All signs lead to self-harm.
“I-I… I can’t,” I say, stumbling over my words as I bring a hand up to my throat. My nails dig into my skin as I workdown another swallow and force myself into a sitting position. A swirliness takes over my head, similar to how I felt when I fell and sank through an unknown amount of water.
My throat tightens, my lungs burning. I pull my shirt away from my body and fan it, trying to create a steady flow of cool air as my skin heats and my armpits turn sweaty.
I squeeze my eyes shut and tilt forward, holding my head in my hands. It’s not the best idea. All the memories I do have of that day rush in and it’s all I see, all I know.
My breathing supercharges, each lungful coming in quick succession to the last. There’s a buzzing in my ears that doesn’t relent, and there’s a pain that sweeps down my entire body. Physical manifestations of the emotional turmoil I’m trapped in.
Will it ever get easier?
“You’re okay, Emory,” Dr. Cole reassures. I can hear him stand and cross the room. There’s a small water tank in the corner that I remember seeing, and I swear the sound of the lever being pulled and water rushing out greets my ears. Then he’s in front of me, his shadow creeping into my line of sight when I slowly peel my eyes open and look at the floor.
He hands me a miniature paper cup before sitting back in his chair. I gulp down the water in two sips, wishing I had more.
Dr. Cole gives me the time and space I need to come back from wherever it is I just went.God, I must seem so weak to him. So incapable. So broken.
His gaze strays to the abstract paintings on the wall behind me in a way to offer me privacy without actually leaving the room when I sit up and push my back against the sofa, my shoulders slumped in defeat.
After a moment, I mumble, “I’m sorry. I just…”
“You don’t have to apologize. If there’s one thing I can promise you, it’s that this is a safe place for you to feel, say, and think what you want and need without being condemned for it.”
I let out a wistful sigh, suddenly very interested in the small paper cup still in my hands. I could crush it so easily, make it collapse under the strength of my fingertips. Just like me, it’s delicate and fragile. It’ll always be that way. It’s how it was made, created. I can’t help but recognize that we share similar qualities. I wonder if it’ll always be that way.
The thought guts me, shredding my insides into figurative ribbons. When did I get to the point of my own inner-talk reducing me down to nothing?
I’m hesitant when I ask, “Are you sure about that?”
Because I’m not sure about anything anymore.
Dr. Cole leans forward, both feet on the ground as his elbows come to lean on his knees for a second time today. He’s wearing this business casual ensemble—dark brown slacks and a black long-sleeved button-up, the buttons a replica of the ones on Dr. Miso’s white physician jacket.
“I’m absolutely positive about that. Nothing you say here will be used against you.”
A barely-there smile tugs at the corner of my mouth, lifting one side of it. My heartbeat levels out, slowing from the anxious grip that was on it a few minutes ago. I’m left with the emotionally exhaustive hangover that always follows. “We both know that’s not true.”
He sits up again and leans back. “Why do you say that?”
“If I sat across from you and said that my missionwasto take my life that day, you would hold my words against me by reporting me to your superior.”
He simply looks at me, a neutral expression on his face as if he’s already heard those lines, just from a different source. My eyes flick to the mop of curls on top of his head, and the way they’re longer in the front, the overhead light giving off the brown color of his hair.
He works his therapist magic on me. “Did you go to Coralhaven Beach that day because you felt like you had no other means to an end?”
Even though I already know the answer, I actually consider his question. Maybe because it isn’t an attack on who I am as a person. He says it without malice and blame. Without a defensive suspicion that I’ve heard come from Lance’s lips.
Was I out there for that purpose? Was there this underlying need to get away from certain things in my life? Like the newfound lovelessness that shrouds every part of my relationship with the man I agreed to marry, and the way his surname has tainted our ability to live freely. Or maybe the loneliness that consumes me from not having anyone around me who truly gets me, who understands me, whoknowsme like the back of their hand and takes interest in the ideas and hobbies that mean the world to me.
My parents form in my mind, along with their absence. I used to have them, but even when I did, they were barely there. They’ve done well at caring for themselves entirely and me incompletely.
Dr. Cole pulls me back to the present moment when he clears his throat. In a way, it’s like he’s saying, “Well?”
I look at him, observing his relaxed posture, his golden eyes, and the spectacles that act as a point of coverage that block me from seeing into him.He exists as a constant reminder that I’m not okay with myself. I thought I was, but now, with so many things sneaking out of the shadows and coming into view…
“There were—are—things I’m…bothered by.”
His brow twitches inconspicuously, like he’s intrigued and surprised all at once that I’m giving him more. “What might those things be?”
