Ch. 4 - Friends Forever

                I wish the last session never happened.  I wish I could take back everything I said.  I wish I could take back all of the memories.  I’d give them away so easily, just to forget.  I’m not sure why it happened.  I do know, however, that I need to be more careful from now on.  I’ve never been so uncomfortable in my life.

                “How are you feeling today, Autumn?”

                Do I look sick?

                “I’m fine.”  I’m barely able to whisper.

                “We made some progress in our last session, wouldn’t you say?”  I’m not sure I’d use those exact words.  “I could tell it made you upset and uncomfortable, so we’ll bring it back up in a later session, is that okay?”  I nod.  “Good, how about we talk about your friends from school.”

                She moves on fast.  If only we were all so lucky.  Now I have to talk about “friends”.

                “You had a best friend, right?  Of course you did, everyone has a best friend.”

                “If you’re going to answer your own questions, do I really need to be here?”

                She looks like an excited puppy.  You can tell she’s new to this whole cutting thing.  I’m her first patient.  She doesn’t know what it’s like at all.

                “Autumn, can you tell me about your friend?”

                Marie was my best friend.  We met in seventh grade and instantly became best friends.  I would drop everything to spend time with her and she’d do the same for me.  We were inseparable.  I never wanted things to change between us.  Then again, change is inevitable.  When I met her, I gained a whole other family, a family that was just as screwed up as mine, if not worse.

                “What was her name?”

                “Marie.”  I always smile at the thought of her.  We had a lot of great times together.

                “How did you meet Marie?”

                “We met in school.  We had lunch together, and a mutual friend introduced us so she could ignore us and spend lunch with her boyfriend.  I’m guessing she did it so she wouldn’t feel guilty about it later.”

                “Did you have anything in common with her?  How did you become friends?”

                She asks a lot of questions.  Why does my friendship with Marie have anything to do with this?

                “We loved to eat.  I met her the year we moved into a house we were finally going to buy.  My grandpa told my step-dad to use the money from his inheritance to get us a pool, and he did.  Marie would come over in the summer and we’d spend all day in the pool.  We’d take pictures and when we were hungry we would go inside and make our favorite snack.  It was bowl of chili with cheese melted in it and pickles chopped up.  That’s what we used to dip our Dorito’s in.”

                She did it again.  How does she do that?  There I go, into another flash back, but this time it was out loud.  She knows what I’m thinking. 

                “When we got to high school, we simply grew apart.”

                That’s not necessarily true.  There’s a lot more to Marie than swimming and sleep overs.  She lived with us three times because her parents kicked her out and she had nowhere to go.  One night, she had gotten into a fight with her dad, and her dad was abusive and a drunk.  She snuck out of the house and had to sleep out in the woods next to her house in the middle of winter so her dad couldn’t find her.  She came to my house with a bruise the size of a fist on her left thigh because her dad got mad at her for dropping a piece of watermelon.  Her mom would sleep during the day and go to work at night, and her dad was always out drinking with his friends or passed out in bed.  She was left to raise her two sisters.  She had to take care of her younger sister and her older sister, because her older sister was born with Cerebral Palsy. I never told anyone from school about the time her and her siblings were put in foster care.  I never told anyone about the time her cousin raped her.  I never told.  I’ll be damned if this woman is going to get it out of me.

                “Autumn, you’re going to have to be more open with me.  I understand it’s difficult, but you need to get better.  Your mother, your father, and your sisters, they all want you to get better.”

                “Don’t tell me what I need to do.  I control what I do.  Do you see any fresh wounds on my skin?  Do you see any bruises?  Dr. Saunders, you don’t understand what it’s like living with these people.  You don’t understand what I feel when I am so ‘traumatized’, as you like to put it.  You don’t get it, Dr. Saunders.  You won’t get it, until you live with all the things I’ve had to deal with, you won’t get it.  You don’t want to know.  Do you know what it’s like inside my head every single day?”

                “No, Autumn, why don’t you tell me?”

                “I can’t do that, Doctor.”

                “Why not?”

                She’s never going to gain my trust.

                “The trust I had in the human race as a whole, left the day my father walked out the door.”

                I can’t tell her.  I want to tell someone.  I need to tell someone.  The problem though, is that I don’t know how.  It’s the only part of me that’s still left, the only part of me that hasn’t died completely.  The longer I keep it in, the worse it gets.  If I was to tell her how afraid I am, she would just laugh.  I can’t deal with the emotions that would come with it.

                “Autumn, just because one person hurts you, doesn’t mean everyone else will, too.”

                “He’s not the only person that’s hurt me.  Everyone hurts me.  I’m practically a side show at the circus.  The only difference, this circus is free.”

                “Did Marie hurt you?”

                “She was my best friend.  I would have done anything for her.  I still would.  When we got to high school, we started hanging out with other people.  We were still best friends for two years, but in our junior year, something happened.  I don’t why, or even how, just that it did.  She started partying all the time.  She started doing drugs and drinking.  We eventually just grew apart, because I wasn’t the partying type.  She was no longer the girl I met in middle school.  I never again saw her as the best friend that would stay up all night, even on a school night, in our pajamas watching musicals and singing and dancing until we passed out the next afternoon.  She was no longer the best friend I could tell everything to and stay up talking for hours, laughing at things only we would ever know about.  We tried being friends again, but things weren’t the same.  Senior year, her and my sister spread rumors about me.  They told people to call me a w***e and said that I had sex with a twelve year old.  I didn’t understand why someone I thought was my best friend would tell so many horrible lies about me.  I didn’t understand why my sister would help.  I didn’t go to school the rest of the week, which was a really big deal to me because those were the only days I missed school that year.  She knew about my cutting.  She tried to help, but she didn’t understand.  No one ever understands.  I don’t understand.  I keep thinking something has to be wrong with me, right?  This isn’t normal, is it?”

                “What isn’t normal?”

                “I’m scared.”

                “What are you afraid of, Autumn?”

                There are so many things I’m afraid of.  I’m afraid of life.  I’m afraid of people.  I’m afraid that I will never be happy, but none of those are what she’s looking for.  I know what she’s looking for and I know what I’m most afraid of.  I tried so hard to stop this from happening, but I can’t hold it in.  Not anymore.

                “Myself.”

 

Author's Note

Chapter 4. Feedback greatly appreciated. Keep in mind, I'll be adding to these soonish.

Reviews

[Que]

Brilliant story. It has a lot of depth, and considering that, generally, when one finds herself in that situation, things are hard to explain, hard to make sense of: but you manage to have us readers understand what is going on in her mind either way, feel her anxieties too.
Great job, can't wait to read more.
Cheers!

[Alicia Hirshey]

I think i know who this chapter is about and i think that you covered it perfectly.

[Magic plus the mayhem.]

Each chapter gets better an better!!! :DDD Great write!

[halflives]

Great job! I love this story. It flows so perfectly, and the characters are strong willed and believeable. Autumn isn't drowning in self pity, and the therapist isn't too stereotypical. Well done, more as soon as possible, please!

[Coyote Poetry]

A short chapter. I like the battle between the two. Hard to gain trust and open up for a stranger. A excellent short chapter.
Coyote

[Silent Knight]

Very nice.