12
Kevin
Istand in front of the church, staring at the Jesus statue as I consider making Skye wait five minutes before coming in. I nearly stop her outside the church doors. Mr. Andrews will frown upon us fraternizing. He knows my history, no matter how determined I am to keep it from repeating. Shit, even if we don’t walk in together, it’s suspect as fuck that Skye is on time in the first place, so I pick my battle unwisely.
I sit in the cold metal chair and kick my feet out into the aisle. Skye sits beside me, her posture taller than any of the prior sessions. I cover a smile behind my hand as I lean onto my arm.
“Kevin!” Mr. Andrews smiles as he walks over to me. He playfully tugs at my jacket, but there’s nothing to rattle around in my pocket this time.
Mr. Andrews and I have a history. He knows the darkest depths of my soul, yet he still offers genuine smiles to me—which is more than I show him in return. He’s annoying, but he’s a good person. Probably.
I play a thought in my head of Mr. Andrews. Fun and perky in session, only to go home and murder his entire family, including the dog, while probably asking them how it makes them feel as he does it. I chuckle beneath my breath, and Mr. Andrews’ gaze snaps to me.
“Is something funny?” he asks.
“Sorry, no.”
I realize I chuckled right as the triple decker admitted to relapsing on heroin, and I don’t think there are any more decks this dude can have. Poor timing on my part. It’s so easy for me to disappear into my mind, even if it’s a pretty shitty place to be. Anxiety and fear rub the surface of my brain with sandpaper until I blow up. Things play out in my head like movies. These aren’t ordinary movies, though. It’s always something I would prefer to go my whole life without ever seeing again. It feels like I’m sitting in a white room, tied to a chair as clothespins hold my eyes open and force me to replay it over and over.
By the time I see the gray static screen in my mind, the big clock behind Mr. Andrews has spun away a half hour. He asks Skye questions, and she fidgets in her seat. I didn’t hear the question, but it clearly made her uncomfortable. Her eyes dart, as if she’s an animal in a cage. Her weight shifts from one hip to another, her leg shaking wildly. I want to reach out to her, but she hates to be fucking touched.
“I probably need a better outlook instead of hating everything all the time, I guess,” she says with a shrug of her shoulders.
“What would help you have a better outlook?” Mr. Andrews asks.
I smirk because I can only imagine the things going through her mind—things she shouldn’t say out loud.
“Probably getting away from things that hurt me.”
“What kind of hurt, Skye? Emotional or physical?”
I interrupt unintentionally. “I feel like the physical hurt goes hand in hand with emotional pain, Mr. Andrews. You can hurt emotionally without having a hand laid on you, but you’d have to be a sociopath to keep from carrying some emotional pain from physical pain, whether you need a pocket or backpack to carry it.”
Skye’s head twists to look at me, followed by the others.
Mr. Andrews beams at me with a full-toothed smile. “Very insightful, Kevin! Do you want to talk about any of the emotional trauma you went through?”
I think for a moment, my lips tightly drawn. I look at Skye, knowing anything I say will scare her. “Not yet,” I tell Mr. Andrews.
The smile melts off his face. “Very well. It’s time to end this session, anyway. I think that’s a good note to leave on. For next week, I want you all to think about how much residual hurt you carry. Do you need a pocket? A backpack? Maybe even a suitcase?”
Everyone files out of the church, chatting amongst themselves as chairs screech against the floor.
“Kevin? Can I talk to you?”
What now? I fucking participated.
Skye lifts her backpack and takes an unsure step before grabbing her cigarettes out of her sweater pocket and heading outside.
“What about? I partici—”
“It’s not that, Kevin.”
I drop my gaze for a moment before meeting his eyes again. “So what is it?”
“I saw you and Skye come in together. Is she staying with you?”
Here we go.
“She’s a very troubled young woman, Kev—”
“Yeah, and I’m troubled too. What of it?”
Mr. Andrews furrows his brow. He stands up and meets my stance. “Kevin?” He sounds like what I imagine my father would have sounded like. “Do you really think you’re mentally prepared to take care of someone else?”
I cock my head at him. “So I’m just supposed to let her go back home where she’s getting beat on? You wouldn’t be saying this if you saw all her bruises!”
“That’s not what I’m saying, but this isn’t a safe situation for either of you. I can find somewhere for her to go. Somewhere with a more controlled environment that can give her the help she needs.”
“With all due respect, Mr. Andrews, fuck you.”
He doesn’t react to my verbal assault. It’s not a surprise to him, and it doesn’t help my case.
“I’m sorry.” I drop my shoulders. “I just think we can help each other. I already see a change in her. Shit, I even see a change in myself.”
Mr. Andrews shuffles his folders together. “I don’t think either of you realizes how ugly this has the potential to get. Technically, I shouldn’t be talking to you about any of this, but I don’t want you to end up back in jail, Kevin. I really don’t want that to happen.”
“I don’t want it either, clearly. I wouldn’t be here if I did.”
“She’s eighteen, so there’s nothing I can legally do to kick her out of your house. What I can do is refer her for one-on-one sessions with another therapist.” Mr. Andrews touches my shoulder with a firm hand. “I can’t get you mandated, but I would really like it if you came to see me in private sessions as well. I don’t think group therapy is right for either of you.”
“Why can’t you see both of us?”
“It wouldn’t be ethical for me to see both of you. It’s a conflict of interest.”
I turn to walk away.
“Did you ever make amends with the person you said you hurt?”
Fuck.
I was avoiding this conversation. Mr. Andrews didn’t tell me to apologize to Emily. He would have explicitly told me not to. I told him I needed to make amends with someone I hurt. I didn’t say who. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t be in this mess.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Did it help?”