harder on her lip and
doesn’t meet my gaze. ‘So…um…would you be my counsellor?’
‘It may be a conflict of
interest,’ I say.
She exhales a deep breath. She’s
just taken the courage to ask for help, and she thinks I’ve turned
her down. It’s like a kick in the guts to me, so I quickly add,
‘With me working here, maybe it would be a conflict of interest to
act as your “counsellor”.’ I make quote marks in the air with my
fingers at the word. ‘But I could help you as a friend.’
‘A friend?’ She blinks away the
tears in her eyes and sniffs. ‘Yeah, I could probably do with one
of those, too.’
I want to get her to talk. This
is the first step, and I want to help her. I tell myself it’s
because of my job, because of who I am now, but it’s more than
that. She already feels special to me in a way I can’t understand,
let alone try to describe. I already know I don’t want to be her
counsellor or her friend, but for now, a friend is exactly what
I’ll be.
‘Even if I were to do this as a
friend, I’d still be bound by a code of ethics. Whatever you tell
me will be completely confidential.’ I push away from the counter
and sit at a table in front of it. ‘Maybe if I tell you a bit about
myself and why I became a counsellor, it will make things easier
for you to decide if you want to talk about things with me.’
I hope this will give her the
courage to talk and put her at ease. But it’s the first time I’ve
spoken about it in years and…fuck, maybe I need a counsellor, too.
No, I know I do.
And then I tell myself this is the reason I qualified for this job. This is
the reason I can help.
Her forehead pinches with
confusion.
I inhale a long breath. ‘Just
over five years ago, my sister, Mia, was raped. She didn’t report
it to the police. She didn’t tell anyone at first.’
‘Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.’ Her
hands fly to her cheeks, and her eyes widen.
‘Thank you. I was too busy
training for MMA fights at the time to notice what was going on
with her. I wasn’t at home much because I was going all over the
country competing, and I was doing a plumbing apprenticeship at the
time, too. I was too busy concentrating on my life to recognize
hers had fallen apart.’ I pause to take a deep breath. ‘She stopped
going out. She hardly spoke. She didn’t eat. She was withdrawn and
depressed.’ Guilt and anger swirl around in my stomach, churning my
guts like the ocean in a storm. ‘My parents thought she was on
drugs. She was studying at uni, and they thought she’d fallen in
with the wrong crowd. They were hard on her—having a go at her all
the time, but she didn’t tell them what had happened. She…she
thought it was her fault, as if it was something she’d done or
said. She took the full weight of the blame and the shame, and in
the end she couldn’t cope with it.’
Grace shakes her head, a vacant
look behind her eyes.
‘About six months after it
happened, Mia told me. She didn’t want me to tell our parents,
because she didn’t want them to blame her.’ I run a hand over my
hair. My eyes water, but I keep the tears in check. ‘I didn’t know
what to say or what to do to help her…’ I trail off as all the
memories come crashing back.
‘What happened?’ Grace’s voice
breaks into my thoughts.
I look up at the ceiling. ‘She
killed herself.’
Grace gasps and slaps a hand to
her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry.’
I’m sorry, too, because I
should’ve done something. Anything. I just didn’t know how to at
the time. But now I do know what to do and how to do it. ‘It was
hard to deal with, but the grief of losing her has got easier over
the years.’ I stop, because I can’t tell her the rest of the story.
It’s so messed up she’ll think I’m no better than the bastard who
did this to her. ‘Mia’s the reason I wanted to become a counsellor.
At the moment, as you know, I’m doing the grief counselling and
working with young offenders, but I
doesn’t meet my gaze. ‘So…um…would you be my counsellor?’
‘It may be a conflict of
interest,’ I say.
She exhales a deep breath. She’s
just taken the courage to ask for help, and she thinks I’ve turned
her down. It’s like a kick in the guts to me, so I quickly add,
‘With me working here, maybe it would be a conflict of interest to
act as your “counsellor”.’ I make quote marks in the air with my
fingers at the word. ‘But I could help you as a friend.’
‘A friend?’ She blinks away the
tears in her eyes and sniffs. ‘Yeah, I could probably do with one
of those, too.’
I want to get her to talk. This
is the first step, and I want to help her. I tell myself it’s
because of my job, because of who I am now, but it’s more than
that. She already feels special to me in a way I can’t understand,
let alone try to describe. I already know I don’t want to be her
counsellor or her friend, but for now, a friend is exactly what
I’ll be.
‘Even if I were to do this as a
friend, I’d still be bound by a code of ethics. Whatever you tell
me will be completely confidential.’ I push away from the counter
and sit at a table in front of it. ‘Maybe if I tell you a bit about
myself and why I became a counsellor, it will make things easier
for you to decide if you want to talk about things with me.’
I hope this will give her the
courage to talk and put her at ease. But it’s the first time I’ve
spoken about it in years and…fuck, maybe I need a counsellor, too.
No, I know I do.
And then I tell myself this is the reason I qualified for this job. This is
the reason I can help.
Her forehead pinches with
confusion.
I inhale a long breath. ‘Just
over five years ago, my sister, Mia, was raped. She didn’t report
it to the police. She didn’t tell anyone at first.’
‘Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.’ Her
hands fly to her cheeks, and her eyes widen.
‘Thank you. I was too busy
training for MMA fights at the time to notice what was going on
with her. I wasn’t at home much because I was going all over the
country competing, and I was doing a plumbing apprenticeship at the
time, too. I was too busy concentrating on my life to recognize
hers had fallen apart.’ I pause to take a deep breath. ‘She stopped
going out. She hardly spoke. She didn’t eat. She was withdrawn and
depressed.’ Guilt and anger swirl around in my stomach, churning my
guts like the ocean in a storm. ‘My parents thought she was on
drugs. She was studying at uni, and they thought she’d fallen in
with the wrong crowd. They were hard on her—having a go at her all
the time, but she didn’t tell them what had happened. She…she
thought it was her fault, as if it was something she’d done or
said. She took the full weight of the blame and the shame, and in
the end she couldn’t cope with it.’
Grace shakes her head, a vacant
look behind her eyes.
‘About six months after it
happened, Mia told me. She didn’t want me to tell our parents,
because she didn’t want them to blame her.’ I run a hand over my
hair. My eyes water, but I keep the tears in check. ‘I didn’t know
what to say or what to do to help her…’ I trail off as all the
memories come crashing back.
‘What happened?’ Grace’s voice
breaks into my thoughts.
I look up at the ceiling. ‘She
killed herself.’
Grace gasps and slaps a hand to
her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry.’
I’m sorry, too, because I
should’ve done something. Anything. I just didn’t know how to at
the time. But now I do know what to do and how to do it. ‘It was
hard to deal with, but the grief of losing her has got easier over
the years.’ I stop, because I can’t tell her the rest of the story.
It’s so messed up she’ll think I’m no better than the bastard who
did this to her. ‘Mia’s the reason I wanted to become a counsellor.
At the moment, as you know, I’m doing the grief counselling and
working with young offenders, but I
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