Chapter 19
Nineteen
Everything at Otter House always felt clean but not sterile like a hospital. Instead, it was more like when we expected company growing up and we cleaned the house more than we usually did for our weekend chores. Everything had a place, and it smelled like citrus disinfectant.
This room for group therapy was similar, but it seemed like it hadn’t seen company in a while. There was a circle of mismatched chairs that might not have had a place anywhere else in the facility, and some of the colorful motivational posters stuck to the walls were peeling at the edges.
However, I’d come to find that the people were always the same, no matter what room you sat in. It was people who, despite looking like a similarly mismatched group, were trying to salvage something from the wreckage of their current situation. Like my sister, and like Brooklyn.
“Take a seat anywhere that’s open,” John, the group leader, said to us as we walked in, his round cheeks red and blotchy like he’d run a 5K.
Just John, Brooklyn had told me he liked to be called, instead of Dr. Lachlan.
Brooklyn was right, he really did look like the guy from Jurassic Park, albeit with a Southern twang in his voice.
Brooklyn looked like he might have been more comfortable taking a seat on a cactus.
He hadn’t said much since we’d walked in, and when he took a seat beside me, he rested his elbows on his knees and wired his jaw shut tight.
He kept his eyes on the people who walked in, trying to decode their state of being.
Were they worse off than he was, or had they figured it all out already?
He forced a half-hearted smile when he realized I’d been looking at him.
“All right, let’s get started.” Just John clapped his hands and rubbed them together.
“So something I want to talk about today is self-forgiveness. I know this one isn’t easy.
A lot of people here feel like they’ve done things that can’t be forgiven.
Hurt people they love. Made choices they regret.
But the truth is”—he paused and glanced around the room, making slightly prolonged eye contact with all of us, like I was sure he’d been taught to do in med school—“beating yourself up doesn’t get you clean or keep you clean. Instead, it keeps you stuck.”
There were a few murmurs of agreement. A heavily tattooed man who looked to be in his thirties let out a dry laugh. “Yeah, well, tell my ex-wife that.”
A few more chuckles filled the room. The air didn’t feel as heavy as it had when we got here.
Just John nodded. “Of course, it’s easier said than done, but I still want y’all to think deeply on it. What’s something you haven’t forgiven yourself for, and why haven’t you yet?”
We sat in silence again, and I wondered how many people were truly contemplating what Just John had asked versus waiting for someone else to speak so they didn’t have to.
Finally, a younger woman with tired eyes spoke up.
“I stole from my little sister,” she admitted, voice tight.
“Cash, mostly. She was the only person who still trusted me, and I ruined that. She’s forgiven me, but I still think about it almost every day. ”
Brooklyn flinched almost imperceptibly, trying to cover it by shifting back in his chair and crossing his legs.
Then one of the oldest men in the group cleared his throat. “I understand that. My daughter had a dance recital when she was about six. I was drunk, passed out at home, and missed the whole thing. She’s a teenager now, and I’m not even sure she remembers it, but I do.”
Just John, like the professional he was, let us all sit in the silence for a moment. “And what do you tell yourself because of that?”
The man stared at the floor, rubbing his beard, which was patchy with gray. “That I’m a shitty father.”
Just John nodded. “Does saying that serve you at all?”
He let out a hollow laugh. “Not really.”
For some reason, Just John’s eyes found mine.
He knew I was there for support, but he searched for something in my eyes in the same way I assumed he would a patient.
Like he was waiting for a revelation to come over me, that I was the same as everyone else here in the sense that I was also deserving of self-forgiveness for the things I blamed myself for.
I was not a shitty sister because Nikki’s eating disorder had escalated to the point of hospitalization, and I was not a shitty sister for not seeing signs earlier.
In my head I knew all that, but the feeling was still there, and I had nowhere to put it all. I felt it when I looked at Brooklyn too.
“Self-forgiveness isn’t saying what happened was okay,” Just John addressed the group. “It’s saying you’re still worthy of moving on. That you’re still here, trying. And that matters.”
This time, I thought the silence that we all sat in was intentional, allowing us all to let what he’d said sink in. After a few more moments, Just John clapped his hands again. “All righty, let’s take a five-minute break.”
As people moved around and stretched, I sat back in my chair, waiting for Brooklyn to make the first move. But he stayed put, too, staring down at his hands, lost in thought.
I nudged him lightly. “You okay?”
His lips twitched into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Yeah. I—” He exhaled. “I don’t know how to do that. How to forgive myself.”
I reached for his hand and gave it a small squeeze. “Does my forgiveness help at all?”
This time, his smile was more obvious. “Yeah, it does.”
“Then we start there, and we keep doing this together. I’m with you.”
Brooklyn looked at me, something unreadable in his expression. But he kept his hand in mine. “And I’m with you.”
For now, that was enough.
>> <<
I’d put my phone on do not disturb during the session, and when I finally checked it, I had about ten missed calls and a barrage of texts—mostly from my sister.
“Jeez,” I muttered, thumbing through the texts as we walked to Brooklyn’s Jeep. “So apparently my mom’s in the hospital. She hurt her ankle.”
“Do you need me to take you over there?” Brooklyn asked as he started the car.
I wasn’t going to ask, but I wouldn’t say no. I wondered if maybe he was still trying to make up for the night of Stella’s birthday, struggling to find that self-forgiveness that Just John preached.
“Sure, thanks.”
“Yeah, anything.”
I blinked in confusion, wondering if I’d misheard him say any time. But it sank in, and I knew I’d heard him right. Anything—for me.
His mood seemed to have improved from all the forlorn dismay of group therapy, and he jammed out to Caroline Polachek on the way to the hospital, singing so badly that it might have been good.
“What’s he doing here?” Nikki hissed through her teeth as we approached her in the emergency room lobby. No Hi, no Everything’s fine, Nat, don’t worry, just venom.
“How else did you expect me to get here?” I replied. “You took my car, and I was already with him.”
Nikki scowled as she glanced over my shoulder at Brooklyn, who hung back with his gaze down and his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
A tense moment (that felt more like ten minutes) passed, and I kept myself very much in between them, like a barricade. Then Nikki took a step back, and suddenly nothing was wrong. “She’s all right, they’re getting her set up in a cast. She broke her ankle.”
“How?” I asked, lowering myself into one of the thick-cushioned paisley chairs.
“Tripped going into the community center.” She shrugged in reply. Then her eyes found Brooklyn again, who sat two chairs away from us. “So, you’re really not needed here.”
“Oh.” He sat up in the chair, looking back and forth between us. “Yeah, I guess not.”
“I’ll walk you out,” I offered. I didn’t want him to leave, but I didn’t want Nikki eviscerating him either—metaphorically, of course.
Brooklyn got up, and I followed him through the sliding double doors of the emergency room. We lingered off to the side under the overhang of the building.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted over the wail of a siren in the distance. “About my sister.”
“Hey, listen.” Brooklyn took my arms and pulled me closer, wrapping them around his torso. He reached down and gently caressed the side of my cheek before pulling me into a soft kiss. “It’s all okay.”
I nodded, feeling far too at home in his arms, and we kissed again, as if it was always the first time.
“How about you go on a date with me,” he said softly as we separated, staying close enough that his lips still brushed against mine when he spoke.
“A date?” I echoed.
“Yeah.” He finally pulled away, and his eyes twinkled in the sunlight. “Like an honest to god, hold my hand, I’ll even wear a collared shirt kind of date. Seems like the logical next move. At least, that’s what certain early 2000s rom-coms tell me.”
“I knew you paid attention.” I reached down to intertwine my fingers in his. “Well, I already like holding your hand and everything, but I won’t lie, I like seeing you get all dressed up and stuff.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, don’t get used to that.”
He kissed me one more time before backing away, smiling to himself until he eventually turned around and jogged to the parking lot. The moment I stepped back through the sliding double doors, I reeled on my sister.
“What is your problem?”
“Me?” Nikki squeaked as she clapped her hands to her chest. “What’s yours?”
“I don’t have one,” I told her plainly.
“Really? Because I happen to know you do. He just walked out.”
I sat back in the chair and pressed my hands against my thighs. “That’s—” I sighed, shaking my head to see if I could rattle out better words. “That’s kind of fucked-up.”
Not at all better, but got the point across.
Nikki put her hands to her forehead. “You really don’t see what a bad idea this is, do you?”