Chapter Thirty-One

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Easton

T his is hard work. Some days I want to leave, want to walk out and never come back. It’s a whole lot easier to stay miserable than to work on getting better, but I need to do this for me and Archer.

For me and my brothers.

For me and Ella, because she deserves for one of us to live.

“And what’s the common denominator in all of those?” my therapist, Julie, asks, and it only takes me a second to see where she’s going with this.

“Me. I need to do it for me.”

“Exactly.”

“I said I wanted it for myself before I got here, but I don’t think I believed it.”

“And now?”

“Now I do. That doesn’t always make it simple.”

“I know. That sucks, but you’re putting in the work, and you’re worth it.”

The thing is, I now believe that I am worth it. Or at least most of the time I do. Like Julie says, it’s not a straight path. Getting healthy has detours and potholes, forks in the road where I don’t know what direction to go. Sometimes I stumble a few feet back but then work on moving myself forward again. When we first started meeting, she talked a lot about my survivor’s guilt, and for some reason, that triggered me. I’m getting better and working through that now, on not feeling guilty for being here, which has been a huge catalyst for a lot of my struggles.

“I still miss her,” I say.

“That won’t go away. It’s okay to miss her.”

“Sometimes I want her to talk to me, want her back, but then I remind myself that I do still have her and no one can take that away from me.”

“That’s very true. They can’t. You used talking to her as a coping mechanism to work through your grief. Sometimes that can be a healthy way to process, but for you, I think it got to the point where it was unhealthy because of the length of time and because you used it as a means not to let her go.”

I nod, not doubting that she’s right. She’s given me so many new ways of seeing things, of understanding the whys of so much of how I’ve lived my life. When I first arrived, I was stuck on a diagnosis, wanting a name for what I’ve spent my life experiencing. Then one day, I decided it doesn’t matter. I’m just me, and all my experiences are mine and mine alone. What’s important is focusing on becoming a healthier version of myself, not on a label I couldn’t care less about. For me personally, there is something incredibly empowering in the freedom of focusing on myself and my experiences more than anything else.

“Simone had the baby…she’s a girl.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Excited. Happy. Scared that I’ll do something wrong. Sad and worried that because she’s a girl, she’ll make me think of Ella.”

“All valid emotions. I think anyone would feel them. Will you get to meet her right away when you leave?”

“Yeah. Daphne asked if they can have a get-together for me. It feels nice…to have family. Archer called me her uncle.” I smile, all that warmth he brings into my life making me light up from the inside. I wish Ella could be here for it all, and that won’t ever go away. I don’t think it’s supposed to. The point is that I learn to allow myself to live and be happy without her. Learn that it wasn’t my fault…and that it shouldn’t have been me. I’m on my way to doing that.

“It seems you like that.”

“I do.” I have so much to look forward to, so much to experience, and for the first time ever, the thought isn’t daunting. It’s…everything.