Chapter 24 – Kat
TWENTY-FOUR
KAT
As the ticking of the clock on the wall grows louder and more insistent, I shift uncomfortably in my armchair. My therapist, Janet, sits across from me, her pen poised over a notebook as we near the end of our session. I can practically feel the minutes slipping away, and I find myself anxiously glancing toward the door, wondering when I can escape this confined space.
“How are you feeling about going back to school next week?” she asks as I sink further into my seat, the plush red fabric doing anything but providing me comfort.
Talk about a loaded question.
I’m beyond excited to see my friends. Tanner and I have kept in constant contact through text messages this summer, and we even went to the zoo together twice. As for Jenna, we have been texting every day, but unfortunately I haven’t had the chance to see her in person. She has been interning in Ann Arbor, and her visits have been few and far between. Despite the distance, our friendship remains as strong as ever .
Still, I can’t shake the anxiety I feel every time I remember that we’ll all be living together this coming semester. While I’m brimming with excitement over the prospect of all of my friends under one roof, the constant reminder that Elijah’s name is also on the lease makes my stomach churn.
I shrug slightly in response to her question and find myself picking nervously at my cuticles. My nails dig into the tender flesh, leaving behind ragged edges and painful reminders of my inability to control the bad habit.
“Are you excited to see Jenna?”
That question causes me to perk up as I’m reminded that while, yes, Elijah will be living in the house, so will Jenna and Marcus. No more Jenna disappearing to stay at his apartment—we’ll be under one roof. Honestly, I’m still a bit shocked that we managed to convince Marcus to live with us. He’s always been diligent about having a quiet environment with minimal distractions to get his schoolwork done—it’s why he moved out of the Lambda house, after all—but I think the trade-off is the exact reason Marcus and Jenna claimed the attic, which is separated from the chaos of the rest of the house.
“I’m excited to see her,” I say. “Her internship kept her really busy this summer.” Which, of course, my therapist already knew. Whenever the topic veers too close to what is really bothering me, I always manage to shift the conversation back to Jenna.
Jenna is a safe topic; I can handle talking about Jenna.
“And Tanner?” Janet prompts.
“Of course. I saw him a few weeks ago, but it’ll be fun to see him more,” I reply, and she nods before jotting something down.
My gaze diverts to the clock on the wall. How has it only been three minutes since I last looked at it? I’m hardly a conspiracy theory nut, but I’m starting to think the clocks in therapist offices are slow. Snail-speed slow.
“How are you feeling about seeing Elijah again after last semester?”
And alas—the question I knew she was building up to. Except I still can’t formulate an answer. She asks me in almost all of our weekly sessions, but I have so many mixed emotions about him right now that I can’t quite place how I’m feeling.
Once again, I shrug, and once again she scribbles something on her pad.
After Elijah didn’t show up to Flash Fest, it wasn’t pretty. I’ll admit, I cringe a bit when I think about who I became in the weeks following what was essentially a full-on breakdown at the realization that he ended things by simply leaving.
Yet, despite all of that, I still kept trying to contact him. I couldn’t even tell you the amount of unanswered text messages I sent; after a while, I deleted the text thread out of sheer humiliation.
He never reached back out.
With every text message or the occasional call that went unanswered, I slipped further and further into what I can only describe as a hole of despair.
I didn’t leave my bedroom for weeks. Even my usually oblivious mother couldn’t ignore the state I was in. She all but forced me to call her old therapist from when I was a kid. At the time it felt invasive, like she was forcing me to do something I clearly didn’t need to do. However, once I started therapy, I knew my mom was right.
I just wish I didn’t need to. How embarrassing is it to be so distraught over a breakup that you essentially have a nervous breakdown and are strongly encouraged to seek therapy?
“Have you looked into the on-campus therapy options like we discussed?” Janet asks, pulling my focus away from the clock.
After last week’s session, she gave me homework and told me to look into the therapy options provided by Kent State’s health center, but I failed to follow through.
I don’t say anything, but based on the look she gives me, I’d venture to say she knows what my answer would be.
“I took the liberty of printing these off of the Kent State website. They have a few different therapists on staff for students in crisis or even if they just need a therapist when theirs is back home. Read it over.”
“I’m fine,” I say as I grab the papers she proffers, pretending to thumb through the pages.
“I know. You’re leaps and bounds from where you were a few months ago. However, I worry that without the outlet of seeing me every week that maybe one day you might not feel so great.”
It takes everything in me to not roll my eyes at her assumption. You have one bad breakup and suddenly you’re the kind of person who needs a therapist.
As if she can hear my thoughts, Janet clears her throat. “It’s not shameful to see a therapist, Kat. Most people would benefit from it. Heck, I see mine every single week.”
“But you’re a therapist…” I say questioningly.
“Therapists need therapy too, Kat.” She looks down at the watch on her wrist, signaling that our time for today is over. “Please at least call to learn more about what they offer. It doesn’ t hurt to call.”
Staring down at the papers in my hand, I nod.
“And remember what we’ve been working on. Boundaries are important, Kat, even with the people we love…especially with the people we love. You deserve to feel valued in your relationships—boundaries help.”
When I step out of my therapist’s office, the summer heat blankets my skin instantly. I’ll be relieved when the weather shifts to fall, but given how the past few years have been, we probably have another few months of this hell.
As I open the mailbox in front of my house, the scorching metal handle nearly burns my hand. I quickly retrieve the mail and rush inside, relieved by the coolness of the kitchen. I set the warm envelopes on the counter before pouring myself a tall glass of ice-cold water.
Mom isn’t home, but that is to be expected as she told me this morning that Randy, her coworker, called off again. To my surprise, she hasn’t been working as much this summer as she usually does. Whether that is because she has wanted to spend time with me or has just been that worried about my mental health, I don’t know. However, it’s been nice having her around.
Setting my glass on the counter, I begin sifting through the mail. Mostly junk—credit card offers that go straight in the trash, a bill from my dentist appointment last month, a letter from the bursar’s office listing out my financial aid for the semester—and then there is a simple white envelope, unassuming but somehow compelling. I turn it over in my hands, feeling inexplicably drawn to its contents.
I stare in awe at the name in the upper left-hand corner .
Patrick Marritt.
Ripping open the envelope with little reserve, I pull out a single piece of college-ruled paper.
Hey Kat,
I hope you’re doing well. This is weird, I know this is weird. My dad, or I guess our dad, gave me this big green chest to take to college with me last year and I don’t think he even realized it, but I found a letter from you at the bottom with some old documents. It’s dated a couple of years ago, but you said it was your freshman year of college, so if I’m doing the math right I think you’re a senior? I’ve been trying to figure out how to reach out. I’m a sophomore at OSU, I’m studying mechanical engineering. Sorry, I’m not sure what to say.
If I’m being fully honest, finding that letter was the first time I found out you existed. You probably hate me for never reaching out, but I promise that I would have had I known. Being raised an only child, I would have loved to have a sister…and I guess I do. I understand if you want nothing to do with me. Hell, I wouldn’t want anything to do with me if I were you. Bu t…I hope you do, because I’d really like to get to know you.
I brought you up to my dad. He was an ass about it—if I’m being fully transparent he’s always an ass—but even more so when it came to this. My mom died about five years ago from cancer. I don’t know what she knew, but I want to think she didn’t know about you and your mom. I’m pretty good at math and I can guess that there was probably some overlap. I didn’t ask him about that, though. Just about you, but he didn’t have any information to give.
So with that being said, if you’d be willing to…and I completely understand if you don’t…I’d like to get to know you. The address on the envelope is to my apartment in Columbus. I hope you write back…but, like I said, I get it if you don’t.
Your brother,
Patrick
As I stare down at the paper, I don’t have the slightest idea of how I feel. I thought about my brother a lot when I was younger—about what it would be like to have a sibling. I always assumed that the reason I didn’t know him was the same reason I didn’t know my dad; I assumed he simply didn’t want to know me.
I came to terms with that a long time ago .
Yet, as I stare down at the letter, I struggle to come to terms with the fact that something that I accepted as truth years ago was anything but.
Dad didn’t even tell him about me? How the hell do you keep that knowledge from your child? Then again, how does he do anything he does and manage to sleep at night?
The reminder of how inconsequential I am to my father stings, but it’s par for the course. Outside of the court-mandated child support when I was a kid, I didn’t matter and I still don’t. Once I was eighteen and he didn’t have to send the minuscule checks anymore, I guess I stopped mattering in that regard, too.
Patrick, though—Patrick cares. Even if he bears the same name as his dad and my glorified sperm donor, he cares. Or he wants to, if I’ll let him.
I just spent the summer putting myself back together after the hellscape of last semester; do I really want to rip open a new wound?
The sound of the key in the front door causes me to stuff the letter under the papers from my therapist. When my mom appears in the doorway, her apron slung over her arm as she drops her keys on the table by the door, she smiles over at me.
“How was therapy?” she asks.
“It was good,” I say. I couldn’t even tell her what Janet and I talked about if I wanted to, not with Patrick’s letter searing into my palm.
As if she can tell where my attention is at, my mom looks at the papers. “What are those?”
“Just some information Janet printed out about therapy options when I’m back at school.”
She nods, and I almost think I catch a glimpse of approval. “Good.”