Rose shovels a light layer of snow into the trashcan, and the fire hisses and smoke plumes in the air. She tosses the shovel to the side and smacks her hands together to clean off the dirt. When she sees me watching, she nears and tightens my coat around me, finding the hooks to snap it closed.
“Thank you,” I tell her, “for these three months.”
Her eyes flicker to mine. “You did all the work.”
“Not true,” I say with a small laugh. She found my therapist. She decorated the house. She spent more time helping me than I can even add up. “I’m happy I’m here.”
“Me too,” she says, her eyes softening again. She’s starting to get good at that. Her arm wraps around my shoulder. As we go inside, I know that the future may not be so easy. I know that there will be more issues to deal with.
But I can’t imagine going back to how things were.
Now it’s time to start building relationships.
I think I’m ready.
{12}
Lo comes home tomorrow.
I don’t think my brain can process anything else for the day, yet I’m sitting in Dr. Banning’s office trying to go over some heavy topics before Lo returns. My poor brain is about to emergency eject right out of my skull.
But I don’t want to quit, not when I’m so close to having some sort of breakthrough about my addiction. I feel like I’m on the verge of answers. I just need something to click.
Dr. Banning runs a hand down the side of her short black bob, her eyes intent on her notepad for the moment. My fingernails are bitten down to the beds, and I rub the tops in an attempt to ease the sting. It only hurts more.
“Lily.” Dr. Banning finally looks up and I meet her gaze. She gives me a warm consoling smile and I relax a little. “You told me you were having a housewarming party. How did that go?’
“Fine,” I say, running my hands on my jeans and inwardly cringing at the word. Fine. Such a stupid word really. It feels empty and weightless. It’s the kind of word you use to hide the truth.
“And your parents know that Lo will be returning home from rehab. How do they feel about him living with you after all of this?”
I mull over the question, hearing my mother’s response instead of my own. “Work it out.” Three words that had me more confused than anything.
“They’ve always approved of our relationship,” I tell Dr. Banning. “Rehab didn’t change that. I’m not sure anything would.”
“What if you told them about your addiction?” she questions.
My stomach churns at the very thought, but I imagine my mother with her cold judgment and my father’s shame for having a dirty, disgusting daughter. I couldn’t…
“They wouldn’t understand.”
“How do you know?”
I try to think of an answer better than I just know. But I can’t.
Dr. Banning leans forward a little in her chair and asks, “What about the housewarming party, really? You’re in your new home with your friends and your family, but Lo isn’t there. That has to be difficult.”
“Shouldn’t you be asking me about sex?” This question has been my go-to digression tactic.
“We’ll get to that later. Right now, I want to talk about the party.” Obviously, she’s picked up on my strategies. I end up giving in.
“I felt awkward,” I mutter. “But I always feel awkward so it really wasn’t much different.” I scratch my arm, but without any fingernails it’s more like rubbing than scratching.
“Why would you feel awkward around your family?”
I have so many secrets, sometimes they feel like they’re crushing me from the inside out. Keeping my addiction from my family has always put this intangible gap between us. But something stops me from telling Dr. Banning. A lump lodges in my throat as I blink a couple times, utterly confused.
Because I think I know…I think I know that I’ve always felt this way, even before my addiction. Before there were any secrets at all.
I try to remember the mornings where I woke up in my own house. Where I clambered downstairs in my pajamas to have breakfast with my family. I can smell bacon and eggs, and I can see Lucinda standing over the stove asking me if I want mushrooms or tomato in the scramble. It’s not the right memory though. Our chef was named Margaret. Lucinda cooked for Jonathan Hale.
“It’s not right,” I mutter under my breath.
“What’s not right, Lily?”
Let me think. Nights. Nights were at my house. But that was before I left for Lo’s to hang out and sleepover. Yes. I’m what…seven. I can see the television screen with silly cartoons, and I hear Poppy playing the piano in the background. Rose was on the floor, reading the first Harry Potter. My mother’s heels clapped into the room and she looked between me and Rose. She strode to the bookshelf and came back to jerk Rose’s novel from her grip, replacing the magical world with To Kill a Mockingbird.