Chapter 7
Celeste
The drive to the community center isn’t too bad since it mostly takes back roads, and I find it with no issue.
When I had my sentence reduced, this was one of the in person courses I could take to satisfy my requirement.
The judge wanted me in a community setting, rather than doing it over Zoom, and it’s perfect that it’s pretty close and usually works in tandem with the local jail.
By the time I park just before eight, the sun is getting lower, casting the sky in a kaleidoscope of swirling purples and pinks.
The landscaping near the entrance is lush with rhododendrons and fragrant hydrangeas, bumblebees lazily buzzing among the blooms before they settle in for the night.
I take a deep breath of the warm summer air before I open the front door.
It’s clear this is not going to be like the course my foster parents Jack and Bev tried to get me to stick with when I was a teenager.
That one was a very cut and dry, strictly individual course where the woman who led it didn’t seem like she wanted to be there.
If she didn’t want to be there, why should I?
Already there is a completely different vibe to this course.
It’s very community driven, and there’s some humor from the start with that sign.
A couple of stragglers come in after me as I’m grabbing a banana, and I see the woman who is clearly the leader of the class sitting at the head of the table taking a quick head count.
There are two other women here besides me, and four men, all of us completely different shapes, sizes, and colors.
Everyone is going to be speaking about their anger from totally different perspectives, and it actually has me a little excited to hopefully learn.
“Ok, looks like we’re all here! Let’s get started,” she calls in a surprisingly deep and raspy voice, like she’s been a long time smoker.
Her grey hair is in a frizzy bob, and she wears no makeup.
“I’m Phyllis, and this is the first class of our anger management 10 class course.
Each of you is here on a court-mandated sentence to build a sense of community by doing an in person class where we can all learn from each other,” she goes on.
Everyone nods along as we all take our seats to listen.
Phyllis begins handing us each a packet of papers emblazoned with the name of the course on the cover.
I leaf through the information such as breathing exercises, recognizing triggers, and regulating emotions.
“Tonight’s class will go over some of the basics that you see here in the packets I just handed you.
We’re going to discuss identifying your triggers, breathing exercises, coping mechanisms, and other methods to calm yourself down when you feel the anger welling up inside you.
After we get a couple of sessions in as a group, I’m going to be working with each of you in one on one meetings so that you have a completely individualized assessment and action plan.
In the tenth class, we’ll have a big recap to go over our progress and discuss what we’ve learned. Sound good? Any questions?”
Phyllis is met with silence, just a lot of nodding to go with the vibe everyone seems to have of simultaneously wanting to get going with the class and wanting to go home. She rolls with it good-naturedly and continues.
“All right, let’s get started. I’d like to go around the room to have you all introduce yourselves, and share anything you’re comfortable with about why you’re here, as well as what you hope to get out of it.”
The man next to Phyllis is first, and introduces himself as Aiden.
He was sentenced to do this course because he trashed his office at work when his now ex-wife had divorce papers delivered.
His hope is to get better so that she and he can at least be civil enough to amicably co-parent their children.
The rest of the stories are in a similar vein, people who got caught up in a moment when something triggered them, and paid the consequences.
I squirm when it gets to me, every instinct in my body telling me to hide.
Reliving the night that landed me in prison, and thinking about my time in the correctional facility, makes my heart thump rapidly against my ribs.
The feel of that disgusting man groping my ass, the crunching sound of my fist breaking his nose, his gloating sneer at the trial when I was convicted, and four months of living in a cell, will forever be etched in my psyche.
The facility wasn’t completely horrible, per se.
Since I behaved and kept mostly to myself, I avoided the worst. Not all of my fellow inmates were so lucky.
One of them was assaulted, and it triggered me so badly that I called Tania in tears.
The thought of what that inmate went through, and the possibility of me experiencing more unwanted touch, had me nearing a mental breakdown.
Tania talked me through it, and put me in touch with an experienced defense attorney that Carlo knows through his lawyer dad.
It’s what spurred me on to fight the charge and try to get out.
The lawyer, Damian, was so incredible that he got the charge lowered to a misdemeanor, and my sentence reduced to the lovely class I’m sitting in right now.
Sharing these details that still make me shudder is going to be torture.
My mind then flashes again to those couple of times my foster parents put me in therapy and anger management.
I was in too much of a haze, too stubborn to do the work as a teenager.
They gave up after that, writing me off as a hopeless case but still doing their best. Frankly, I’m still surprised and grateful for how much they did try to help me, because they were the only foster parents who even remotely gave a damn about me.
I don’t want to be a hopeless case anymore.
At thirty years old, it’s time to grow the fuck up and put in the work if I want to have any kind of fulfilling life now.
My breath shudders out of me before I begin.
“I’m Celeste. Six months ago, I was at a bar, and a man approached me to ask if I wanted a drink.
I refused him politely, but he kept bothering me and groping me.
After the fourth ass grab, my trigger was finally pulled to the limit and I snapped.
Unwanted touch from men is my biggest anger trigger.
I decked him and beat him up enough to knock out teeth and break his nose.
It turns out he’s a well connected state senator’s son, and I received the maximum sentence of three years in prison for aggravated assault.
My foster sister and her boyfriend fought to get me another trial with a better lawyer.
Because of how much he provoked me, my charge was reduced to simple assault, with a sentence of these classes and community service.
It’s at the animal shelter, which I love, since animals are better than people.
I was incarcerated for four months while that all played out, and now I’m here.
I’d…,” I take another breath before I finish.
“I’d really like to get my life on the right track, and working on my anger issues is step one. ”
Phyllis nods approvingly, and thanks me for sharing.
Six other sets of understanding eyes regard me seriously, but without judgement.
They murmur their thanks for sharing as well, the same as we all did for their own stories.
It feels surprisingly good, and validating, to be here among people who have the same struggles I do.
We’re all in the same boat and trying to be better.
“Good for you, flattening that creep,” the woman next to me, Maya, leans over to whisper low enough for hopefully just me to hear.
I bite my lip to keep from letting out a surprised laugh.
We might be kindred spirits. She shared her story just before me, telling us how her son was getting bullied.
The mother of the bully had the audacity to call her son a racial slur when Maya confronted her.
Needless to say, that didn’t go over well with Maya, and now she’s here.
Phyllis doesn’t miss anything, though. “Maya, we don’t encourage the anger like that,” she mildly admonishes.
“One of the most important things we can learn here is that yes, getting physical retribution feels good in the moment, but it doesn’t help anyone or anything in the long run.
I can’t stress enough how it’s perfectly valid to feel anger.
It just needs to have a healthy outlet. We’re going to work on acknowledging the anger, and the urge for violence, before using our toolbox of tricks to defuse it,” she goes on in that deep rasp.
We keep going until the time is up. Each story and response brings more understanding and that feeling of kinship, that we’re all in this together.
All of us mingle briefly afterward and encourage each other, looking forward to seeing how we’ll all progress in the coming months.
Even the ones who seemed the most wary at the beginning of the class seem more on board now.
The magic of Phyllis. On our way out, she hands a schedule to us as a reminder of the dates we’ll be back here.
I get back to Tania and Carlo’s apartment to find them zoning out on the couch watching reality TV all snuggled together, the cats in their laps.
They look so cute and cozy, and it makes my heart twist with happiness for my sister.
She’s in her blue sleep shorts, matching worn t-shirt, damp hair tied up.
She’s clearly fresh from the shower. Meanwhile Carlo is in athletic shorts with a FedEx t-shirt, his wet hair all tousled.
I’m willing to bet I don’t even want to know what went on in the shower before I got here.
The walls in this apartment are thin, and they try so hard to be quiet if I’m in the next room, but I know they took full advantage of me being out of the apartment tonight.
My sister’s glow is a dead giveaway. A bowl of popcorn with chocolate drizzled on it sits on the table in front of them, which is one of Tania’s favorite snacks that I used to make for her.
“Hey!” Tania says brightly when she sees me walk in, while Carlo smiles at me with a wave. “How was your doctor’s appointment and anger management?”
Tish and Gomez jump off the couch and circle me, butting up against my legs and chirping their greetings. I bend down to give them love while I answer.
“It’s definitely endometriosis, just like the nurse at prison and I both thought.
Hopefully new hormones will help. Anger management was better than I thought it would be.
You would have cracked up, there was a sign by the snacks she put out that said, ‘Don’t let your anger become hanger.
’ I thought of you, you constantly hangry little goblin. ”
She throws her head back with a cackle, and Carlo’s booming laugh joins it.
“That’s amazing,” she wheezes. “In all seriousness though, do you think it will help?”
“Phyllis, the woman who runs it, is great. The other six people in the class seem like they’re nice enough and willing to do the work. I think it’ll be good for me,” I tell her honestly.
Her face completely softens, and she gets up to hug me. The comforting smell of her floral shampoo envelops me as she squeezes the life out of me. I squeeze her right back, a lump forming in my throat.
“I’m so proud of you, Cece. This is a huge step, and you’re going to crush it,” she breathes into my hair.
My heart pinches painfully. I want my little sister to always be proud of me, and to be a good example for her.
I’ve failed her so many times, and my mantra to her has become, “Do as I say, not as I do,” any time I’ve screwed up.
Landing in prison was absolutely my biggest screw up, and it still breaks me when I think about the regular visits she made, having to see me in cuffs and shuttled around by a guard.
The tables have turned from me shielding her from the abusive foster brother we had in the first home we were in together, taking the fall when we got into mischief, and teaching her as much as I could about being safe out in the world.
Now she’s nurturing me, and selflessly giving me a safe place to land in this wonderful life she’s built after my most trying experience.
“Thanks, Nia,” I whisper back.
Carlo hangs back on the couch to let us have our moment, but when Tania pulls away, he gives me a thumbs up, his eyes looking suspiciously shiny.
“Great job,” he mouths. I could do much, much worse for a very possible future brother-in-law.
His face turns to Tania with so much obvious love as she rejoins him on the couch, settling into his side with an affectionate pat to his chest. Claws dig into my skirt as Tish scales my body to chirp her demands for attention on my shoulder.
Gomez jumps back up onto the couch to sit in his BFF Carlo’s lap.
I hang out to watch TV with the sweet little family of four my sister has made for a bit, trying to not feel like a fifth wheel, before we all decide to shuffle off to bed.
We’ve somehow managed to work out a good schedule for the sole bathroom in the apartment, and I hop in first. A longer shower relaxes me, the tension in my muscles releasing under the hot spray before I put on my grey shorts and black t-shirt for bed.
It’s as though I’m a wrung out wet rag, or a limp piece of overcooked spaghetti when my body finally flops onto the mattress.
It has been a fucking day, both emotionally and physically.
The sounds of Tania and Carlo laughing and brushing their teeth together drift under my door as I try to read a few pages of the thriller book I’m enjoying before I crash.
These two need their space, and to not have me hanging around while they’re still figuring out their new relationship.
I love them both so much, but I’m overstaying my welcome after over six weeks of their hospitality.
My thoughts churn over Gage’s proposed plan, and what it could mean for both of us.
Marriage has never been on my radar, but he’s right that it’s perfect because it never has been for him either.
I could move out of here, get health insurance through his plan, and help him get his beloved bar, all with one simple piece of paper.
Neither of us would allow any feelings or confusion to happen, right?
We’d simply be two friends helping each other out.
In spite of how tired I am, I slowly, fitfully, drift off to sleep with Gage’s deep voice asking me to please marry him playing on a loop.