Chapter 7
Karla
“Good afternoon! How was your day?” Ellie asked me as she picked me up from school. I grumbled and slid into the back seat of her car. The last thing I wanted to do was talk about how I’d spent fifth period getting applesauce out of my clothes.
Ellie smiled. “Wow, you must’ve really gone to all your classes today. Your attitude is very in line with a teenager going to school.”
We pulled away from the school, and I noticed Ash walking alone on the sidewalk. He was fidgeting with whatever it was that he held in his hoodie pocket, as usual, and his head was lowered as he stared at the sidewalk.
I had thought about him a lot after our lunchroom interaction.
My mind shot between annoyance with him and guilt for treating him so badly.
I said some pretty mean things, but then again, I didn’t ask him to get involved in my life.
He just randomly appeared and wouldn’t go away.
That was driving me up a wall. He was so odd.
What was worse—he was OK with being odd, it seemed.
Ash knew he wasn’t normal. He leaned into his abnormalities.
If I looked like him and didn’t have to be a freak, I would’ve leaned into that.
Before the accident, I was normal. I was so normal. I missed normal.
I missed fitting in.
I missed . . . me.
And having someone as odd as Ash wanting to befriend me made me realize just how far away I was from the girl I was before.
As Ellie turned a corner, I saw Ash heading in the direction of the cemetery, and I was almost positive that was where he’d spend his afternoon. A wave of jealousy hit me as we drove past.
Ellie drove me to my therapy appointment after we picked up Lorelai. During my hour-long session, she and my sister went next door to the library, where they picked out new books for the week ahead. I would’ve much rather been reading than having a therapist trying to read me.
As I walked into the building, I saw my dad sitting in the lobby.
He always showed up to my appointments no matter what.
From physical therapy to actual therapy, Dad was always sitting in the lobbies waiting for me.
Even though he waited, he never drove me home or asked me anything about how my appointments went.
He’d get updates from the physical therapist on exercises I should be doing at home, but that was about it.
He’d then say goodbye to me and have Ellie take me home while he went back to work.
For the most part, I wished he didn’t show up, because even though he was there standing in front of me, he was mentally checked out.
Like father, like daughter, I suppose.
Raye was a nice therapist, though I had a hard time believing that there were some jerk therapists in the world. Raye, though, was extra nice. It annoyed me. She was so patient and gentle with me, even though I had a solid gift for giving her hardly anything to grab hold of during our meetings.
I didn’t talk much.
She listened to my silence.
“How are you today, Karla?” Raye asked as she pulled her curly black hair into a messy bun on top of her head.
Raye, like Ellie, was beautiful. She was a stunning Black woman whose skin looked like it never had a blemish ever.
It was wild how much I noticed other people’s skin.
Sometimes, I’d hear people complaining about acne at school, but I’d trade my scars for acne any day of the week.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m fine.”
Raye nodded once. “And the real answer?”
I still probably have french fries in my shirt from being bullied, Raye. That’s how I am.
I shrugged my shoulders again. “Fine.”
“OK, lovely. So how often do you say you’re fine when you’re really not fine?”
I shrugged again.
Gosh. I was annoying.
Raye smiled, leaning back in her chair. She wasn’t thrown off by my lack of input in the conversation that afternoon.
Sometimes she’d push me, and I’d get irritated, but I’d never lash out at her.
Well, I did in my head. Then I’d feel guilty about the thoughts I had because Raye was just doing her job.
She was trying to make me better, but I wasn’t certain that kids like me got better.
“How are things going with your father?” she asked. “Have you two been working on your relationship like we talked about last week? Have you given him any bids for connection? Or has he made any toward you?”
A bid was a term that therapists used, I guess. Raye said it was a small action or gesture that someone made to seek attention, or support from another person. It was an opportunity for my father and I to try to make some kind of effort toward each other. Any kind.
“We got into a fight last night,” I confessed. “And he was a total jerk.”
Raye arched an eyebrow. “Oh? Do you want to share what happened?”
I sighed and shrugged again. “No.”
“All right. That’s OK. If you want to circle back to it later on, we can.”
“I won’t.”
“That’s fine, too. There’s no pressure here.” Raye narrowed her eyes as she twirled her pen between her fingers. Gosh, she was so freaking beautiful. And nice. Nicely beautiful. I wished I looked like her. I’d give anything to look like her, or Ellie, or anyone but me.
She fired off her next question. “And Lorelai?”
I arched an eyebrow. “What about her?”
“How’s your connection with her?”
“Good,” I dryly replied. Why was she asking about my little sister? She never asked me about her. About my mom and dad? Sure. But never about Lorelai. I shifted in my chair, feeling uncomfortable with the question for some reason. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, you don’t bring her up. I know you struggle with your connection with your father, but you don’t bring up Lorelai at all. Why is that?”
I threw my hands up. “I don’t know. She’s just a kid.”
Raye nodded a few times. “Yes, but her involvement in the accident was pretty huge, right?”
I tilted my head to the side, my gaze drifting to the floor at the word “accident” coming from Raye’s mouth. She didn’t know it, but whenever the word came up, I was transported back to that night. I was in the car, seconds before the accident, yelling like a dumb kid at my little sister.
“Dad! She won’t stop!” I shouted.
My skin began to heat up as if I was on fire. Sweat started to gather at my brow as I tried to pull myself back from the memory. I wished some memories never existed. There was so much I wished I could forget.
“She was just a kid,” I said once more, not making eye contact with Raye. “I shouldn’t have been yelling like that. If I hadn’t, Dad would’ve never turned around to scold us. If I’d just . . .”
“You blame yourself for the accident,” Raye stated.
I turned to her as if she was completely ridiculous for saying that, because I thought that was a given.
Of course I blamed myself.
I was the reason Dad was distracted.
I was the reason the car crashed.
I was the reason Mom was dead.
Raye leaned forward and shook her head. “Karla East, that accident wasn’t your fault.”
I shifted my eyes. My heart raced faster and faster. “But, I . . . I was yelling. I was shouting and screaming, distracting my parents.”
Raye kept her stare on mine. “Your dad turned around to look at you. That was his choice, not yours. Lorelai unbuckled your seat belt. Why don’t you blame her for being a distraction?
Why isn’t the blame of the accident on her?
Why don’t you blame her for your seat belt being unbuckled and that causing you to fly out of the car during the crash? ”
My gut hurt.
Was she blaming Lorelai for all of this? Was she putting it all on my sister?
She couldn’t be doing that.
She shouldn’t be doing that.
“She’s just a kid!” I argued as I slammed my hand against her desk.
“Karla . . .” Her eyes softened and she reached across her desk and put her hand on top of mine. “So are you.”
Her words pushed me to a halt.
My eyes flooded with tears.
My mind quieted.
I couldn’t recall the last time my mind felt quiet.
“Karla,” Raye whispered. “The accident wasn’t Lorelai’s fault.
The accident wasn’t your fault. The accident wasn’t your father’s fault.
It wasn’t even the deer’s fault. It was just an accident.
A terrible, awful, heart-shattering accident that took the life of someone you loved dearly, but there’s no fault to be had.
Pointing fingers at yourself or others won’t make it better.
It won’t take away the pain of the outcome.
There’s no one to blame for this tragedy. There’s only grief.”
I looked down at my hands, which were now holding Raye’s. I didn’t know what to say, what to do, how to feel.
I asked a simple question. “What do I do with it?”
“Do with what?”
“All of this grief?”
“You stop trying to run away from it. You stop trying to push it down and ignore its existence. Instead, you sit with it. You get mad at it because it exists. You get angry. You can even rage. Or you can be quiet with the grief. You can take it out for coffee. You can play it some music. But no matter what, you sit with it. Sit in it. Stay in it. Otherwise, you’ll never truly hear what it’s trying to say to you or what it’s trying to teach you. ”
I shook my head. “But it feels like too much.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “It does.”
“What if I’m not strong enough to handle it all?”
“Oh, Karla. You’re so much stronger than you think. Trust me. You can handle it. And on days when you feel like you can’t, lean against those who will hold you up. Your support system is important. They want to help you.”
I placed my hands in my lap and fidgeted. “I don’t have friends anymore. They ditched me when everything happened, except . . .” My words fumbled off. Ash crossed my mind. I shook my head. He wasn’t a friend. He was just an odd boy who seemed intrigued by me.
“Except what?”
“Nothing,” I said. “He’s no one.”
“Everyone’s someone. Tell me, if you want.”
I sighed and brushed some of my hair out of my face.
“There’s a new kid in school, and he saw me being bullied.
He stood up for me, and I snapped at him.
I got mad because he made the scene bigger than it had to be.
But now I feel bad because he was doing it to protect me, and well . . . he was nice, and I was mean.”
“You were triggered, and you had a strong reaction. That happens in life. We can’t go back in time and change what happened, but you know what we can do while we’re still alive and breathing?”
“What’s that?”
“Apologize.”
I sighed.
That seemed harder than me yelling at Ash. I felt embarrassed by the whole idea of it, telling him I was sorry for being a raging psycho when he was trying to do nothing but help me.
“He’s nice to me,” I confessed.
“That’s good.”
I shook my head as my brows lowered. “Why would he be nice to me?”
Raye laughed. “Because you’re remarkable.”
I rolled my eyes.
I wasn’t remarkable. I was the opposite of remarkable. I was mediocre at best. Awful at worst.
“Just because you don’t see it right now, doesn’t mean that you won’t at some point, Karla.”
I agreed to disagree with her in that moment, and we continued our appointment as normal.
I wondered what it was about that day that made me open up to her so much.
I wondered why I told her about Ash. I wondered why I couldn’t stop thinking about him, too.
No matter how hard I tried, he kept showing up in my mind.
After therapy ended, I stood from my chair and headed toward her office door to leave. I paused for a moment and turned back to Raye. “You’re really great at your job.”
She smiled a nicely beautiful smile and said, “Thank you.” She gestured toward me. “And you’re a really great sister. And a great daughter.”
I didn’t believe her, but I wouldn’t argue.
I stepped into the hallway to find Dad still in the waiting room. His head was down, and his shoulders were slumped forward. I wondered if he was doing it right then and there—sitting in his own grief.
I cleared my throat, and he looked up at me. He dusted invisible dirt from his dress pants and stood. “Karla. Hi. How was today?”
I should’ve given him a decent answer. I should’ve told him that I was working on sitting with my grief and not blaming myself for my past mistakes.
I should’ve told him I missed him and loved him and wanted to go home.
Not to our actual home, but to the home that he’d built with love and warmth and protection.
I wanted to go back to him. I should’ve given him a few bids.
I should’ve at least given him just one.
Instead, I shrugged. “Fine.”