sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Whenever you come here, we discuss talking about your life-changing event next time, and next time never comes. I think you’ve reached a point where I can’t help you anymore unless we discuss it. You aren’t going to move forward unless our conversations progress.”
Unless she cut me open and poked at me.
She recrossed her legs. “Julian, I think we should talk about it. I think it’s time.” And then she did something she hadn’t done before. She pulled out a digital recorder, turned it on, and placed it on the table in front of me, very close to the box of tissue. “Tell me about the night your parents were murdered.”
Chapter 11
~ Julian ~
I swear my heart stopped beating then started again. Dr. Adrian’s question hung in the air while my whole body sweated, even my palms. I rubbed them against my jeans, trying to dry them.
“I can’t talk about it.”
“You keep asking about changing your visits to twice a month. I can’t do that until we explore what happened. Until I’m sure you’re coping as best you can. And part of that coping is being able to talk about it. When the memories take you by surprise—and they will, and they probably have—I want to make sure you have the tools to cope.”
“Running is how I cope.”
“I suspected as much, and I appreciate your honesty.”
“What I mean is, I don’t need this. I have running.”
“Running is like the medication. It’s a temporary fix. That’s not good enough.”
“Oh, Christ.” I rubbed my hands across my face. I pulled my hair back from my forehead then linked my fingers behind my head and stared up at the ceiling. Maybe she was right. Maybe I needed to work through this if I ever wanted to have any kind of normal relationship with anybody.
“And the girls,” she said. “I think they’re the same thing. I think you’re using them in the way you’re using running. A diversion. A physical diversion.”
I hadn’t talked about it to anyone even though it had been over three years. She probably knew that. It probably said something about it in her notes. I’d actually done okay at first. It wasn’t until a year and a half later that I snapped, but it was explained to me that the first year and a half-—when I thought I’d done okay—I was just in this state of suspended animation. A defense mechanism.
“You found them, isn’t that right?” she asked in a gentle, probing voice.
I couldn’t seem to sit still. I leaned my elbows on my knees and clasped my hands together, staring down at the table. “Yeah,” I finally whispered. “I… um, I’d gone out with some buddies. It hadn’t been that long since we graduated from high school, maybe six months or so, and we were kinda wild. And I don’t know… I came home. It was late. Like maybe after two in the morning. Right away I knew something was wrong. Door unlocked. And then inside…”
I pressed fists to my eyes, trying to block out the memory, but once it started I couldn’t make it stop. And just like that night, my hands were shaking, and my voice was shaking as I went on to describe what I’d found.
“At first the cops thought maybe I’d done it. Isn’t that crazy?”
She made a small sound of sympathy.
I looked up and the room was blurry. “You know, you see that kind of stuff—murder scenes—in a movie, but it’s nothing like that. It’s like… well, in some ways it’s not as bad, but in other ways it’s so much worse.”
“They caught the killer though,” she said.
“Yeah. Two guys. Meth heads, looking for drug money. My parents were killed for two-hundred bucks.” I reached blindly for the tissue, pulled it out, and wiped at my face.
“Do you feel guilty about it?”
“Shit, yeah. Really guilty. Like I should have been there. I shouldn’t have been out partying. I should have been there to help them. Or I should have died with them. I dunno.”
“Survivor’s guilt. That’s what you’re
“Yeah.”
“Whenever you come here, we discuss talking about your life-changing event next time, and next time never comes. I think you’ve reached a point where I can’t help you anymore unless we discuss it. You aren’t going to move forward unless our conversations progress.”
Unless she cut me open and poked at me.
She recrossed her legs. “Julian, I think we should talk about it. I think it’s time.” And then she did something she hadn’t done before. She pulled out a digital recorder, turned it on, and placed it on the table in front of me, very close to the box of tissue. “Tell me about the night your parents were murdered.”
Chapter 11
~ Julian ~
I swear my heart stopped beating then started again. Dr. Adrian’s question hung in the air while my whole body sweated, even my palms. I rubbed them against my jeans, trying to dry them.
“I can’t talk about it.”
“You keep asking about changing your visits to twice a month. I can’t do that until we explore what happened. Until I’m sure you’re coping as best you can. And part of that coping is being able to talk about it. When the memories take you by surprise—and they will, and they probably have—I want to make sure you have the tools to cope.”
“Running is how I cope.”
“I suspected as much, and I appreciate your honesty.”
“What I mean is, I don’t need this. I have running.”
“Running is like the medication. It’s a temporary fix. That’s not good enough.”
“Oh, Christ.” I rubbed my hands across my face. I pulled my hair back from my forehead then linked my fingers behind my head and stared up at the ceiling. Maybe she was right. Maybe I needed to work through this if I ever wanted to have any kind of normal relationship with anybody.
“And the girls,” she said. “I think they’re the same thing. I think you’re using them in the way you’re using running. A diversion. A physical diversion.”
I hadn’t talked about it to anyone even though it had been over three years. She probably knew that. It probably said something about it in her notes. I’d actually done okay at first. It wasn’t until a year and a half later that I snapped, but it was explained to me that the first year and a half-—when I thought I’d done okay—I was just in this state of suspended animation. A defense mechanism.
“You found them, isn’t that right?” she asked in a gentle, probing voice.
I couldn’t seem to sit still. I leaned my elbows on my knees and clasped my hands together, staring down at the table. “Yeah,” I finally whispered. “I… um, I’d gone out with some buddies. It hadn’t been that long since we graduated from high school, maybe six months or so, and we were kinda wild. And I don’t know… I came home. It was late. Like maybe after two in the morning. Right away I knew something was wrong. Door unlocked. And then inside…”
I pressed fists to my eyes, trying to block out the memory, but once it started I couldn’t make it stop. And just like that night, my hands were shaking, and my voice was shaking as I went on to describe what I’d found.
“At first the cops thought maybe I’d done it. Isn’t that crazy?”
She made a small sound of sympathy.
I looked up and the room was blurry. “You know, you see that kind of stuff—murder scenes—in a movie, but it’s nothing like that. It’s like… well, in some ways it’s not as bad, but in other ways it’s so much worse.”
“They caught the killer though,” she said.
“Yeah. Two guys. Meth heads, looking for drug money. My parents were killed for two-hundred bucks.” I reached blindly for the tissue, pulled it out, and wiped at my face.
“Do you feel guilty about it?”
“Shit, yeah. Really guilty. Like I should have been there. I shouldn’t have been out partying. I should have been there to help them. Or I should have died with them. I dunno.”
“Survivor’s guilt. That’s what you’re
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