Rescued(2)

It was exhausting to talk about it. The only other person I had told about what had happened was Daniela.

“Let’s back up,” my therapist said, breaking the silence. “Tell me about your semester. How was it for you being back at school?”

I took a deep breath, a little more freely this time. “I don’t know,” I said. “Hard, I guess. Classes were going okay but not great before the letter. I was drawing a lot. All I wanted was to be a normal student for one semester without any breakdowns.”

Another silence followed, punctuated only by the clock. When I first started seeing Dr. Schwartz, silences like these made me feel awkward, but by this point I accepted them. She was just being patient and making sure I had nothing else to say. This wasn’t a conversation. It was therapy.

“You’ve talked about getting back to normal before,” she said. “Do you think you would have had a normal semester if you hadn’t met Hunter?”

I flinched inwardly at his name. “Maybe. I guess I’ll never know.”

She waited.

“I would have gotten the letter from Marco either way,” I said quietly, half to myself. “I don’t know. That would have been bad with or without Hunter. Marco’s going to haunt me forever, I think.”

There was another pause. The clock ticked as I got more and more frustrated with everything that had happened. A terrible crushing sensation pressed against my chest and it was getting difficult to breathe.

“Seriously, what the hell?” I cried. “Who has to deal with someone ruining their life like this? It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Why would he write me a letter?”

I clenched my jaw bitterly. Every time I thought about Marco it got me worked up.

“What did Hunter do after you got the letter from your stepfather?” Dr. Schwartz asked.

I pressed my knees together and bit my lip. “Nothing. He never found out.”

“Oh. Did you hide it from him?”

I shook my head. “We didn’t really talk for a few days. I have no idea why he didn’t contact me.”

I bit my tongue before saying any more. The way things had happened in my last few days at Arrowhart made me upset and confused. Dr. Schwartz didn’t say anything, so I changed the subject back to Marco. “I just don’t understand why he’s out to ruin my life,” I said. “How can you be normal when someone killed your mom, basically killed your dad, and then holds it over you like some kind of psychopath? And I’ll never know why he did it.”

Another minute was punctuated by the steady clock. My pulse raced faster and faster.

“How am I supposed to feel?” I cried, before sighing with frustration. Then I pushed my lips together and stayed quiet until she spoke.

“Do you think you would feel better about what happened to your parents if you knew why Marco killed your mother?”

“Yes,” I said instantly.

“Have you asked him?”

My stomach sank. Ask him? Like he was just going to tell me after showing no remorse even during sentencing?

The clock ticked. Dr. Schwartz was waiting for my answer.

“They asked him during the trial,” I tried. “Interrogated. Even during sentencing.”

More time passed. “So then I understand you have not asked him personally. It might be worth considering. I know it would be deeply painful, but if you get answers it could be worthwhile. He may respond differently to your personal request than he did in a legal setting.”

I took a few deep breaths. The prospect of writing Marco a letter back, even if it was just that question, was daunting. I really just wanted him and everything he did to me to go away.

“I’d like to return to Hunter,” she said after a few more ticks of the interminable clock had passed. “Are you angry because he wasn’t there to support you when you got the letter from Marco?”

Her voice was irritatingly steady, calm, and really getting on my nerves. “I thought this was about Marco,” I said through my teeth.

My therapist didn’t answer. I sat up to look at her and found she was staring at me neutrally.

Frustrated, I let myself fall back down and breathed out. “I don’t want to talk about Hunter right now,” I said, my voice beginning to shake. I tried changing the subject. “The most positive thing about the semester has been my drawing. That was basically the only thing I was good at.”

I poked my head up and looked at her. Nothing. I might as well have been talking to an empty room. The emotion that had been bound up in my body threatened to overflow. I let myself back down onto the couch harder than I’d meant to.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have gone back to Arrowhart,” I said. “What happened after I got the letter was scary.”