Chapter 33
Ethan
The next therapy appointment came faster than I expected.
A week blurred by in the strange, muffled way time moves when you’re trying not to think too hard. I took Lily to school, helped Dad with odd jobs around the house, pretended I slept more than a couple hours a night. Pretended I wasn’t unraveling in small, quiet ways.
Pretended Claire wasn’t somewhere in the back of my head every time the house went still.
Dad drove us again. Lily hummed to herself in the backseat, drawing shapes on the window with her finger. Her hair had been neatly braided by Claire that morning, something that I tried to ignore.
Something that I kept noticing.
When we pulled into the same small parking lot behind the library, the air felt colder. The sky was overcast, pale gray crowding out blue. A storm was coming. I could smell it.
Dad squeezed my shoulder before I went in, waiting for lily to come out from her session. “Take your time.”
It was the same thing he’d said last week, in the same tone, the same gentle certainty. It settled me, even if, only a little.
◆◆◆
Dr. Nora’s office was exactly as I remembered it, warm, soft, and unnervingly calm.
She stepped out of her office wearing a cream sweater and dark jeans, hair in a messy knot. She looked tired but kind, must be hard listening to other people’s grief all morning, I didn’t envy her.
“Ethan,” she said. “Come on in.”
I followed her into the room, sat on the couch, and rubbed my palms on my jeans. She didn’t sit right away. She poured a cup of water, set a box of tissues on the table between us, and finally settled into her chair.
“So,” she began softly, “how was your week?”
I let out a breath through my nose. “Fine.”
Her eyebrows rose in the slightest, almost invisible way. “Fine?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s try again. How are you doing?”
I stared at the bookshelf behind her instead of her face. “I’m… trying.”
“Trying what?”
“To maintain… whatever this is.” I gestured vaguely around my chest, where the pressure lived.
She nodded like that wasn’t the vaguest answer in therapy history. “You mentioned last time you weren’t sleeping well.”
“Still not.”
“And the guilt?”
My jaw felt tight. “Still there.”
“Worse?”
I swallowed. “…yeah.”
“Why?”
There it was. The question I’d been dodging in my own head.
I shook my head. “If you know the answer, you tell me.”
She didn’t push back. She just inhaled once, softly. “Ethan, guilt doesn’t stay stagnant. It grows when something inside you is trying to surface.”
I stared at my hands.
“And I think,” she continued gently, “yours has something to do with you avoiding visiting your brother and your sister-in-law.”
My stomach dropped.
“No,” I said immediately. “No. I can’t.”
“You can,” she said calmly. “And eventually, I think you should.”
My throat burned. I turned away from her, staring at the small watercolor painting on the wall, an abstract wash of blue and green.
“I haven’t been there,” I admitted quietly. “Not once.”
“I know,” she said.
“My parents go,” I added, bitter. “They bring flowers. They clean the markers. They… talk to them.”
“And you don’t feel you can.”
I barked a laugh. “I don’t feel like I deserve to even think about them.”
Nora leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on her knees. Her voice softened even more. “Do you believe you owe them an apology?”
“Yes,” I whispered, the word barely a sound.
“And do you believe avoiding their graves protects you from having to say it out loud?”
My chest constricted painfully.
She was right. And I hated that she was right.
“I can’t face them,” I said. “I wasn’t there when the accident happened. I wasn’t here when Mom and Dad had to bury their own son. I wasn’t there for Lily when it happened, and now I’m just...”
My breath hitched hard.
“I’m carrying out an act, like I can make up for it, but I can’t.”
“You’re not pretending,” Nora said. “You’re trying. There’s a difference.”
I shook my head. “Not enough of one.”
She let the silence stretch, my breathing loud in the silent room. Then:
“Ethan, grief is a house with many rooms. You’ve locked yourself in the loudest ones. The longer you stay there, the louder they become.”
She waited, patiently, not rushing. Then:
“I want you to consider going,” she said. “Not today. Not tomorrow. But soon. For them. For you.”
My breath stuttered again.
“Ethan,” she said softly, “you can’t keep avoiding the hard parts of your life. Eventually you have to walk through the hurt.”
A tear slipped down before I even registered it. I wiped it away roughly.
“I don’t think I can do it alone,” I confessed, voice raw.
“You won’t,” she said. “Your dad will go with you. Or Lily. Or… Claire.”
The sound of her name hit me like a physical blow.
I looked up.
“I’m not suggesting it,” Nora cut in gently. “I’m simply saying you have people. You’re not as alone as you think.”
I looked away again, my eyes burned. My throat felt full of sand.
She let out a slow breath. “Ethan… the guilt is already swallowing you. Visiting them won’t make it worse. It will give the guilt somewhere to go.”
I didn’t answer. Not because I disagreed.
But because the thought of standing at Matt’s grave, staring at his name etched in stone, hearing my own voice crack through apologies.
Terrified me.
Still…
I nodded.
Nora’s expression softened. “That’s enough for today.”
Her voice gentled even more. “You did good.”
◆◆◆
When I walked out
Dad stood up from his chair in the waiting room the moment he saw me. He didn’t ask how it went. He just placed a hand on my shoulder, warm and steady.
“Ready?” he asked.
I nodded.
He didn’t let go until we reached the car.
Lily leaned against her booster seat, watching me with tired eyes full of concern I didn’t deserve. She reached out her small hand, palm up, waiting.
I took it. And held it gently.
And for the first time in days, I felt like maybe, there was a part of my life that wasn’t ruined. A version where I could still want things.
A version where I earned forgiveness instead of assuming I’d lost the right to it. Where I wasn’t drowning quite so constantly.
The storm clouds rolled overhead as we pulled out of the parking lot.