“My dad said it had nothing to do with me,” she continues. “She always had a thing about being in one place too long.”
“I don’t even know what to say. I’m really sorry, Kayla.” I wonder if things would have gone differently for me if I’d been able to cope the way she seems to have. I was a baby when my dad left, so I can’t imagine having been old enough to know your parent made that choice. In a way, that’s probably worse.
“And don’t take this the wrong way, but sometimes it’s really hard to see you and your mom in the same room together,” Kayla says, her voice getting shaky. “I think that’s why I was so harsh in the beginning. Not to excuse my behavior—I knowit was wrong. It was just so hard at first to see a mother and daughter together under the same roof. I remember when that was me and my mom, and it makes me miss her more. It’s stupid, but sometimes I even miss us fighting… I miss everything,” she finishes. Her eyes are filled with tears.
“Well, you know, since we are sisters now, you can fight with my momwheneveryou want. I mean, you can even stand in for me,” I say, hoping to make her smile.
She laughs so hard that the tears come running down her face. “On second thought—I’ll just stick with my dad!”
“Well, good thing he’s cool,” I tell her, which is the truth. I’ve come to like Travis, even if I don’t know much about him yet.
“Cool in the dad sense, yeah, but he was kinda badass back in the day. I’ll deny it though, if you ever tell him I said that.” She smiles.
I don’t want to pry, especially since she’s already shared a lot about her mom, so I make a mental note for another day. Travis seems too square to be bad. But maybe that’s why he’s so calm now, so hardworking—he’s had a lot to make up for.
“Thanks for telling me all of this,” I say instead.
“Since we’re sharing…” she begins.
“Uh huh, ask me anything,” I reassure her, fully expecting a question about Deanna.
“Okay, here goes anything—what was that placelike?”
In a way, I’m surprised she waited this long to ask again, and I find I don’t mind it. After all, I was curious about her mom; why wouldn’t she be curious about my past, too? I think about what I can tell her that will satisfy her curiosity without requiring me to get too deep. There are so many things I could say about that place, but I don’t want to ruin either of our nights.
“To make a long story short, it was a dysfunctional highschool with bars on the windows and horrible food.” I chuckle at just how much that really sums it up.
“Stop! That sounds like a Lifetime movie. Bars on the windows?”
“Yeah, it was kind of wild. We couldn’t touch doors, walked in straight lines, had supervision in the bathrooms. A lot.”
“Whoa. That’s actually so intense. I would have failed everything and been there forever.” Kayla shakes her head in disbelief.
“You probably wouldn’t even get sent there,” I say, more sharply than I intended to.
Kayla pauses, taking in the full breadth of the statement. “You’re right. I’m sorry you did, though.”
I feel bad for snapping and want to show Kayla I can let her in, and that I want to. “But there were some okay things too, given the circumstances. We watched movies and stuff. Some of the staff weren’t that bad either. It’s kinda hard to explain.” I shrug.
“Well, I’m here if you ever wanna try. Your very own therapist,” Kayla says with a wide grin.
“Well, thank you, Dr. K.” I chuckle and stand up.
“Of course, patient J,” she says, getting up too. “Even though I was your patient first.”
We’re laughing when her phone rings again. She groans, but this time she accepts the call.
It’s her, my mom,she mouths.
I nod and head out.
“Thanks, sis,” she calls after me as I close the door.
Then
APPROVED FOR DISCHARGE IN 30 DAYS.
As she turns the last sheet of my folder toward me, Dr. Rose smiles so hard that her cheeks are turning red.
