“Okay, and if he’s disappointed?” She raised her brows.
I huffed out a breath, frustration starting to bubble up. “I don’t know.”
Elena tapped her lips a couple times before her face seemed to light up with an idea. “Have you ever heard of the wheel of emotions before?”
I shook my head.
She got up to grab something circular from the bookshelf. When she sat back down, she flipped over the circle. The wheel was broken up into six different sections, all of them in a different color. In each section, there were three tiers listing different emotions.
“Let’s look at it this way.” She handed me the wheel. “You said you feel afraid, right?”
I nodded.
“I want you to take a look at the wheel and the other emotions that can be attached to fear.”
My eyes scanned the wheel of emotions. Fear was attached to many things—confusion, helplessness, anxiety—and they all stemmed deeper into other emotions like feeling weak and insignificant.
“I’ll give you a moment to sit with that. But if you can identify it, what emotion do you think is attached to this fear? If you disappoint him or make him mad at you, what fear does that bring up inside you?”
“Um…” I cleared my throat, swallowing the lump that had lodged itself there. “I guess I’m scared he’ll see me as weak or insignificant and then he’ll leave. If he knows what happened, he won’t want to be my friend or talk to me anymore.” Tears burned behind my eyes, and I cleared my throat again. “I’ll lose the one friend I have, even though it’s stupid because I might lose him either way.”
“Yeah,” Elena said softly, reaching out to hand me a box of tissues.
“I’m okay.” I wiped my eyes, trying to hold back the tears and be stronger than this.
“It’s okay, Sierra. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to feel. Close your eyes for me, yeah?”
I did as she asked, closing my eyes.
“I want you to take a deep breath. As you’re inhaling, I want you to imagine the space where you’re feeling these emotions expanding and then constricting as you exhale. Visualize it as a balloon expanding and deflating if you can, and take a few slow breaths with me.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I breathed in and out until my chest stopped heaving and the tears eventually stopped falling.
“How does that feel?”
I opened my eyes. “Good.”
“Good. I think we made some really good progress today, Sierra. We’re almost out of time, so is there anything else you’d like to talk about before we wrap up?”
I shook my head, and we said our goodbyes.
I never went back to see Elena.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
hayden
PRESENT DAY
Sierra disappeared into her head after I asked what her dream was about. I wasn’t sure where she went, but I didn’t think she realized tears were streaming down her cheeks until she sniffled a little.
“Oh, God, I’m sorry.” She scrunched her face in a pained grimace, embarrassment radiating off her in waves. As if I hadn’t cried in front of her plenty of times.
“Hey. It’s okay, Sierra.” I reached out to swipe away a stray tear, my finger lingering at the scar tissue on the apple of her cheek. “It’s okay to cry.”
“No. No it’s not.” She forced the words out through gritted teeth. “It’s not, because it’s all my fault.”
I pulled over on the side of the road, because I wanted to give her the attention she deserved and I couldn’t do that from behind the wheel.
