,” she said.
