Light in the Shadows
Page 11

I hadn't seen or spoken to my parents since being admitted. They were supposed to be involved in my treatment. Which meant family therapy, regular visits, and the whole nine yards. I didn’t know how aware they were of my progress. I was pretty sure Dr. Todd had kept them in the loop but I had yet to hear a peep out of them.
I didn't know if I should feel relief or disappointment. Because that little boy needing his parents’ love still lived deep down inside of me. As much as I wanted to squash him, he was still there, waving his arms, wanting their attention. But then the almost adult man was much more of a realist and knew that those two particular individuals brought nothing but a whirlwind of shit with them and it was probably best that they stayed the hell away.
I wondered if they would bother to show up for my birthday next week. I didn't even want to think about whether I would be gutted if they didn’t.
I scrubbed my face with my hands and let out a noisy breath. Then without thinking, I picked up the notebook and let it fall open to what I had written. I propped it on my knee and stared at the barely legible words in front of me.
I remember your hair. The way it smelled when you woke up beside me in the morning. It's the best smell in the entire world. I lay in the motel bed and buried my nose in your neck. It was the most perfect moment of my entire life.
I hated that such an amazing memory turned me into a panic ridden freak. I wish I could just think of Maggie without crumbling. But the reaction was intense and instantaneous. I recognized the flutter of my heart and my breaths becoming shallow. Here we go again.
God damn it! NO! I mentally screamed. I forced myself to think of Maggie's eyes. The way they crinkled when she laughed. My heart was pounding so heavily in my chest; I could practically feel it rattling my ribs. KEEP GOING! I thought harshly. Stop being such a pu**y!
Kissing her that first time, even after acting like a total ass**le. The way she had melted into me. Cherries. That's what she tasted like. Just like her lip gloss. Was it weird that I bought a stick of it after that kiss and would carry it in my pocket, just so I could taste it? Yeah, that was most definitely weird; I wouldn’t be admitting that out loud anytime soon.
I felt the dizzy lightheadedness of my panic attack as I forced myself to relieve the memories. I was terrified that I would make myself forget them just because they hurt. And as painful as it was to remember what I had lost, it was much more frightening to think of my life without those memories at all. I needed them. They were my reminder that there was something for me on the outside. Something worth fighting for.
I took deep breaths as I concentrated on the memory of my girl. The thousands of tiny moments that flashed through my head like a movie. And after a while, my heart started to slow and my hands unclenched.
“Working on your tan?” a teasing voice called out. I snapped out of my head and focused on Maria as she stepped through the doorway and into the garden. I gave her a weak smile and lifted my shoulders.
“I was feeling a little pasty,” I joked back half-heartedly. Maria narrowed her eyes and I knew she saw through my pathetic attempts at nonchalance. Maria had become a close enough friend that she was able to call me on my bullshit with the best of them.
“Well, you'd best get inside, group starts in ten. You look like you could use a coffee,” she suggested, waiting for me to get to my feet. As I got closer, she tossed me something. I caught the package of Twizzlers and was finally able to give her a genuine smile.
“Figured you’d need them,” Maria said lightly as though it wasn’t a big deal. It had become our thing. After a session, Maria would bring me Twizzlers and I would give her a bag of unsalted pretzels from the vending machine. Stupid maybe, but it was the little stuff that made the bigger, terrifying stuff easier to stomach. Maria understood that those sorts of things were important to me. I needed those tiny, seemingly insignificant gestures.
“You have no idea,” I muttered, tearing open the package. And now we were off to group therapy, fan-flipping-tastic. I took a deep breath and steeled myself for another sixty minutes of sharing my feelings. Maria looped her arm around my waist and leaned into my side. I stiffened, still not feeling entirely comfortable with her easy physical affection. I had never been the touchy feely sort. Particularly not with someone whose name wasn’t Maggie. So this felt wrong. Like a betrayal. Which was ridiculous. I wasn’t with Maggie anymore. And even if I was, I wasn’t remotely attracted to Maria.
But that didn’t change the fact that I knew Maria was attracted to me.
But I didn't move away. And I didn't respond either. I tried not to look as relieved as I felt when we reached the coffee machine and she dropped her arm. “Tough session today, huh,” Maria stated rather than asked. It had to be pretty clear on my face that I was not in a tap dancing kind of mood.
I grabbed the Styrofoam cup from the machine, opening the top in order to dump three packets of sugar inside. I stirred my drink and snorted. “Yeah, you could say that. It's been a pretty crappy day all around,” I admitted, waiting for Maria to get her hot tea.
Maria gave me a sympathetic smile. “That sucks. But just make tomorrow better,” she told me. I swear, sometimes I felt like after we all left this place, we could easily get employed writing f**king fortune cookies. When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. The day is darkest before the dawn. It was a joke. If I didn't need to believe that stuff so badly, I'd laugh at how douchy it sounded.
“Right,” I said shortly. Maria rubbed my arm and gave me a look that let me know a little too clearly exactly what her feelings were where I was concerned.