replied.
“Would you like us to leave?” Jake asked me.
“No, it’s fine,” I said quietly. I looked back at the nurse then. “It’s just that there’s only one person that’s seen me with my clothes off and that’s my fiancé. He was killed in a car crash .”
The nurse stared at me and I could tell she hadn’t been informed as to why I had tried to kill myself.
I took off my gown shamelessly and handed it to her. She handed me a clean gown and I put it on without any trouble.
“So, tell me,” I said then. “What hospital is this?”
“Craneville,” the nurse replied. I looked at Jake and Cassie.
“You put me in the nuthouse?” I asked them angrily.
“Ava, it was for the best,” Cassie argued. “Your mom — ”
“I’d rather be dead , Cassie!” I screamed. “And what about my mom, huh? Where in the hell is she now? Is she here? Is she ?”
“Yes, she is,” someone said from the doorway. I turned around.
“Mom,” I said, slightly ashamed of my previous comments.
“I went downstairs for a minute to get some coffee,” she told me, coming into the room. “But I see you’re up and running now.”
“When can I leave?” I asked, going back to the bed and sitting down.
“Oh, you’re coming home with me tonight,” Mom replied. “As soon as the doctor runs another check-up on you. But you’ll be back here every other day for therapy for a while.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,’ I said, staring dumbly at her.
“I’m definitely not ,” she said firmly. “Yo u’re not going to pull this crap , Ava Dawn. I swear to God, I won’t let you take away all I’ve got left.”
I didn’t reply. She came over to me.
“Ava, look at me,” she said softly, putting her hand under my chin and tilting my head up so I would look at her.
“I love you,” she said. “And maybe that’s not enough for you right now, but that’s what you’ve got to work with. Don’t leave me, child. You’re all I’ve got.”
I burst into quiet sobs then and she held me to her, an unbreakable rock in the midst of a hurricane.
I went home wi th mom that night at around eight-thirty . All my stuff from Pete’s house and from the apartment I’d shared with Cassie was already there. My mom had also taken the liberty of signing me up for classes in the fall. I had no intentions of going back and I told her so right away.
“What’s the use?” I asked. “My life’s a waste.”
She didn’t argue. She knew it was my choice, but she didn’t agree with it. Maybe she thought it was just a stage I would go through until I got over losing Tyson. Didn’t she understand? I’d never get over it. And what was the point in breathing if I couldn’t really be alive ?
I went back to Craneville two days later for my first therapy session. Now, let me take a moment to explain to you what Craneville is. It’s a psychiatric hospital in Constantine a.k.a. an asylum for wackos. I’d heard all kinds of crazy things about that place. Everything from psycho serial killers to drunks wer e supposedly in that hospital, a nd now here I was, getting therapy there.
I walked into t hat office and I was instantly pissed off because I immediately like d the therapist.
She wasn’t what I’d stereotyped a therapist to be. She was mid-forties, I gu essed, with light hair, an average figure, and a very pleasant smile. She also had an extremely warm presence, which I knew would make it harder to resist her tricks…and she was bound to have tricks because she was a therapist and everyone knows that therapists just like to screw people up mentally.
“Julianne Walker,” she introduced herself, shaking my hand. “Please have a seat, Ava.” I didn’t say anything as I sat in the chair across from her. I glanced over at my mom, who was lurking in the doorway of the room.
“Er, Ava, since it’s your first time talking to me, would you like to have your mom here, too?” Julianne
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