Chapter 7
SERANA
“Let’s start with a life update,” Dr. Hamilton suggested as she got comfortable. She kicked her shoes off and crossed her legs before she reached for her coffee and looked at me expectantly. “What’s new?”
“Last week, I visited with my parole officer, passed a drug test, and paid off the last of my fines, so I took a day off to celebrate.”
“Impressive!” Dr. Hamilton said cheerfully. “Congratulations! How did you celebrate?”
“Roscoe and I went hiking in the canyon and then had dinner before seeing a movie.” Dr. Hamilton frowned, so I asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing at all. Although, that sounds like a normal day, other than not working.”
“It was really relaxing. In fact, I was so relaxed that I fell asleep during the movie, and Roscoe had to wake me up when it was over.”
“That leads me to my next question. You’re obviously still spending a lot of time with Roscoe. I’d like to assume that means you’re getting to know each other better.”
“We’ve been hanging out together for months now. I would think we know each other pretty well.”
“How long has it been exactly?” Dr. Hamilton asked.
I thought about it for a few minutes before I replied, “I guess I’ve known him for about five months.”
“I’d say that would be the basis for a really strong friendship if he’d actually gotten to know the real you and not the one you project to the world.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, instantly irritated that she didn’t consider what I had with Roscoe to be a true friendship.
“What does he know about you other than where you live and where you work?”
“He knows I’ve been to prison. What else is there to know?”
“You’ve obviously met his family.”
I knew Emerald was smiling because we were both aware that she and Roscoe were cousins. I’d talked to her socially many times when attending a family event with Roscoe. I’d even helped him babysit her daughter one evening so she and her husband could go out.
“I’ve met so many of his friends that are like family that the lines between who is legally related to him and who has an honorary spot on his family tree are completely blurred.”
“What does he know about your family?”
I had to think about it for a minute but finally answered, “He knows I wasn’t an only child.”
Dr. Hamilton laughed before she asked, “You know I’m not a cop, right?”
“What does that mean?”
“That’s the most evasive non-answer I think I’ve ever heard.”
“I don’t like to talk about my family.”
“I know. Do you know how I know?” Before I had a chance to answer, Dr. Hamilton said, “I wanted to talk to you about this today, so I did some research before our meeting. I looked over my notes and found that you didn’t tell me anything about your family until our twelfth session.
It took you three months to tell your therapist about your siblings.
In that session, you avoided answering my direct question about your relationship with your parents and didn’t mention them until our nineteenth session. That’s almost five months.”
“Well, since I’ve only known Roscoe for five, then I guess I’ve got a few months left to work myself up to it, don’t I?” I snapped angrily. When Dr. Hamilton just kept looking at me expectantly, I asked, “Why is it so important for me to share details about my family? What’s the point?”
“Because you still think about them. Because you’re still ashamed of what happened and how it made your parents feel. Because until you confront your feelings about your past, you’ll never be able to move forward for fear of getting the same reaction from the people that matter to you.”
“What do you want me to say?” I asked. “That I’m ashamed of what I did?
Of course I am! Am I ashamed of how bad I let down my parents?
Hell yes! I was the only one of their children to not only graduate from high school, but to go to college and graduate with a degree.
I was their last hope, and I fucked it up! ”
“What about your hope, Serana? How do you feel about that?”
“My feelings don’t matter. You know whose feelings matter?
The little girl who woke up to her world exploding around her because I’m a weak-willed dumbass who couldn’t control herself.
The woman whose child almost died because of my carelessness.
My mom who worked all day and then spent hours praying at church until her knees were swollen and bruised and she could barely stand upright to walk out to her car.
She was praying for her children to turn into something other than the worthless scumbags they had become.
My father worked his ass off to give us a home we could be proud of and then got repaid by children too selfish to give a shit that he was working himself into an early grave.
Those are the people whose feelings matter, Dr. Hamilton. Not mine.”
When Emerald leaned forward and picked up the box of tissues and then held it out toward me, I became aware that there were tears streaming down my face. As I took it from her, she said, “Finally, after all these months, you’ve given me a glimpse of true emotion, Serana. It’s about damn time.”
◆◆◆
I sat up in bed and leaned forward to rest my face in my hands before I looked out into the living room where I could see my phone on the table.
For the last thirty-six hours, I’d ignored it and the knocks on my door, lost in thought and wallowing in memories that did nothing but take me further into the sadness I’d felt since my session with Emerald this past Friday.
Luckily, we were too busy at work yesterday for me to do much reflection, and then I put in five hours toward my community service by cleaning the seed starting room and prepping trays for the work Zoey had planned for us on Monday.
As much as I wanted to sit alone in my house and keep the world out forever, I knew that wasn’t the right thing to do.
So far, I had only been introspective and hadn’t had any thoughts of doing something stupid like getting high.
For the first time in years, I was able to truly understand that wouldn’t make anything better.
I couldn’t wait to talk about it at our next meeting, because I considered that a breakthrough.
Before, it had been my go-to solution to numb the pain I was feeling - not just the physical pain, but the heartbreak I felt at how much I had let my parents and myself down.
That spiral was never-ending. Stress and tension numbed by narcotics, guilt at the thought of what I was doing, more narcotics to numb the guilt, which led to even more stress and tension at the thought of the turn my life was taking because of my addiction, and then even more guilt at the thought of what my life had become.
I knew without a doubt that the narcotics that I had let wreck my life would take the edge off the feelings I had right now, but I didn’t want that. For once, I wanted to feel what I was going through in the hopes that it would lessen the sadness and guilt that seemed to consume me.
“Nope! Get yourself together, Serana!” I roughly rubbed my face a few times before I pushed my hair back from my face. “Get up, get moving, and get to a meeting. Now!”
I got out of bed and grabbed some clean underwear before I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
Once my teeth were brushed, I stepped under the spray and tipped my face up, letting the hot water wash over me in the hopes that it would rinse away the memories and doubts that had been fogging up my head since my last session.
After a few minutes, I figured out that wasn’t going to work.
Once I was done, I wrapped my hair in an old T-shirt and then dried and moisturized my skin while I thought about what my plan for the rest of the day should be.
I didn’t know what would be best, but I did know that staying in my house alone with only my thoughts for company wasn’t good for my mental health.
If I didn’t keep myself in check, something like this could become a threat to my sobriety.
Once I was dressed, I braided my hair and put on my shoes before I grabbed my phone and my keys and took off out the door.
There wasn’t anyone around outside, probably because it was so early yet, so I decided to let myself into the seed room to make sure everything was ready for next week and maybe even get started on the watering for today so someone else could take a little time off.
Once I let myself into the greenhouse, I made myself a cup of coffee, loving the Keurig that Zoey had supplied for us to use on mornings like this, and then started one of my favorite podcasts and set my phone aside.
I was feeling better by the time the first podcast was finished, so I let it go on to the next episode before I sat down to take a break with my second cup of coffee.
The early morning sun, my strong coffee, and some physical activity had already improved my mood, so I decided to tackle something I’d been avoiding - my unread messages.
I went through the ones from my friends first.
There was one from Fiona asking if I’d like to join her for a yoga class, three upbeat texts from Ginger, and a funny meme from Taylor.
When I opened Moe’s message thread, I could see them slowly changing from sarcastic and funny to a bit worried.
When I hadn’t answered those, she became a little threatening and even said she was going to “go full-on DEA and kick in my fucking door if I didn’t answer it the next time she knocked.
” The final one said, “Listen, bitch. You’ve got until tomorrow morning to get your shit together.
I swear that if I come into your house and find your bloated, stinking dead body, I’ll bring you back to life just so I can kill you myself. ”
I wasn’t sure why that made me laugh so hard, but I was still chuckling when I clicked Roscoe’s name to see the messages he’d sent me.
My laughter immediately stopped when I scrolled through his message thread.
Hello, beautiful!