I sigh again, trying to ignore the weight in the center of my chest. My eyes are trained on the bookshelf across the room. I wonder if Doctor Delany has really read all of those books, from here I see titles with names like Freud, Yung, and Erikson. I recognize them from my Psychology 101 course from freshman year. Actually, I didn't realize I done a Psych course in freshman year, how would I even remember that considering most of my freshman year is just one big blank space inside of my head.
This must be one those weirdly random memories that I've recently unlocked. Doctor Delany said that might happen once the therapy started to work. What she hadn't warned me about is the way my memories would get all twisted up and not makes a lick of sense. Like this morning I woke up from a dream where some random man I definitely didn't know had been begging for his life, but that wasn't the weirdest part. No, the weirdest part was that I got the impression that he was begging me not to hurt him; which is ridiculous. At first I thought it couldn't possibly be something I'd remembered, it must have been just a really crazy dream but then it had been accompanied by the telltale headache that came with unlocking repressed memories.
I haven't brought it up to her because I don't really know what to make of them; there are multiple memories, most of them dreams, that have come up in the last few weeks. All of them involving strange people I'm pretty certain I've never met and unfamiliar settings, or heated arguments, and worst of all a few of them were just bloody. I'm assuming those are the memories from the night of the murders, although I think I might be confusing the different events. They might be blurring together and mixing up the details; so essentially, even though I'm basically starting to remember I can't really trust myself that much more. In fact, I feel like I'm all the more unreliable now that I've got what are meant to be memories but are actually inaccurate representation of what really happened, it's like hearing a story from an unreliable narrator… you're never really sure how far to trust the information you're getting.
"Kiera?" Doctor Delany's voice cuts through my thoughts. How long has she been speaking? What did she just say? Crap, I'm supposed to be paying attention so that she doesn't realize what a mess I've become over the last few weeks and instead I'm zoning out thinking about gruesome scenes and blood. As if I need to trigger an anxiety attack in the middle of my psychiatrist's office on a random Tuesday morning.
"Sorry," I apologize sheepishly, "I didn't quite catch that."
"I asked if there's anything that happened this week that you'd like to talk about." She repeats with a knowing look in her warm brown eyes.
"No," comes my automatic response but then I realize I'm here to talk about what's bothering me. I should tell her about the dreams and maybe she has a better explanation for me. "Actually… yes, there is."
"Okay, you seem a little distracted today. Is everything alright?" She asks, sitting up straighter in her seat. Her full attention on me again and I have to stop myself fro squirming in my spot on the couch.
"Uhhh, yes, I suppose so."
"You suppose so? Why don't you tell me what's on your mind." There so much kindness and reassurance in her voice that it makes me want to tell. Yes, the memory stuff makes me feel like I'm going crazy but Doctor Delany probably sees her fair share of crazy on a daily basis, what could I possibly say that she hasn't heard before?
"Well…" I begin, but then a voice in my head whispers that this is not going to end well for me. Lie, it says over and over again. So I do… "Connor and I broke up. Or I guess it can't really be called a breakup because we weren't really together but it still feels a lot like a breakup." It tastes bitter on my tongue, I don't want to be talking about this but the alternative could prove to be far worse. Better safe than sorry.
"Alright, how are you dealing with that?" The question seems innocuous enough, but her voice has skeptical quality that has me feeling slightly more on edge. I have to remember that she knows when I lie and even though this isn't necessarily a lie, it isn't the thing that's bothering me and she might be able to tell.
"Surprisingly well, actually." I tell her, and it's the truth. After my initial guilt fueled breakdown after our argument I haven't really even thought much about Connor. "It hasn't really affected me the way I thought it would."
"What did you think would happen?" This question seems far more important to me, what did I really expect to happen? I fiddle with the charm bracelet on my wrist, toying with the new charm Haider got me for my birthday. It's quickly become one of my favorites.
Still twisting the charm between my fingers, I look back up to find Doctor Delany watching me. "I thought I'd have another break down, maybe have a lapse in my recovery. An episode, maybe, I don't know… something. Anything, definitely more than this. I really thought there was something between us and right before we had that argument I was starting to think of us as-"
"You were starting to think of the two of you as…? Go on." The doctor encourages, giving a small nod of her head to let me know it's okay to keep going.
"I had started to think of us as a couple. I was starting to see him and I as an unit, an us; you know?" I say quietly, as if admitting it out loud would have terrible consequence, it might just. I haven't really acknowledged the things I realized during that fight with Connor and I'm not too keen on doing it now with Doctor Delany as a witness.
"Well, if you were beginning to have stronger feelings about your relationship with him why did you two break up?" she taps her pen against the edge of her notebook, god how I hate that notebook, but I focus on that as I utter my next words. It helps force them out of my throat, I'd rather choke on them than put them out into the universe.
"He accused me of having feelings for Dastan." I grit my teeth so hard, I actually hear them grind against each other.
"And, do you?"
"Absolutely not." I say in a hard voice, I hear the denial and I see that knowledge reflected back at me in the look Doctor Delany levels me. "We're a friend, that's it. I don't know why everyone can't just leave well enough alone. They were always nagging us about how much we fought when he got back. Then we stop fighting and now all of them are insinuating that we're still in love with each other."
"Why do you think everyone's been saying that you and Dastan are still in love?" Because I am, because I've always been and nothing will ever change that. They're saying it because I'm pathetic, and shameless, and apparently completely transparent.
"I don't know." She gives me a look that says 'yes, you do,' and I don't have the capacity to keep lying. I've spent so long lying to myself, denying what's right in front of my face, I can't keep doing it so, I break and I tell her everything. I tell her about the flirting and the secret touches that are just slightly too intimate for just friends, I tell her about the club and waking up next to him and cuddling with him on the couch after Connor left. I let it all spill out of me, the guilt and self-loathing flowing out with it. Suddenly, my memory issues aren't the only things weighing heavy on my chest and this somehow seems just as important.
"Kiera, you clearly care about Dastan and from what you've told me of your relationship with Connor, nothing was really set in stone. You didn't really break any rules or do anything wrong. So, why is it that you sound so upset?"
"I'm upset because Connor was right. I may have liked him, maybe I could have even loved him but I've always compared him to Dastan. Even before Dastan came back, from the moment I met Connor, the very thing that drew me to him was that he was the exact opposite of everything that reminded me of Dastan." Connor is the antithesis of Dastan; if Connor was the sun, bright and full of life and energy, then Dastan was the moon, dark, full of intrigue and allure.
"That's a bad thing," she means it as a question but her voice sounds more like she's making an observation.
"Yes, it is because Connor deserves so much better than to be compared to someone else. He's an amazing person and he's been through so much. He's strong, one of the strongest people I know, his trauma is just as bad as mine, worse even and yet, he didn't let it break him the way most people would have… The way I did." That last part comes out quite, barely a whisper into the silent room, it sounds like a crash in the stillness of night to my ears.
Doctor Delany looks at me for a long moment; I let my eyes wander back to the bookshelf. I don't want to look at her, I can't, and I can't see the pity in her eyes, the realization that I can't be fixed. "You're not broken, Kiera." Of course she has to say that, it's her job. "You're strong, you're still here and that counts for something, you're taking control of your life again and you've been making great progress so don't let this set you back."
"Yeah, thanks Doc." I say with a half-hearted smile. She sees the insincerity in my expression and I see the hesitation in her eyes. She wants to say more but she knows it probably won't go over well.
So, instead she says; "Do you think you know what you want to do about the Connor and Dastan situation."
I give a stilted shake of my head indicating that I don't know. That seems to be the only constant in my life; not having any answers; never knowing what to do or how to make everything okay. I keep stumbling through life hoping that somehow everything would magically right itself and I've just been fumbling in the dark trying to get by. That's not enough anymore, I need to fix it, I don't know what I'm going to do but I do know that it needs to be me that has to fix it. I have to start taking responsibility for the messes I make, I won't let my idiocy be the reason Connor's hurting, he deserves better.