He’s laser-focused on me, his sight line nipping at my neck and face in a way that has tingles spreading over my skin. It’s like there’s nothing else in the room. Just me and him. Two people who were brought together because of an almost tragedy.
“Start by giving your emotions names. Every piece, everypartof you is worthy of that.”
Tears form in the corners of my eyes. I pan my head back to its original place, with my face pointed toward the ceiling tiles. Emotion clogs in my throat, in the recesses and open areas of my mind and heart.
He says those words so simply, so easily. Like they don’t possess the ability to completely disarm me. Does he say them to all his patients?
I allow my eyes to close again, my ribcage opening just a little wider as I breathe. Dr. Cole’s words are seeds planted in the burgundy soil of my heart. Pressed down with the pad of a finger and watered with the way he expresses his care and encourages me to do the same for myself.
I inhale deeply, my voice quiet in the honesty that spills from my lips. “I don’t want to have an anxiety attack.” Before my accident, I didn’t truly know what they felt like, but I do now. “Experiencing them makes me feel like I don’t have any control. Like…”
Dr. Cole finishes my sentence for me. “Like you’re back in that water.”
My eyelids flutter, and a tear escapes, sliding from the corner of my eye to my ear. I pretend like it’s not even there, notwanting to draw attention to it. A very large part of me hopes he doesn’t see it.
I’m already a broken, mangled mess when all I want to be is strong, clearheaded, and emotionally balanced.
Realizing that I’m none of the three, maybe it’s a good thing I’m here, talking about what I went through and the feelings that come up because of it.
“A person is only as strong as their weakest moment.”
“The complexity of that statement isn’t something I can decipher right now,” I admit lamely.
A short, deep chuckle comes out of him, creating a layer of goosebumps over my arms like a feather does when it lightly brushes your skin. It’s almost like it lights me up from the inside out. I bury the feeling, recognizing the aftertaste of betrayal it leaves in my mouth and all along my body.
Lance’s face formulates in my mind. Soft tufts of hair, green eyes that once spoke to me, uncalloused fingers that traced various parts of my body hundreds of times.
My stomach doesn’t dip the same way it used to when I think of him. Instead, it coils like a snake veering on the side of caution.
“Very well, Emory. Let’s start by recounting that day.”
Dread immediately grips me. “I don’t remember it all.”
“That’s okay. Pretend as if the images that come to mind are words on a page and you’re reading them out loud.”
Seconds pass and a recognizable darkness blankets me behind my eyelids, covering me in a layer of familiar tranquility. The same kind that always comes when I can feel the mistiness of the ocean on my skin and the unforgiving scent of salt in the air. It swirls around me, tickling my arms and toying with strands of my hair until my feet warm from the sunbaked sand.
“I took off my shoes and set them off to the side with my bag. I had just walked half a mile from the beach access point to the ending parameters of Coralhaven Beach where the bluffs are.”
“The parameters are there for a reason,” he states calmly. “They’re where you can find lifeguards on duty. You specifically went outside of that safety net.”
I recognize how that sounds. That it looks like I purposely went out of bounds. And I did, but not for the reason everyone thinks.
He adds, “They’re there so tourists know how far the lifeguards extend their duty. You knew this and you still trekked in the direction of where help wouldn’t be if you needed it.”
“Not because I didn’t want that help,” I clarify.
Dr. Cole hums, and then it hits me—nausea travels through me at the knowledge that he might very well think what everyone else does.
“After you took your shoes off and you distanced yourself from the only viable forms of emergency help, what did you do?”
Emotion claws at me. I pull in a sharp breath and try to calm the racing of my heartbeat, the twisting of my stomach, the aching that presses in behind my eyelids. It’s like I’m standing in the middle of a stage and everyone I know is there, pointing at me while their beady gazes question every word that comes out of my mouth.
Lance’s voice pushes in, trying to convince me of an untrue reality. His parents stand behind him with those same judgmental stares they gave me in the hospital. And Dr. Miso’s words tangle into a mantra I can’t flush out of my psyche.
All signs lead to self-harm.
All signs lead to self-harm.
