Chapter 31 OLIVIA
OLIVIA
TWO MONTHS LATER
It’s the first time in years my father has hung anything Christmas related in the house. But there’s a tree in front of the window—granted, undecorated—and he’s got mine, his, my brother’s, and my mom’s stockings hung by the fireplace, the fire roaring underneath.
It’s not much, but it’s enough and for the first time in years, I feel a sense of peace wash over my soul. Something that has been void in my life for so long.
“Where are you going?” My dad asks, watching the news with his coffee in his hand, looking over at me as I slip my shoes on. “I thought therapy wasn’t until tomorrow?”
I look up at him and smile, watching him as he observes me carefully.
Ever since everything happened, I’ve been more intentional with spending time at my dad’s.
Every Sunday, I come over for breakfast, just him and I, and we normally just hang out on the couch and watch football all day.
It’s nice, honestly. Especially now that not everything is as doom and gloom.
“Yes, Dad. That is tomorrow,” I tell him.
“Can I just say that I honestly assumed that after the fourth or fifth session, you’d have given up by now,” he quips and I roll my eyes.
Surprisingly, I’ve been enjoying my new therapist. My sessions don’t seem so pointless now that I have an answer for everything, now that I know what was wrong with me after all this time and now that I know the trauma that I have to deal with.
Of course, getting here wasn’t easy. Especially after finding out that the pills I’d been stealing from my dad’s were actually antidepressants for me.
Something that he hid from me—slapping a fake label over the real one once he got them out of the bag—because he didn’t want to trigger something in my brain that could cause me to spiral, seeing as I hadn’t ever remembered being diagnosed with anything in the first place.
And once he found out I was stealing them, he just let it be, knowing that it was the only way I’d take them.
It took me a minute to process the diagnosis I have, the one I’d been given over four years ago but can’t recall.
Dissociative amnesia. Otherwise known as trauma blocking.
It was described to me, essentially, as my brain shutting down.
An attempt to suppress memories to cope with the distress and blocking them out entirely as a defense mechanism to protect myself.
To shield myself from the flood of emotional damage associated with a traumatic experience.
In this case, the night my brother was murdered.
But mainly, the moment on the cliff with Seren.
My brain responded to the pain I’d felt by tearing anything to do with that night, with Seren, away from my mind and treating it as if it didn’t happen.
Because in my brain, I was wired to believe that Seren’s death was my fault.
So every memory from that weekend with Seren was erased from my mind, locked away so that I didn’t have to suffer from that pain of feeling like it was my fault anymore.
And the memory with Declan was just as traumatizing, knowing that if I had held onto that memory after finding his body, it would destroy me. And it did.
My brain just wanted to protect me.
There is no real cure for the diagnosis.
Which is likely why I remember my first psychiatrist recommending I revisit the Pines, the only way to jog those memories.
And the antidepressants help with the result of such trauma, a preemptive attempt to unwind the potential depression I’d spiral into if the memories ever did resurface.
However, I later found out that the antidepressants I was prescribed can also impact your dreams through REM sleep, inducing different dream emotions which can lead to both pleasant dreams and terrifying nightmares. Some seem real but also disillusioned.
That’s when I learned what my nightmares were trying to tell me.
They were an anchor to that night with Seren on the cliff, my dreams trying to counteract the amnesia, reminding me of that pain I’d lived through.
But they were distorted due to the meds I’d been taking, which I later learned are very strong meds. Meds that I know longer take.
“Actually,” I start as I stand from the couch. “I was thinking about going to the cemetery,” I state.
And the very thick and tangible flow of sorrow fills the room, both mine and his.
“You know it’s okay if you’re not ready,” my dad tells me and I know he’s just trying to make me feel better for having not gone these last few months. Because yeah, I wasn’t ready. But this morning, eating breakfast and watching football, I just felt this urge to go.
I might drive all the way down there and change my mind, but while the feeling is strong, I want to act on it.
I give an understanding smile to my dad before walking over and kissing him on the cheek. I let him know I’ll call him when I’m done and then I head out the door.
As I grip the steering wheel of the Beetle, I feel a pull. It’s almost like a magnet. I feel it every now and again, urging toward something that I just can’t put my finger on. But oftentimes, it brings me back to that night. Two months ago.
Sometimes I intentionally block out certain pieces while the others thread themselves into my skin.
And then some days I forget about those parts when the other memories that have faded come seeping back through cracks.
It’s like stepping through one door of awful memories, getting trapped in that room for a little while and then escaping just to enter another room.
The amnesia fades in and out, but after recovering my memories from that night four years ago and after everything revealed itself, I feel at ease knowing that I no longer have to suffer silently, knowing that I am free and clear of the guilt my brain tried to protect me from.
Guilt I made myself believe I deserve all along.
But as I stare up at the gates of the cemetery—the old rusting wrought iron bars holding in the essence of loved ones that have been torn from the very life they lived on this Earth, only to rot under it—I start to feel that modicum of guilt again.
You all deserve to die the same way you killed Seren.
Those are the words that play on repeat. Pulling me back to the way it felt to finally remember everything.
That night has shaped me. Shaped me in ways that don’t even feel real anymore. Shaped me in a way I’ll never forget even when I want to.
I realized that part of my trauma is forged from the exact thing I’d been attempting to do all those years ago .
. . forget. My brain hid painful memories from me and it left me feeling empty and broken and curious.
And then I went looking for answers. And I found them.
And then I wanted to forget all over again.
It even created some pretty unique desires within myself, which I was told is a natural trauma response for someone who tends to guard themselves from pain.
If I embrace it, it can’t hurt me. Which is why I’ve always craved pleasure from fear and pain.
I close my eyes as I rest my head into my seat, breathing slowly as I recall what my psychiatrist said to me in our last session regarding the night Jensen wreaked havoc on Thriller Nights Weekend.
Part of healing is learning how to manage that pain and the fear and whatever else you felt that night and embracing it in ways that will cultivate this new you.
Because whether you like it or not, you are not the same person you were.
You may talk the same and walk the same and look the same, but underneath the skin you wear are buried feelings and faded memories that make up who you really are.
But you can’t tackle that part of you and you can’t confront those things if you keep trying to push them down, forgetting how you even felt at all that night.
Trying to forget is not the answer. But don’t overwhelm yourself.
This week, before our next session, you should pick one thing that comes to the front of your mind when you think about that weekend.
Or even just that one night. Whichever memories are prevalent and stick out the most, what is the one feeling that you feel bigger than anything else, the one that you’ve been trying to avoid this whole time.
My breath hitches, my heart trembles with emotion as my mind soars into the memory that I haven’t been able to let go of.
I felt so much guilt for so long. From the argument with my brother, to the fight with Seren, for not seeing the fucking signs or for not being available enough to know them better.
Those two moments from the night of their deaths have haunted me.
And of course, I blamed myself for so long for Seren’s death, I just didn’t remember it.
And I felt guilty for not feeling guilty.
But more than anything the one thing that refuses to leave me, the one feeling I feel the most above all . . . is vindicated.
And the reason I feel that way is because of Trace.
I sigh, feeling my heart cave in my chest. That weekend with him, given everything he set out to do, no matter how he executed it, has never left me.
He knew what he was doing and how he was doing it.
He knew what would help me remember, he knew what would vindicate me.
And he sacrificed his life all so it was possible for me to remember that I wasn’t responsible for any of it.
All so that he could bring me back and show me that I don’t have to hide from myself anymore, even with the new desires I had and the changes that have been made to me, rewired because of that night.
He sought out to make me accept myself for who I am, and to show me that none of it was my fault.
Suddenly, I’m ripped from my thoughts when my phone rings.