Just want to say thanks for all the replies. You guys are really, really nice.
Adam hands me the dice. He says "Your turn". I reach out and let it roll off stiff fingers. A six. The orange pawn clacks loudly on the board as I count out my six places. Another pizza slice.
What is the best letter you've ever received? I can't remember a letter. Not a 'best' one. "What does it say?" Adam asks and I turn the card in my fingers so he can read. He says it aloud. "Have you gotten any more letters from your Mom?" he asks. I have. I don't want to think about it -
"Rynn, would you check your e-mail some time tonight?"
"Sure," I'd said. "Why?" But I knew. It's the sort of thing you know but ask hoping it will be something else. Hoping she'll say, 'Oh, I sent you a link to a faerie costume site.' or 'One of my authors wrote a really interesting post. I'm going to reply, but wanted to see what you thought about it first.' She didn't say that, just said: "It's no rush, just some time tonight."
And I did check it. I went to the g-mail account where all the other things I want to, but shouldn't, avoid are on. Between a college ad and a scholarship e-mail was the one from Mom. I put all the pens and pencils on my desk into the pencil-cup. I moved "A Heart of Darkness" and my rewrite of "The Teeny Tiny Woman" into my backpack and got up to throw away a stray gum wrapper. I straightened the picture of Zoë and Hannah and I from the 8th grade dance. It's in a nice gray frame with the word Friends in cursive at the top. Zoë gave it to me. I hardly know her now. Same with Hannah. I can go weeks without seeing them.
I contemplated re-braiding my hair.
I shook my head, took a breath, and opened the e-mail -
Adam is waiting. Silence. My fingers scrabble against my skin. They scratch at my knuckles and dig into my palm, running along a recent scar as if searching for the edge of a scab to tear. I stare at lines, tan with black shadows. Only later does it even register that I am staring at the closed blinds on the door's window. "I got some letters." I tell him,
"What were they about?"
Emma. They were about her. My sister. My sister. Emma. She read my diary, you know.
Once upon a time when I was in 8th grade - four years ago. When I'd returned to cutting. When Mom thought I had stopped. She read my diary - red and yellow Griffindor crest on the front. Her in a teal blue room crying on her bed. Me: awkward, thankful she'd read an old journal. Me saying 'cutting isn't a good thing' and 'I'm done.' Telling her from across the room in a whisper-small voice that I am "over it". Me: lying.
And a modern image. The back of a foreign hand in a white truck's passenger seat. A side glance with purpose. Mom's words "She told me it was a berry bush… I don't believe her. Do you?' Do you? Do you? Do you?
Crisscrossing lines, small. A safety pin could do that. Light lines. Light cuts. Cuts. Cuts. Cuts…
I am loosing myself in the tan and black lines. My eyes scramble over the cherry blossoms raining in a diagonal fall. My fingers are pinching. It doesn't help. I can't tell him. I can't tell him. I just can't face it. I've never even written it down. Not even in Runes - safe, secret runes in a secret journal in a secret place. No. No where. I don't name it. Don't put words to it. I look at Adam. His dark dark blue shirt over a white shirt with a pointed collar poking out. Slacks with a line down the center of each leg. Black shinny shoes - business man shoes, but he makes them Good. He is looking at me. I - I have nothing to say. He is human. He is human. He is a good, good, person and he is not Mind-Adam. He is not the completely 100% safe Mind Adam that I can tell anything to because it's just an Idea. No, he is Real Adam. And Real Adam is… not completely safe. Because -
He said to trust him. Sort of. He said that a counseling relationship is "built on trust". He said he understood that it might be hard for me to trust him since he will be leaving - he is a Graduate student. Like a student teacher. But time isn't the problem - not all of it. I don't think it's even most of it. I am scared of him leaving - I don't think about that either. But…
There is a… rule in me. Rules. An ugly, dirty-yellow colored membrane around my thoughts that says
Don't tell and feels like
Major Bad Things will happen if I tell. It doesn't have words. It is just… a feeling. A powerful, powerful, irrational-but-controlling feeling.
He prompts me: "Volleyball?"
And I remember other letters. A smily face with long hair in green ink. "Yeah," I say. He asks from who. I think that is weird. "From Mom," I say. They are all from Mom. Only from Mom. I thought he knew that. He asks me how they make me feel. He helps too, prompts me with words when I struggle to find them Inside me. And then he says "Guilty?" and… it is Right. "Yes." I tell him. Guilty. Guilty for not playing enough. For not being athletic enough or good at volleyball. For being lazy and quiet and feeling bad and playing bad and practicing poorly. For being stupid and being scared crazy to sit side-by-side with coaches and players in short sleeves and coverup that doesn't really work. I feel guilty for failing and for letting my grandparents sit through a game on the hard, mean-to-arthritic-bones bleachers and not see me play. I feel guilty for not being Good Enough. Not Good Enough. Not Good. Not ever.
But Adam asks if there were more letters. And I am silent because the temporary peace from The E-mail is gone. And I am silent for a long time. Silent and fidgeting. I realize my legs have been vibrating up and down the whole time. I am moving moving moving as if I can move right past the question and avoid it forever. Finally I say, "No. Just those." And I know he knows I'm lying. And I shouldn't have lied.
Trust. But… I just can't talk about it. If I say it, he'll want to hear more. More and more and I can't. I just CAN'T. So I let my lie hang in the air. He takes up the dice again. It's his turn.