66. Lyla
Chapter sixty-six
Lyla
Dr. Riley Arden’s office was comfortable. There were two oversized couches to choose from, and she even had the fluffy pillows I always admired at TJ Maxx. She provided good lighting by pairing her giant window with sheer curtains, and a cute lamp sat next to the couches. It was a much better setup than I expected.
“Was there a specific topic you wanted to discuss today, Lyla?” Riley asked, leaning against the back of the couch.
I crossed my legs. All I had done so far was confirm that the information from my intake survey was accurate and provide her with some reasons why I wanted to see her in the first place.
She smiled reassuringly. “It can feel overwhelming sometimes trying to pick something to start with. Would it help if I asked a question?”
I nodded.
“You mentioned feeling overwhelmed last time you went out with friends. Can you describe this feeling?”
I played nervously with my hands and swallowed. Whenever I tried to put my feelings into words, I struggled. The only way they made sense was when I was in the middle of experiencing them.
“My chest gets tight,” I explained. “It’s almost like there’s all this energy that I don’t know what to do with, but all I want to do is find a place to make everything slow down and stand still. I shake, and sometimes I get dizzy. I feel like I’m going to throw up, but since I can’t, the feeling just sits in my stomach. I can’t get a deep breath; like no matter how much air gets into my body, my heart just doesn’t slow down. I feel cold and hot at the same time.” I realized I was rambling and looked up.
Riley met me with a soft expression. “Would you describe that as a panic attack?”
“Panic attack?” I echoed, thinking back to my conversation with Deacon. “I’m not sure.”
Riley leaned forward and laced her fingers. “They can be triggered by something happening around you or nothing at all. What you described sounds like a very real experience with a panic attack.”
“Lovely,” I groaned.
She offered me another award-winning grin. “Whenever that happens, do you feel like you have things that calm you down? Are there certain things that do or don’t work for you?”
I thought of how I bumped into Deacon’s chest that night at The Attic, and the admission rolled off my tongue. “My boyfriend Deacon was there. Being near him helps.”
“And how did Deacon make you feel?”
A lump formed in my throat. “Safe.”
Jesus, Mary, Joseph, what was Riley pumping into this room?
“Are there other people you feel comfortable going to when this happens?”
I nodded again. “My mom and my friend Charlie both know about the . . . panic attacks. Talking about them helps, and trying to explain why I feel them coming on in the first place. Deacon was the first person I talked to about them. ”
“Let’s talk about when they first started happening.” Riley picked up her notebook without breaking eye contact. “You mentioned in your intake survey that something happened in high school with a boyfriend. Is it okay if we talk about that event?”
I rubbed my face with my hand and peered out the window. I wasn’t expecting therapy to be so exhausting. I just talked through a layer, and already, Riley was peeling up the next one.
We spent the next twenty minutes talking about Hunter. Riley didn’t interrupt with questions or ask me to go into more detail about the parts I skimmed through. It felt good to talk through it to someone outside my circle, and when I finished, she didn’t look at me like I was someone to feel sorry for.
“I’m sorry you went through that, Lyla.” She placed her notebook on the table and picked up her mug. “Much of what you just shared with me is common for people who have been in a similar situation to feel.”
My eyes narrowed. “Really?”
“Absolutely. When things happen to us or we experience something triggering, it’s easy to feel alone. These events we go through . . . they place us into clubs we don’t want to be a part of. No one wants to be included, but for some people, it’s comforting to know they aren’t alone. There are a few support groups I can get more information about for you if you’d like. You can request it from my office online anytime.”
“That’s good to know,” I murmured.
“It sounds like you’ve built a good support system,” Riley offered. “You also mentioned in your survey that your boyfriend gave you the idea to look into therapy? ”
“Yeah.” I nodded again. I was starting to feel like a goddamn bobblehead. “He still goes sometimes. He actually helped me make the appointment.”
An overwhelming sense of emotion washed over me as I looked around the room. Did Deacon sit on a couch like this one when he went to his first session? Had the therapist probed him with questions about Dominic? Did they ask him why he was there in the first place when the survey provided all the information? Did he even fill out a survey?
The questions flooded my headspace, and before I knew it, I was blinking back tears.
“Tissues are behind the plant,” Riley said, pointing to the end table beside me.
We fell into a moment of silence as I formulated my next sentence. The layers I had waiting for Riley could wait. The only thing I had on my mind sat right on the surface, a surface I didn’t know how to clean since I spent so much time staining it with reasons why things couldn’t work. “I have a topic I’d like to talk about if we have more time?”
“We have twenty minutes,” she said. “Let’s go for it.”
I relaxed into my seat, and a weight shifted in my chest. In about an hour, I was going to see Deacon. I knew what I wanted, and I needed help figuring out what I was going to say.