Later that afternoon, she sat across from the therapist. She’d declined a drink and instead launched right into what she needed.
“You said I needed to figure out who I was.”
“No, I said you didn’t know who you were.”
Same thing, in Farrah’s opinion. She leaned forward. “How do I figure that out?”
“What have you tried?”
“Nothing.” She’d done nothing since leaving this office weeks ago. Fury at herself roared through her with the strength of gravity. Why had she let someone else dictate to her what she should do?
“You’ve surely done something.”
“I’ve seen my parents a couple of times.”
“And how is that going?”
“Just fine.” Farrah knew her parents loved her, and they weren’t a problem anymore. She’d unpacked them, and while she should probably call them more often, she’d barely been functioning for the past month.
“Farrah.” Dr. Kenna sighed, and for the first time since Farrah had started meeting with her, she sounded frustrated. “I want to ask you a question. I want you to spend the next week discovering the answer. And then we’ll meet again.”
She’d only been in the office for five minutes, but she nodded.
“Do you like you?”
“I—” Farrah stalled completely. She’d spent so much time worrying about what everyone else thought of her, that she hadn’t stopped to ask herself why. Did it matter if she had a starring role?
It did to her father.
Did it matter that she was married when she was pregnant?
It did to her parents in Burlington.
Did she need the nicest clothes, the curled hair, all the makeup?
Yes, she thought. Because it hid who she really was. And if people saw who she really was, they wouldn’t like her.
“Just think about it,” Dr. Kenna said. “You need to like you. After that, it doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks.”
“Even you?” Farrah managed to ask.
The doctor nodded, a soft smile on her lips. “Even me.”
Farrah got up and left the office without another word. She got behind the wheel of her car and she drove. She loved the simple roads without any lines down the middle. She liked the old barns, the steeple on the brown-brick church. She liked the way the town felt old, established, cultured.
How she’d ever thought she could survive outside of Vermont was a mystery to her. She drove out to Steeple Ridge, but she didn’t turn off to go to Darren’s. He didn’t live there anymore anyway. She didn’t pull into the parking lot around the other side of the farm either. A single horse remained in the fenced pasture, and she slowed as she watched the magnificent brown and white creature graze.
She liked horses. They’d always spoken to her soul somehow. Maybe if she’d have stayed at the farm when she’d found out about her adoption, they would’ve been able to mend the broken pieces of her life.
Braking, she pulled to the side of the road. She wasn’t sure if she liked herself, but she suddenly knew what she could do to find out.
The following day,she drove through the countryside again, finding a few trees that had hung onto their leaves. Not many, but a few. She wondered why some held onto their leaves so tightly and some let go.
She desperately wanted to let go of some things. “Is it as easy as simply opening my fist and letting go?”
No one answered, and Dr. Kenna’s question plagued her again.
Do you like you?
