I suddenly remembered that list Dr. M wanted me to make – five things I liked about myself. It still seemed impossible, but maybe if I thought of it as a “Five Things I Don’t Totally Hate About Myself” list then it’d be a little easier to do.
So I turned off the bathroom light and went to my room. The piece of paper from therapy was still sitting on my desk, as blank as ever. I grabbed the paper and a pen and plopped on my bed, ready to come up with some not-so-gross qualities about myself. That’s when I felt a light buzzing in my pocket.
I pulled out my phone. It was Kellen.
“Hello?” I answered, smiling to myself.
“So, how long does a guy normally wait before he calls a girl when he tells her he’ll call her later?”
“No idea,” I said. “I don’t usually get a phone call after seeing a guy, so this is kind of new to me.”
“Well I think fifteen minutes is later enough,” he said.
“Sounds like plenty of time to me.”
It was weird how you could spend fifteen minutes with one person and be ready for them to go away and leave you alone, but you could spend an entire morning with another person and suddenly fifteen minutes seemed like too long to be apart. I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but I couldn’t help thinking that I was in trouble and I couldn’t help feeling like it would be the best trouble I’d ever been in.
Chapter 26
Waiting Room Wonders
Four letters
One syllable
But what does it mean
And why do people do such crazy things
In the name of love
Fight off monsters
Walk through the dark
Bare their soul
Is that what love’s really about?
I didn’t think there was anything that felt longer than a therapy session with Dr. M.
I’d been wrong. Waiting for someone else to have a therapy session with Dr. M felt much longer.
I wasn’t sure exactly how long I’d been sitting in the waiting room, but I did know that there were 140 flowers on one of the paintings on the wall and the old woman sitting next to me had coughed 63 times. The woman’s name was Glenda and she was waiting for her husband, Harold, who was seeing some guy named Dr. Barton because he sometimes woke up in the middle of the night thinking he was still in the war and Nazis were coming after him. Glenda had told me this four times. Glenda seemed a tad forgetful.
Still, I guess counting pastel flowers and listening to Glenda cough and repeat the same story about how Harold almost strangled her one night was a lot better than spending an uncomfortable ride home with my mom. I mean Glenda was a little absent-minded, but the nice thing about that was there was no pressure to listen fully since I’d already heard the story before. The constant chatter was also surprisingly soothing. I could sit there and sort out my thoughts and if my thoughts got too loud then I could just tune back in to what Glenda was saying and focus on someone else’s life for a few minutes.
I thought about my session with Dr. M and for the first time it went pretty well. She’d been a little surprised that I’d actually done the five things list, which ended up saying:
1.)My face freckles are sort of cool
2.)I write okay-ish
3.)My eyes are kind of pretty
4.)I’m coordinated enough to be able to ride a bike
5.)I’m badass like Godzilla
Dr. M had said my list was a good start and hopefully we’d get to the point where I’d be able to take out the sort ofs, kind ofs, and ishes. Overall she’d seemed pleased, and she’d even laughed about the Godzilla thing. I’d never heard Dr. M laugh before and it was kind of alarming. It sort of sounded like a seal with a squeak toy stuck in its throat. I hadn’t been sure whether to smile or call for help, so to avoid that kind of dilemma in the future (and also never hear that noise again) I made a vow to be less hilarious during therapy sessions.
After she’d looked at the list Dr. M said she noticed I was wearing blue. At first I’d gotten upset because a person should be able to wear a different color without it making the front page of the newspaper, which was exactly what I’d told her. Dr. M said I was completely right and she’d apologized for upsetting me. After I’d had a minute to cool down she asked if there was a particular reason I’d decided to wear blue instead of black.
“I’ve just been trying to change things up,” I’d said.
It was hard to explain to people, but I felt safer in black before. Black clothes were sort of like my home and I was afraid to leave my home. I just didn’t feel as afraid anymore. I wasn’t as scared to visit the red places or the green places or the blue places, although I did wear a black hoodie over my blue shirt while I was at school. Just because I wasn’t as scared didn’t mean I felt like having a bunch of eyeballs following me and my blue shirt all day. You had to walk before you could run.
I’d gone out on a limb and told Dr. M that I’d been hanging out with Kellen and that when I was around him I didn’t feel like I had to dress a certain way or do my hair or makeup a certain way. I’d told her about how we went for a walk and ate green donuts and watched the sunrise.
I could tell she was pleased I was working on the Happy List, but she hadn’t said much about it. I think it’s a therapist thing. She was worried if she focused too much attention on it then I’d stop doing it, which was smart of her because I probably would. Instead, she’d asked how I felt about not doing my hair or wearing so much makeup that morning.
“I don’t know,” I’d said. “At first, it felt a little weird, but then it felt kind of nice. It felt free, I guess.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wearing makeup,” Dr. M had said. “But it’s about how you feel best.”
“There’s no way I could go to school like that,” I’d said. Then I asked, “Why is that? Why do I feel okay being all natural around Kellen but I’m afraid to go to school like that? I’ve known the people at school forever and Kellen and I just met.”
Dr. M had told me that it wasn’t really about how long you’ve known someone, but how comfortable you were with them.
“From what you’ve told me it seems like you haven’t really been comfortable around the kids at school for a long time,” she’d said. “Right now you’re using your makeup as a defense. You feel okay without it when you’re with Kellen because you feel safe enough to be yourself. You haven’t gotten to that point at school yet, but that’s okay.”
“Am I ever going to feel safe though?” It didn’t seem all that likely to me.
“I think when you really start to accept and respect yourself you’ll find that you feel safe no matter what you’re wearing or who you’re with,” she’d said.
I’d made a joke that if that were the case I’d be wearing makeup to school until I graduated at twenty-five.
Dr. M hadn’t made the scary laughing sound so I don’t think she found my joke particularly funny. She had, however, asked about tutoring. I’d told her it was going fine and then quickly changed the subject.
I wasn’t entirely sure Dr. M was convinced that tutoring was “going fine,” but Dr. M didn’t dictate my car ride privileges, so that was okay. The important thing was that my mom had seemed satisfied when she’d asked about tutoring on Monday, and I’d said that I was learning a lot, especially about finding the radius of a triangle. I’d since discovered that a triangle didn’t actually have a radius, but my mom didn’t seem to know this, which just went to show where I got my math skills from.
Anyways, my mom had been so thrilled by my completely inaccurate mathematical statement that I’d decided to see how far I could push my luck.
“Um, I was wondering if maybe Bree could pick me up after my therapy session on Wednesday. I know you usually pick me up, but Bree’s schedule is really busy this week and Wednesday night is the only time she could fit me in.”
I was actually shocked when my mom said that sounded like a great idea and I’d spent the
past two days half-expecting her to burst into my room declaring that triangles didn’t have radiuses and demanding that I fess up about my actual plans for after therapy. But she never did.
Honestly, the fact that my mom thought I would ever get into a car with Bree Rewins made me think that maybe she was the one who needed some tutoring, but hey, I wouldn’t have been sitting there waiting for Kellen if my mom wasn’t completely clueless.
Kellen had said he wanted to take me somewhere today but when I asked where we were going he’d just said it was a surprise, which made me nervous. I hated surprises.
I started to feel a little fidgety wondering what exactly I was going to be getting myself into, and so I decided that it was probably time to tune back into Glenda’s repeating story.
“I just feel so bad that poor Harold has to go through this,” I heard her say. This was the part where she started to get a little teary and had to blow her nose.
Sure enough, I looked over and saw her eyes swell with tears. Glenda blew her nose on the same tissue she’d used four times already. I felt kind of sorry for the old woman and I wondered why she put up with it over and over again.
“Glenda, can I ask you a question?”
“Of course, dear,” she said, wiping the tears away with the tissue she’d used to blow her nose, just as she had four times before.
“Why do you stay with him?” I asked. “Why do you stay with Harold?”
“Why, because I love him,” she said like it was completely obvious. “Harold and I have been together since we were teenagers.”
“But aren’t you scared he’ll try to hurt you again?”
“I used to be,” Glenda said honestly. “But I’m not anymore. I know it wasn’t really him. Harold would never hurt me intentionally.”
“But doesn’t that get exhausting? Always being afraid that the person you’re with could hurt you, even if they don’t mean it?”
“Sweetie,” Glenda said, giving me a soft smile. “That’s what love is about. Sometimes you get hurt, but when you love someone, you stay with them through everything – good and bad.”
I sat there quietly for a minute, thinking about this. I tried to understand, but it just didn’t make sense to me. Maybe it was because the only relationships I’d known had all ended. My father left my mom, Bree left me, any of the guys I’d been with were gone before they were ever really there. I didn’t know what real love looked like, so I couldn’t decide if what Glenda was saying was true. She seemed to think it was.
I looked up and saw that Glenda was looking at me and it was almost like she felt sorry for me.
“You’ll understand one day, dear,” she said as she patted my hand gently. Only part of my brain registered the fact that she was patting me with the same hand that was clutching her reduced, reused, and recycled tissue.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, Glenda coughing from time to time and mumbling about where she and Harold were going to go for dinner later, and me sitting and thinking about how I knew absolutely nothing about love. All of a sudden I felt Glenda lean towards me.
“Now that boy is a cutie,” she whispered. “He reminds me of Harold when we were young.”
I looked up and saw Kellen walk into the waiting room. I could feel myself smile.
“Yeah, he’s alright,” I said.
Kellen walked over to me, his smile lighting up his entire face. “Ready to go?” he asked.
“Yep.”
I glanced back at Glenda. She had a small smirk on her face (at least, I thought it was a smirk, but it was kind of hard to tell with all the wrinkles) and she was looking at me like she knew something I didn’t.
“Um, it was nice talking to you,” I said a little uncomfortably as I got up from my chair. I wasn’t quite used to the whole small talk with strangers in the middle of a shrink’s office thing.
“You have a nice time, Sweetie,” she said, still with that knowing smile.
Kellen and I walked to the door together. We were about to step outside when I heard a little cough behind me.
“Dear?” Glenda called over to me.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Kellen. I walked back over to the old woman.
“Yes?”
Glenda leaned forward. “You hold on to that one,” she said so only I could hear her. “That look you got on your face when he walked into the room – that’s how it all starts.”
And then she picked up a magazine and started flipping through it.
“What was that about?” Kellen asked when I walked back over to him a second later.
I looked back at Glenda and smiled. “She was just giving me some advice.”
“Was it good advice?”
“We’ll see,” I said. “So, are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“Not yet,” Kellen said, pushing open the door and holding it for me. “It’s a surprise, remember?”
“Ughhhh.”
The boy was lucky he was cute.
Chapter 27
More Than a Thousand Words
Laughter
Heart
Memories
Smiles and hugs
Haircuts and frowns
Hellos and goodbyes
First days of school
The day you got your first tattoo
Pictures tell stories
Beyond what you see
Portals to the past
Worth much more
Than a thousand words
“Why are we at a house with a blue fence?”
Kellen turned his head as he expertly cruised into the driveway and stopped his bike next to a screened porch.
“This is my house,” he said, a small smile on his face.
I looked up at Kellen’s house. It was two stories and white with faded grey-blue trim around the windows.
I hopped off the back of Kellen’s bike and walked over to the fence, which came up to my chest and was indeed painted the same grey-blue color as the trim. I ran my fingers along the surface and rested my hand on top of one of the wood panels, looking over on the other side. The fence surrounded a large yard and wrapped around the back of the house. Across the front yard I could see a water fountain with a beautiful garden surrounding it.
“This is really nice,” I said, honestly. “Can I just ask one question?”
Kellen sighed. “It’s about the fence.”
“It is.”
“Why? Why must you ask about the fence?”
“Your fence is blue, Kellen. I was just wondering what made you choose blue.”
“I thought you were different, Carson.”
“It’s a legitimate question.”
“I had high hopes for you.”
“Well that was your first mistake,” I said. “And how do you think I feel? I was expecting a house with a normal fence. I guess I should have known better, it is your house after all.”
“Hey, now,” Kellen said, grinning. “Don’t knock the fence. It’s a community landmark.”
“Take a right and keep going straight until you pass the blue fence.”
“Exactly,” he said.
I shook my head and glanced down just as a bright blue butterfly landed on my hand.
“Hey, look,” I said, tilting my hand.
“Yeah, we get those a lot.”
“That’s because they see your fence and think it’s a flock of their brothers.”
“Very funny,” he said. “They’re attracted to the flowers my mom plants.”
Sure enough, the butterfly fluttered off my hand and flew towards a cluster of purple flowers. I walked farther along the fence and saw that there were flower gardens everywhere, different colored butterflies decorating the petals like ornaments. It was one of the most peaceful things I’d ever seen.
“So,” I said, walking back over to Kellen. “What’s the plan?”
Kellen pulled me close to him and wrapped his arms around my waist. I smiled and placed my hands on his chest.
“What?”
I wasn’t smiling anymore.
Kellen looked a little worried. He should’ve been.
“I just thought – ” he started.
“I can’t meet your mom,” I said a little hysterically, backing away. “Look at me.”
I glanced down, indicating my highly torn up jeans and my t-shirt, which had just as many rips as well as a lovely skull plastered across the front. I didn’t know why I was freaking out so much or why I suddenly cared if someone disapproved of the number of rips in my clothes, but I did. I wanted Kellen’s mom to like me, which freaked me out even more because I wasn’t the person that usually needed or wanted to be heavily liked.
“You look beautiful,” Kellen said.
I rolled my eyes. “I look like I’ve been mauled by a bear. Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Because you wouldn’t have come.”
Okay, valid point, but still.
“That’s not true,” I lied. “And if I’d known you were bringing me to meet your mom I would have, I don’t know, worn pants with fewer holes,” I added, throwing my hands in the air.
Kellen stepped towards me slowly like he was afraid I might bite his head off, which I hadn’t quite ruled out yet, and took my hand.
“I like your pants,” he said.
“You’re a guy! You’re my – ”
I stopped. Had I been about to say the “B” word? Back it up, Carson. Back it way up.
Maybe he didn’t notice.
But Kellen’s eyes lit up and the corner of his mouth perked up in a half-smile that made me both want to slap him and kiss him for five hours straight.
“I’m you’re what?” he asked.
“You’re… you’re…”
That stupid smile was making me lose my concentration. I shifted my eyes over slightly and focused them on the tip of Kellen’s left ear.
There, much better.
“You’re not a mom!” I said. “Moms don’t like ripped clothes and skulls.”
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