The only woman on my rehabilitation team was my psychological therapist, but even she was still young and attractive. Her being a girl was really for the best, though, because I was actually required to put together coherent sentences in our sessions, and that seems pretty impossible for me to do around Delicious Daniel.
Dr. Parish started with the inquisition before I’d even settled myself into the big leather wingback chair in her office. “How was your week, Ella? Any progress to report?”
I loved the chair, but I hated my weekly therapy sessions. They were awkward at best and I always left them feeling awful. “I finally caught up on all the episodes I missed of Once Upon A Time.” That was the only progress I could think of. It was basically the only thing I’d done all week.
“You know I was talking about your family.”
“Those people are not my family.”
Dr. Parish smiled at me. “I understand why you feel that way. However, they are your family and you need to accept that. You need to find a way to build a relationship with them.”
“I can’t build a relationship with people who don’t like me and don’t want me around. The only time I ever talk to the twins is when they call me to make sure I’m hiding in my room before they bring their friends home, and they tell me they’ll text me when it’s safe for me to come out.”
The thing about Dr. Parish is that she never loses her cool. I know that she must get frustrated, but somehow she always looks and sounds genuinely sympathetic. “I’m sure you’re misinterpreting their intentions. Perhaps when they call to tell you they’re bringing friends home, it’s their way of trying to include you.”
I snorted at this. Dr. Parish is a smart woman, but she has way too much optimism. “Anastasia’s exact words when she called me yesterday were ‘Hey, Stepfreak, I’m bringing some of my friends home, and they all have this, like, really bad fear of dogs, so make sure you lock yourself in your room this evening. I’ll text you when it’s safe to come out.’ Call me pessimistic, but I don’t think I misinterpreted that.”
Dr. Parish’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
“The best part about it,” I continued on, “was all the laughter in the background. She was with her friends when she called to tell me this. She waited until she had an audience on purpose.”
“Did you talk to your parents about your stepsister’s behavior?”
Again, I laughed without humor. “She’s said worse to my face with both my dad and Jennifer standing right there. They always just force these nervous laughs like ‘Oh, how sweet, the girls are joking around with each other.’ They never say anything. They’re in total denial. They give those girls whatever they want and let them do whatever they want. Juliette at least has the decency to just pretend I don’t exist if I stay out of her way, but Ana is a vicious, rotten, spoiled princess. I wouldn’t be friends with her even if she did give me the chance. She’s not the kind of person who is healthy for anyone to be friends with. She’s a quintessential Mean Girl—like the kind they make movies about.”
Dr. Parish sighed. She set down her pen that she’s always taking notes with during our sessions and took her glasses off to rub at her eyes. Obviously tired of going around in circles, she changed the subject. “Let’s talk more about your attempted suicide.”
I groaned, but I still tugged at the sleeves of my shirt. I had scars all over my body, but the ones on my wrists were different. Those scars were my own fault. That moment in my life was a decision I truly regretted. Something I was ashamed of. “That was a mistake,” I whispered. “I wasn’t even that serious.”
“I’ve read the reports, Ella, and I’ve seen a number of attempted suicide cases. Had you had more than a steak knife available to you, you’d have succeeded. You almost did. You weren’t messing around.”
“Fine, maybe I was serious about it, then, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. That was a really bad time for me, but I’ve gotten a lot better.”
Dr. Parish didn’t believe me.
“I can walk again! I’m learning how to write with my bad hand again! The doctors in Boston told me that wasn’t supposed to be possible. Do you think I would have worked so hard and put myself through so much more pain trying to accomplish those things if I still thought about ending my own life? I got overwhelmed after my accident and lost my head for a while, but I’m not suicidal anymore! Why won’t anyone believe me?”
Dr. Parish got up from her desk and walked a box of tissues to me. After I grudgingly took one, she sat down on the other chair next to mine. “I do believe you, Ella,” she said. “You have a lot of roadwork ahead of you still, but I know you’ve come a long way from that dark place. What you don’t understand is that until your life is a lot more stable, it would be very easy for you to find yourself back there. At least living in your father’s home, whether you feel comfortable yet or not, there is someone looking after you who loves you and has your best interests in mind.”
That made me so angry I started to shake. “You think that man loves me? You think he has my best interests in mind? He doesn’t even know me! The other day he enrolled me in the same school his daughters go to. It’s this fancy private school like you see on TV shows about rich kids with messed up lives.”
“It’s probably a great school, Ella.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right one for me. He took me to see the place when he registered me, and I felt like I’d gone to some alien planet. I grew up going to a public school in inner city Boston. We had metal detectors, not a sushi bar. I am not going to fit in there. I’m not even going to know how to interact with the kids there. We’ll have nothing in common. Everyone there will be just like Anastasia and Juliette. Plus, we have to wear uniforms—short skirts and polo T-shirts! It’s going to be hell for me.”
When Dr. Parish sighed, I tried to defend myself in a way that didn’t just sound as if I was whining. “Public school would be a lot more familiar to me. It would be a lot more diverse. I would be able to wear whatever I wanted so I wouldn’t have to always have my scars on display like some kind of freak show. I would be able to blend in more. Plus, there might even be a few other kids on a five-year plan there. You think kids go to a school like Beverly Hills Prep Academy and get held back? As if I don’t have enough to deal with already, I’m going to be a full year older than all the other seniors. Plus, I already have an arch enemy who doesn’t want me to go there and has promised to make my life hell if I get in her way.”
I waited for Dr. Parish to tell me I was misinterpreting Anastasia’s threats again, but she didn’t. She went back to her desk and started taking more notes. “Have you voiced any of these concerns with your father?”
I gave her another humorless laugh. “I had a massive panic attack when I saw the place. I understand why you don’t want me to do homeschool, so I asked if he would at least send me to public school. I gave him all the reasons I just gave you. I told him I thought it would help me adjust better if I was on more familiar ground and less anxious. I begged him. And do you know what he did? He laughed at me! I was in the middle of a legitimate panic attack. I was begging for his understanding. I was in tears, and he laughed. He told me I was being ridiculous and that I was going to love it there. He told me no daughter of his was going to go to public school when he could provide them with a better education.”
As was pretty common during my therapy sessions, I started crying again and had to get another tissue. “The man can’t have my best interests at heart, because he has no clue what my best interests are. He doesn’t know a thing about me, or what I need. He’s just a snob who’s now stuck with a freakish girl from a part of his past he tried to bury. I’m his deep, dark, disgraceful secret. He’s more concerned about saving face with his friends than he is with me.”
I blew my nose and got my tears under control. Once I could talk again in a rational manner, I said, “Look, I know you’re trying to help me and all, but the fact is my dad’s house is just not a healthy environment. It’s awkward and stressful, and it’s only making everything that much harder for me. My whole rehabilitation process would be so much easier if I could just move out on my own.”
Dr. Parish sat there for a minute, silently contemplating what I said. “If you could leave on your own,” she finally asked, “where would you go? Back to Boston?”
Finally, a topic that wasn’t depressing. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I lost my spot at Boston U, and all my friends have moved on. Things wouldn’t be the same if I tried to go back, so I’d probably pick somewhere else.”
“So where would you go?” Dr. Parish asked again. “What would you do with your life?”
“First, I’d finish high school in some online program. If I did that, I could start now and be done in a couple of months instead of having to repeat my entire senior year. Then, I’d still go to college. I know I want to study journalism. I guess I’d just have to decide where I wanted to go. I could go anywhere now, but I want to be an entertainment writer/reviewer, so it’d probably be here or New York. Probably New York because I’m partial to the East Coast.”
I knew I’d said the wrong thing when Dr. Parish’s eyes narrowed. “You would leave, just like that? Go off to some college all by yourself in some town where you didn’t know anybody? Had no friends?”
“Lots of kids do that.” I kicked myself for sounding defensive. I knew that would work against me, but I couldn’t help it. I hated how people were always pointing out that I had no one left.
“Lots of kids aren’t recovering from such a traumatic experience as you, and even then, most of those kids have a strong support system back home.”
I scoffed. “And you think I have that here? You think my dad and his family are a support system?”
“No, I don’t,” she said simply.
I was shocked by her answer. Everyone I’d met since the moment I woke up from my accident had tried to push my dad and his family on me as if the fact that my father and I shared the same blood meant that we were all going to automatically love each other and be insta-BFFs.
“Perhaps you’re right that living with your father and his family isn’t the best thing for you,” she said slowly.
My heart perked up at this tiny ray of hope, but I tried to squash it. There had to be a catch somewhere. She wasn’t going to sign off on my mental health, which is what I needed if I wanted to be free of my dad’s supervision and living on my own.
Dr. Parish put her notepad down and leaned back in her chair. “Ella, I know you see me as your prison warden, but I hope you understand that I really do want what’s best for you. It’s my job to help you figure out what that is, and help you get to a place mentally where you can accomplish it. I want to see you succeed. I want to be able to sign your release papers for you, but you have to prove to me that you’re ready for that.”
So, she wasn’t going to get me out of my father’s house. My hope was appropriately extinguished. “What does that mean?” I grumbled.
“It means that if getting you a place of your own is really what’s best for you, then that’s what we’re going to work toward. But I’m not going to let you do that until you can prove to me you won’t be completely alone. I don’t believe you’re ready to be by yourself. I think that would put you in danger of falling into another severe depression. You need friends. You need a solid support system. If you don’t believe your family will be that for you, then find others. Make some friends. Join a support group. Try to get back in touch with some of your old friends in Boston. Even if they have moved on and you don’t live near them, you still need people you can talk to. If you can build yourself a real support system, Ella, then I’ll take you apartment shopping myself.”
Dr. Parish’s promise stuck with me through the rest of the day. I needed a support system, and there was only one place I could think to start.