18. Chapter 18

Chapter eighteen

Kelsey

Time didn't feel real.

How was it that a month had gone by?

Two months since I'd last seen my mother.

Four sessions with Dr. Liu and Caleb. Four sessions just me and her. Four Sunday rehearsals. Twenty days of school. One hundred and eighty periods strung together and tied with the monotone beep that signaled we all go on to our next class. Ninety hours of rehearsals. Sixteen hours of student teaching.

All this time, and nothing but the feeling of being pushed and pulled by the tide. Dragged along with only my nose above water and my toes reaching desperately for the sandy bottom.

I was so tired.

And they were so patient.

Why was everyone so patient with me?

Miss Juliette, Caleb, and I had all fallen into the rhythm of the sea. But the waves didn't drag them under. They'd found their footing, and a friendship—a pseudo friendship. They laughed and chatted and bickered with exasperated smiles. It was during those moments, over dinner or a Monopoly board, where time felt like it moved. Like my toes were grazing the ocean floor. Like I swallowed air instead of water.

Sometimes the air felt good.

So good that I felt like I was wading with them. Laughing with them. Sharing this strange passing of time through their eyes.

Other times, when I caught Caleb smiling at me—no, beaming— beaming as if he had swallowed the sun itself, that same air burned me from the inside out. It ignited an angry, melancholy flame, that I spat out at him. I hated myself when I snapped and hoped that my flames would burn brighter than that smile. I wanted to snuff his out. I wanted to soak up his warmth. I wanted to make sense of this senseless, aimless fury.

I never let him see it, though. There was always homework, or some other excuse to cut those moments of reprieve short where I'd just leave them and go to my room. I was too tired to even show emotions. It was so much less effort to lie and say I was going to bed.

Miss Juliette and I talked about that smile once, how hope radiated from it and spilled everywhere. He's an optimist , she said, he can't help it.

I wished I had inherited a little bit of that.

"Aside from school, how have you been?" Dr. Liu asked, disrupting my thoughts.

"Fine."

Dr. Liu seemed to weigh the pros and cons of pressing me for more. I got the sense that she was getting frustrated with me. I was wasting her time. Dr. Liu did the thing where she stayed quiet and waited for me to squirm. Internally, I was very uncomfortable. Externally, it was all an act. Years of ballet had trained me to perform.

"How is your relationship with Caleb?"

"We're fine. He transferred to the New York office, but he still works from home every day. You knew that already."

"I did, but what he says to me is confidential. What do you think about the transfer?"

I think it feels permanent. I think it means she's going to ask me when I'm going to move in with him. When we hit the two-week mark, I had started our session by saying I wasn't ready, flat out. No one pressed the issue, not in this office, not at home, not at Miss Juliette's. It was the proverbial elephant in the room.

When was Kelsey going to be charmed enough into trusting Caleb and moving back in?

A hundred dollars to whoever knew the answer .

"It feels like he dropped his whole life because of me," I admitted, making this session a little bit worth her time. Giving her enough superficial insight into the fucked up innerworkings of my mind to justify whatever it was Caleb was paying for this. It eased my guilt.

"Because of you, or for you?"

"I didn't ask him to." The familiar burn of tears stung the rims of my eyes. I drew my breath slowly, carefully, coaching my feelings into submission. My diaphragm trembled and I stopped breathing altogether to get her under control.

"Perhaps, he wanted to?" Dr. Liu's intonation lilted upwards. I shook my head and looked down at the tissue I worried in my hands the whole session.

Oftentimes, during our sessions, I wanted to stop swimming and drown. I'd close my eyes and imagine sinking to the bottom, just to feel the solid ground, and give up.

Sometimes the crushing weight of the ocean pressing in on all sides felt a little bit like a warm, familiar hug. If I really let my thoughts surface, I'd remember how this empty surrender, floating and sinking with the churning of time, felt like Mom's love.

I held my eyes open until my tears dried. I changed the subject. "He's taking me to the ballet this Saturday."

There was no way she couldn't see through me and my tactics. Dr. Liu was at least fifty, with maybe two decades of experience behind her. Intelligence peeked through warm, brown eyes, framed by straight black eyebrows and a pin straight bob.

She smiled, anyway, acting like she didn't know what I was doing. "Caleb was very excited when you agreed to go with him last session."

It felt like betrayal to admit aloud that I was excited, too. Betrayal of a woman who I knew didn't think about me nearly as much as I thought about her. I pushed myself to the surface and filled my lungs with air. "Miss Juliette is taking me to the mall to buy a dress. I think it's unnecessary."

"It'll be nice to dress up." Her smile was inviting, in its clinical way .

A glance at the clock told me time was moving at a glacial pace. I considered telling her the truth, that I was drowning, and time felt meaningless. I felt unworthy of Juliette's patience. That Caleb was actually turning out to be a good person and I wanted to trust him, but living with him felt wrong in a way I couldn't put my finger on. That I worried every day that I was a nuisance to Miss Juliette, a stray pet taking up too much space and eating too much food.

That I wanted to move in with Caleb only to spare Juliette the burden of me. I'd upended her life because at first, I was just so desperate to be away from Caleb, and she was the only lighthouse. I didn't see how disruptive clinging to her would be. Now, we'd fallen into this rhythm, and I couldn't stop thinking I was an unwelcome percussive instrument that she tolerated out of a sense of duty. That I didn't belong… and ultimately, that I was selfish for putting my comfort before hers.

That I never wanted to go back to that house ever again now that I was away from it.

Mind racing, with an eye on the minute hand, and the second-hand echoing in the empty space, I thought about all of those things. Every emotion bubbling up to my throat.

I pressed my lips together, sealing it all in and nodded. I'd see her in seven days. Maybe then I'd have the courage to speak, instead of wasting Caleb's money on sessions that got me nowhere.