“That’s all I ask for, Dillon. We’ll start off easy, okay? Why did you lash out at Charlie like you did?”
I wince, hiding it behind a light scoff. “Your easy and my easy are not the same.”
Sandra’s expression doesn’t change as she watches me, waiting me out. “We’re on your time, Dillon,” she reminds me quietly.
I suck in a breath, filling my lungs to capacity and then slowly letting it out. “I wanted…I wanted her to feel small, I suppose. As small as I felt. She showed up with Barrett behind her, and that was the first strike of the match. And then when she told me she’d overheard everything the others said, and asked me about Marisa…” I close my eyes, the scene playing out like a silent movie behind my lids. “I could see her slipping through my fingers like water. I closed my fist, but she just kept sliding through.” I open them again. “I know Charlie, and I knew she was going to leave. She had shut down on me, and I don’t blame her for that…Not after— The hurt was already there, burning through me, and I just…”
“Lashed out,” Sandra finishes when I trail off. I look away, the silence between us stretching out, long and uncomfortable. I know what she’s doing—letting mesitwith everything I just said—but I wish she’d just say whatever comes next because waiting for her to strip away each layer as slowly as possible feels like torture.
“‘Feeling small’,” she echoes my words after another minute. “You’ve used those words before in a previous session.” She taps her notebook, lifting her brows. “Do you remember that?”
“Yes.”
When I don’t expand on it, she reminds me quietly, “You mentioned it when talking about growing up.”
I hesitate. “I thought we were talking about Charlie?”
Sandra tilts her head, eyes locked on mine. “We are, but everything connects. Don’t you think?”
I let out a gusty sigh, dropping my attention to my hands, twisting them in my lap. “I guess.”
“So, give me a little more about that.” A pause. “About your parents.”
I let out a mumbled curse, shifting uncomfortably. “I didn’t have a bad childhood. My parents loved…loveeach other. There wasn’t any abuse or neglect or anything.” I stop, trying to organize my thoughts. “It feels like, by talkingabout this, I’m taking away some of the responsibility for what I did.”
“You’re not, Dillon. Talking about this doesn’t excuse what you did, and it doesn’t diminish it. It just gives you a starting point for fixing it.” Her eyes gleam with amusement at the look I shoot her.
I’m still dubious, even if it makes a strange kind of sense. “Okay.” I clear my throat, shifting around again, crossing my ankles. Uncrossing them. “When I was eight, I went to a friend’s house for dinner, and the memory of it has always stuck with me. They were… They just?—”
“Take your time, Dillon.”
A minute passes.
Another.
My hands tremble in my lap, my mind thrown back into the past and locking in on a moment I hadn’t thought about for years. Why would I? It was such a small thing, tiny, and it hadn’t mattered. Not really. Not to my childish mind, which had understood that some things were just normal, even if they didn’t look the same in other houses.
“They were happy,” I whisper. “They had this large kitchen table, and everyone sat around it, talking. Laughing. They asked about each other’s days, and the dad…He pulled out his wife’s chair. When she finished her drink, he noticed and topped it up.” I furrow my brow, thinking back. “At one point, he just…reached out and took her hand. He wasn’t?—”
“He wasn’twhat?” It’s a gentle prompt to continue, quiet and serene, asking without pulling me from the memory. She’s good at that, pulling the words from me without really trying.
“He wasn’t looking at her,” I murmur. “It wasn’t something he thought about. He just reached out and took herhand because he wanted to touch her. Because hecould.” I blink, bringing myself back to the therapist’s office.
“And that wasn’t ‘normal’ for you?” Sandra asks. “What did dinner look like in your home?”
I press the palm of my hand to my sternum, rubbing the ache that’s lingering there at the thought of mynormal. “My dad cuts people with his words faster than he can cut his steak.” A humorless noise escapes me, but Sandra doesn’t react. “Not people, though. Not really. Just my mom. He didn’t have to raise his voice half the time, just ripping her apart for over-seasoning the meat. Or the way she dressed that day. Or for something his friends said.”
“What would your mother do in response?”
“She would smile,” I say softly. “And she would laugh. Mom acted like nothing was wrong, as if he wasn’t leveling her with every word, every breath. She was good at pretending.”
“What were you doing?” Sandra asks.
I don’t answer straight away, really thinking about the question, looking back into memories I don’t like to dwell on. “I tried to smooth things over at first. I would tell Mom how much I liked what she cooked or that her hair was real pretty that day. He…Dad didn’t like that.”
“What didn’t he like?” she prods softly.
“Uh, well…There was one dinner that sticks out, only because Mom was trying to make it special. I don’t remember why, but she spent all afternoon in the kitchen. I asked her to come play with me at one point, and she…” My eyes fly around the room, not really seeing anything except that old kitchen and my mom’s face, tired and drawn with stress. “She was a good mom. Always patient, but that day, she snapped that she just needed me to leave her be.”
