Online advice had suggested I prepare a summary of my biggest issue, so I just read that to her, and Dr. Reid nodded. “Social anxiety is a common problem. We’ll work on it. Today, I’d like to get to know you, so why don’t you tell me about yourself?”
“Like what?”
She smiled. “Anything you like.”
By the time I left, I didn’t feel like such a mess. This time, there had been no invasive questions, though Dr. Reid did direct me occasionally or ask for clarification. Avery went in after me, and I read on my phone while I waited for her. She was shaking when she came out, but she mustered up a real smile as we paid.
“It’s...it was good,” she said, as we went out to my car.
“Do you think every two weeks is too often?”
“In my case, it might not be often enough. But I can’t afford more.”
“Me, either.” We were both doing private pay. So I couldn’t manage tuition, living expenses and therapy on a weekly basis. “Did she offer you a prescription?”
“Nope. You?”
I shook my head. “If she had, I’d be looking for someone else. That’s not what I want out of this collaboration, as Dr. Reid puts it.”
“That’s how I feel, too. I’ve got a lot of anger stashed away.”
“For obvious reasons. Are you hungry?”
“I didn’t think I would be, but yeah. Do you want to text Krista and Jillian, ask them to meet us at Patty’s in an hour?”
“Sure. Do you plan to tell them...?” I didn’t know how I felt about that.
She shook her head. “Jill’s starting to feel left out because she can tell that you and I have gotten close. The other day, she asked why I moved in with you so suddenly, why I didn’t talk to her first if I was thinking about getting a place. And what can I say? I’m not ready to tell anyone else. It was hard enough to dump it on Dr. Reid, and that’s her job. If I decide to press charges, then I’ll start with telling Jillian. When I think of how long she’s stood by me, even when I was horrible to her, I feel like such a bitch for not wanting to open up.”
“Wow. I had that same situation going with Nadia.”
“Does she know you’re in therapy?”
I shook my head. “I suck. The worse it got at Mount Albion, the less I told her. I got so busy pretending to be happy that I forgot how to be a friend.”
“I know how that is.” Avery was obviously talking about Jillian.
“I think she’d just want you to feel better.” From what I’d seen, Jill was a hell of a good friend, loyal to a fault. Which was why she’d been like a pit bull after me when she thought I was cheating with Rob.
“I hope so. I hurt her feelings, and that sucks so hard. But I don’t know what to do.”
“So you’re buying her pancakes?” I grinned as I merged onto the highway.
“Hey, she loves them.”
“Who doesn’t?”
In a few minutes, we got affirmative texts from Jillian and Krista, though she warned us her mom was busy, so she’d be bringing Naomi. I hadn’t seen the baby often since the seemingly endless night of her birth. Counting back, I realized she had to be seven months old or something like that. Holy crap.
“Something wrong?”
“I was just realizing how long I’ve been home.”
Avery nodded. “Almost a year.”
“Wow. I’d say something like, ‘Time flies,’ except then I’d have to beat my head repeatedly against the steering wheel for being such a verbal cliché.”
“Then we’d spin out of control and end up in a snowbank.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll live to eat pancakes for dinner.”
The weather made that tough, however, as halfway to Sharon, the light snow turned into serious weather. It reminded me of driving back to Michigan with Nadia, last year after Thanksgiving. I hadn’t wanted to leave at all, but at that point, I wasn’t ready to admit how bad things had gotten. It took a serious fuckup for me to take stock and admit I had to change everything, or I might self-destruct. This trip didn’t end in a crappy motel, though. I got us safely to Patty’s Pancake House, where Jillian and Krista were already waiting; they had a booth with Naomi in a high chair at the end.
“This is crazy,” Avery said, bending to kiss her on the head. “How can you be this big?”
I wouldn’t have pegged her for a baby person, but she talked to Naomi more than the rest of us, even Krista. Jillian had lost a little weight but I didn’t say anything because it always pissed me off when people commented on it with me, like being skinny was my chief goal in life.
“So what brought on the midweek pancake craving?” Krista asked.
Avery shrugged. “I just wanted to hang out with you guys.”
“This isn’t an official girls’ night,” Jillian pointed out. “Does this mean we can talk about guys?”
“Sure, if you want.” I had nothing to say on that topic, but I was happy to listen, especially if someone had good news.
Krista handed Naomi a cracker, just before the baby lost patience with our blather. “I’ll start. I just found out that Kenji will be stateside in March.”
That was only three months away. No wonder she was so excited. “Oh, my God, that’s amazing news. For leave or...?”
“Nope. He’s earned enough for college, and he’s coming home.”
In her shoes, I’d be having panic attacks over him finishing his tour. If he were my fiancé, he’d explode in my head, over and over, only days before he boarded the plane, and he’d die, never having seen his baby daughter. That kind of shit burrowed deep into my brain, until I couldn’t think about anything else. Thanks to Dr. Reid, I had some idea how to stop the mind worm, or at least keep it from ruining my life. Not that I was fixed after one visit. There was a long road ahead, but I had the stamina to survive it.
“Congrats, that’s fantastic. Will he let you keep coming to girls’ night?” Jillian asked.
“Let me, ha. You don’t seem to understand our relationship. I do what I want, and he loves me.” She grinned as she ate the rest of her bacon.
That sounds...perfect. Worse, it sounded like how it was with Rob. Pain throbbed through me, a reminder that I’d pushed for a clean break. And I got one. Now the only news I had about him came through Nadia or the internet. Now and then I dug up articles about Hot Property, a few pictures circulating on TV blogs. Like an obsessed fangirl, I’d downloaded a professional one, where he was posed in front of a woodsy backdrop, smiling for the camera. He looked impossibly polished and handsome. Now it was the screensaver on my laptop, though I’d die before admitting that to anyone.