Chapter 16
Daniela
Therapy was fine, but support groups were where I really healed. Hearing other people’s stories, sharing mine with a bunch of strangers…that was something I never thought I’d do. But you’d be surprised what you’re capable of, given the right circumstances.
I started seeing a therapist about six months after that traumatic night in college, after I could finally face it, talk about it. A few months after that, she suggested a support group. I went, not expecting much.
From listening to other’s stories, I learned that someone always has it worse than you.
I learned that everyone handles trauma differently, and that doesn’t make your methods wrong.
And I learned that some people never get over their trauma, and it consumes them.
Until, eventually, they can’t take it anymore.
I met Miles a few sessions into my monthly meetings.
There I was, sitting in our usual circle, when this gangly guy around my age strolled in there with a big grin on his face like it was a middle school dance.
I couldn’t help but stare, and when he noticed, he winked at me.
I couldn’t believe the audacity, and I kind of hated him for a moment.
But then it was his turn to speak.
And I was captivated.
Not in a romantic way, I was just drawn to him.
Miles was lively and charismatic in a way that felt almost defiant. He made people smile in a room full of sadness. That was an impressive feat.
One night after a meeting, I stood outside with him as he lit a joint—on a public sidewalk, right in front of group therapy.
“So, how long have you been coming?” He asked.
“Um…a few months.”
“Is it helping you?”
Something about the way he asked told me he didn’t expect it to help him. He just wanted to know if it was helping me. He seemed kind.
“You know what…yeah. It is. This may sound fucked up, but hearing how much worse some people have it actually helps me to stop feeling so bad for myself. ”
“That’s good. And that’s not fucked up at all.” He nodded, smiling. It was haunting. It reached his eyes, and yet there was still something missing there. Something empty.
I glanced at his arm. “What’s that?”
He twisted it to see what I was pointing at.
“Ah. That’s a pangolin. Her name is Jenelle.”
“Jenelle? Named after a real one, or…?”
“No. She just kind of looks like a Jenelle, don’t you think? I imagine she has the aloofness of an Aquarius, but the intuition of a Pisces.”
I laughed. “A pangolin named Jenelle, huh? That’s…I don’t know if I’ve ever seen one of those before…”
“You’re not the first to comment on it,” he smirked. “They’re unique for sure.”
“Any reason behind it?” I questioned. “Not that I’m one of those people who insists every tattoo you get has to have some deep meaning. Sometimes they just look pretty.”
He smirks, flicking his joint and looking thoughtful.
“Pangolins are the most trafficked mammals in the world. But they’ve been around for millions of years.
They have these hard scales, so they can just curl up into a ball when predators come around, effectively protecting themselves.
Except against humans. Humans can just walk right up to them and pick them up when they’re little balls, do whatever they want with them.
And most of them die in captivity quickly because they’re so stressed out, they won’t eat. ”
I swallowed. “I didn’t know that. Do you work with animals? Is that why you know so much about them?”
“No.” He shook his head, looking at the ground.“I just feel like one sometimes. Or I used to, anyway.”
I exhaled, realizing he just bared his soul to me with one tattoo.
After that, we slowly started staying after meetings to chat, and that turned into exchanging numbers, coffee dates, and hangouts outside of meetings.
It was always platonic. But he quickly became one of the few people I trusted.
He always had a smile on his face, even throughout most of our depressing meetings.
But I always had that lingering feeling that something deep inside of him was broken beyond repair.
He became my best friend, after Layla, but we had a different kind of bond. They got along great too, though, and we all hung out together often.
Then, a year after I met him, I got the call.
Miles and I had gone out for sushi and a movie just the night before. Everything was fine, normal.
But everything wasn’t fine. Miles had killed himself at home after our movie night.
My world shattered.
At first, it was an overwhelming amount of grief. I cried myself to sleep more nights than I could count. Then came the blame, the guilt .
I always knew there was something off, even though he smiled at the world and pretended everything was okay.
Why didn’t I try harder to help him?
Why didn’t he open up to me?
I knew about his past. He was very open about it. He’d told me about his abusive childhood, how he barely broke free as a teenager. But he’d come so far. He put himself through college, was building a life. He was doing well.
Then, after the guilt, came from anger. Still sad, but also so, so angry. And that part of me—the part that had started opening up, trusting again—it shut down.
Because if you don’t let people in, they can’t hurt you.
I knew it was wrong. I knew I shouldn’t be mad at him. He was experiencing a pain that I never fully understood. But I was young and scared, and my walls were already up.
And I wasn’t bringing them back down again.