Chapter 3 #3
“It’s the equivalent of shoving things down and not addressing them.
When people do that, it tends to explode out of them later, usually during a stressful time or when emotions are already heightened.
The goal is to avoid that, to recognize what we feel, and to understand it in a way that if it poses a problem, we can come up with a solution that's practical and healthy.”
I open my eyes and shift my head, looking at his profile.
He’s so relaxed in that chair of his while I’m ready to crawl out of my skin.
Going back there, even in just my mind, spikes my heart rate to the equivalent of a cardio workout.
“I know what I feel,” I say, “and what I’m feeling right now is that I don’t want to do this. ”
Don’t make me.
He drops his ankle and leans forward, his elbows propped on his knees while his clasped hands rest in front of them. His brows push together as he looks at me and says, “You’re capable of difficult things, Emory. And you deserve the healing that will come during our time together.”
I nibble at the corner of my lip, hating that my gut tells me he’s right. I do deserve all of that, and more. “What if I panic? What if I start to feel weird. What if… ”
He’s laser-focused on me, his sight line nipping at my neck and face in a way that has tingles spreading over my skin. It’s like there’s nothing else in the room. Just me and him. Two people who were brought together because of an almost tragedy.
“Start by giving your emotions names. Every piece, every part of you is worthy of that.”
Tears form in the corners of my eyes. I pan my head back to its original place, with my face pointed toward the ceiling tiles. Emotion clogs in my throat, in the recesses and open areas of my mind and heart.
He says those words so simply, so easily. Like they don’t possess the ability to completely disarm me. Does he say them to all his patients?
I allow my eyes to close again, my ribcage opening just a little wider as I breathe. Dr. Cole’s words are seeds planted in the burgundy soil of my heart. Pressed down with the pad of a finger and watered with the way he expresses his care and encourages me to do the same for myself.
I inhale deeply, my voice quiet in the honesty that spills from my lips. “I don’t want to have an anxiety attack.” Before my accident, I didn’t truly know what they felt like, but I do now. “Experiencing them makes me feel like I don’t have any control. Like…”
Dr. Cole finishes my sentence for me. “Like you’re back in that water.”
My eyelids flutter, and a tear escapes, sliding from the corner of my eye to my ear. I pretend like it’s not even there, not wanting to draw attention to it. A very large part of me hopes he doesn’t see it.
I’m already a broken, mangled mess when all I want to be is strong, clearheaded, and emotionally balanced.
Realizing that I’m none of the three, maybe it’s a good thing I’m here, talking about what I went through and the feelings that come up because of it.
“A person is only as strong as their weakest moment.”
“The complexity of that statement isn’t something I can decipher right now,” I admit lamely.
A short, deep chuckle comes out of him, creating a layer of goosebumps over my arms like a feather does when it lightly brushes your skin. It’s almost like it lights me up from the inside out. I bury the feeling, recognizing the aftertaste of betrayal it leaves in my mouth and all along my body.
Lance’s face formulates in my mind. Soft tufts of hair, green eyes that once spoke to me, uncalloused fingers that traced various parts of my body hundreds of times.
My stomach doesn’t dip the same way it used to when I think of him. Instead, it coils like a snake veering on the side of caution.
“Very well, Emory. Let’s start by recounting that day.”
Dread immediately grips me. “I don’t remember it all.”
“That’s okay. Pretend as if the images that come to mind are words on a page and you’re reading them out loud.”
Seconds pass and a recognizable darkness blankets me behind my eyelids, covering me in a layer of familiar tranquility.
The same kind that always comes when I can feel the mistiness of the ocean on my skin and the unforgiving scent of salt in the air.
It swirls around me, tickling my arms and toying with strands of my hair until my feet warm from the sunbaked sand.
“I took off my shoes and set them off to the side with my bag. I had just walked half a mile from the beach access point to the ending parameters of Coralhaven Beach where the bluffs are.”
“The parameters are there for a reason,” he states calmly. “They’re where you can find lifeguards on duty. You specifically went outside of that safety net.”
I recognize how that sounds. That it looks like I purposely went out of bounds. And I did, but not for the reason everyone thinks.
He adds, “They’re there so tourists know how far the lifeguards extend their duty. You knew this and you still trekked in the direction of where help wouldn’t be if you needed it.”
“Not because I didn’t want that help,” I clarify.
Dr. Cole hums, and then it hits me—nausea travels through me at the knowledge that he might very well think what everyone else does.
“After you took your shoes off and you distanced yourself from the only viable forms of emergency help, what did you do?”
Emotion claws at me. I pull in a sharp breath and try to calm the racing of my heartbeat, the twisting of my stomach, the aching that presses in behind my eyelids.
It’s like I’m standing in the middle of a stage and everyone I know is there, pointing at me while their beady gazes question every word that comes out of my mouth.
Lance’s voice pushes in, trying to convince me of an untrue reality. His parents stand behind him with those same judgmental stares they gave me in the hospital. And Dr. Miso’s words tangle into a mantra I can’t flush out of my psyche.
All signs lead to self-harm.
All signs lead to self-harm.
All signs lead to self-harm.
“I-I… I can’t,” I say, stumbling over my words as I bring a hand up to my throat. My nails dig into my skin as I work down another swallow and force myself into a sitting position. A swirliness takes over my head, similar to how I felt when I fell and sank through an unknown amount of water.
My throat tightens, my lungs burning. I pull my shirt away from my body and fan it, trying to create a steady flow of cool air as my skin heats and my armpits turn sweaty.
I squeeze my eyes shut and tilt forward, holding my head in my hands. It’s not the best idea. All the memories I do have of that day rush in and it’s all I see, all I know.
My breathing supercharges, each lungful coming in quick succession to the last. There’s a buzzing in my ears that doesn’t relent, and there’s a pain that sweeps down my entire body. Physical manifestations of the emotional turmoil I’m trapped in.
Will it ever get easier?
“You’re okay, Emory,” Dr. Cole reassures.
I can hear him stand and cross the room.
There’s a small water tank in the corner that I remember seeing, and I swear the sound of the lever being pulled and water rushing out greets my ears.
Then he’s in front of me, his shadow creeping into my line of sight when I slowly peel my eyes open and look at the floor.
He hands me a miniature paper cup before sitting back in his chair. I gulp down the water in two sips, wishing I had more.
Dr. Cole gives me the time and space I need to come back from wherever it is I just went. God, I must seem so weak to him. So incapable. So broken.
His gaze strays to the abstract paintings on the wall behind me in a way to offer me privacy without actually leaving the room when I sit up and push my back against the sofa, my shoulders slumped in defeat.
After a moment, I mumble, “I’m sorry. I just…”
“You don’t have to apologize. If there’s one thing I can promise you, it’s that this is a safe place for you to feel, say, and think what you want and need without being condemned for it.”
I let out a wistful sigh, suddenly very interested in the small paper cup still in my hands.
I could crush it so easily, make it collapse under the strength of my fingertips.
Just like me, it’s delicate and fragile.
It’ll always be that way. It’s how it was made, created.
I can’t help but recognize that we share similar qualities. I wonder if it’ll always be that way.
The thought guts me, shredding my insides into figurative ribbons. When did I get to the point of my own inner-talk reducing me down to nothing?
I’m hesitant when I ask, “Are you sure about that?”
Because I’m not sure about anything anymore.
Dr. Cole leans forward, both feet on the ground as his elbows come to lean on his knees for a second time today. He’s wearing this business casual ensemble—dark brown slacks and a black long-sleeved button-up, the buttons a replica of the ones on Dr. Miso’s white physician jacket.
“I’m absolutely positive about that. Nothing you say here will be used against you.”
A barely-there smile tugs at the corner of my mouth, lifting one side of it. My heartbeat levels out, slowing from the anxious grip that was on it a few minutes ago. I’m left with the emotionally exhaustive hangover that always follows. “We both know that’s not true.”
He sits up again and leans back. “Why do you say that?”
“If I sat across from you and said that my mission was to take my life that day, you would hold my words against me by reporting me to your superior.”
He simply looks at me, a neutral expression on his face as if he’s already heard those lines, just from a different source. My eyes flick to the mop of curls on top of his head, and the way they’re longer in the front, the overhead light giving off the brown color of his hair.
He works his therapist magic on me. “Did you go to Coralhaven Beach that day because you felt like you had no other means to an end?”
Even though I already know the answer, I actually consider his question. Maybe because it isn’t an attack on who I am as a person. He says it without malice and blame. Without a defensive suspicion that I’ve heard come from Lance’s lips.
Was I out there for that purpose? Was there this underlying need to get away from certain things in my life?
Like the newfound lovelessness that shrouds every part of my relationship with the man I agreed to marry, and the way his surname has tainted our ability to live freely.
Or maybe the loneliness that consumes me from not having anyone around me who truly gets me, who understands me, who knows me like the back of their hand and takes interest in the ideas and hobbies that mean the world to me.
My parents form in my mind, along with their absence. I used to have them, but even when I did, they were barely there. They’ve done well at caring for themselves entirely and me incompletely.
Dr. Cole pulls me back to the present moment when he clears his throat. In a way, it’s like he’s saying, “Well?”
I look at him, observing his relaxed posture, his golden eyes, and the spectacles that act as a point of coverage that block me from seeing into him.
He exists as a constant reminder that I’m not okay with myself.
I thought I was, but now, with so many things sneaking out of the shadows and coming into view…
“There were—are—things I’m…bothered by.”
His brow twitches inconspicuously, like he’s intrigued and surprised all at once that I’m giving him more. “What might those things be?”
A voice inside tells me not to share. To keep it all to myself and deal with it on my own, but I know better. That won’t help me, and it certainly isn’t going to end my therapy sessions any sooner. Whether I like it or not, I’m going to be here for quite a bit of time.
I stare directly into his amber eyes, wanting to get lost in those pools of honey, but I know as soon as I dip my toe in, they’ll transform into quicksand, and I won’t be able to get out.
I’m not one hundred percent sure I’m ready for that. For that initial slipping in, for fighting against the grain once I’m stuck.
If I couldn’t survive the whipping waves of the Atlantic current, there’s no chance in hell I’ll be able to prevail against the pull of Dr. Cole when this is what he does for a living.
He sees inside of people, through their tragedies.
He’s the black knight who slips in while the world is shadowed and asleep and you don’t even know he’s there until the sun crests the horizon.
And if that happens, I’m not so sure I’ll be able to walk away unscathed.
Even if it’s all I could ever hope for.
In this moment and beyond.