Tess Sharpe - Far From You

“You have your first therapy appointment with Dr. Hughes in an hour,” he says. “I moved some appointments so I can drive you. You should clean up.”

I let go of the wood and follow him into the house.

Dr. Hughes’s practice is in one of the older neighborhoods, on a block where most of the houses have been turned into offices. Dad parks the car in front of the blue-and-white sign with Dr. Hughes’s name on it. The little one-story Craftsman is painted the same color as the sign, cheerful against the lighter blue sky.

I’m surprised when my dad gets out of the car after me. “You’re coming in?”

“I’ll sit in the waiting room.”

“I’m not going to ditch therapy.”

His mouth tightens, his hand drops from the car door. “I’ll pick you up in an hour, then.”

I’m almost at the door when he stops me in my tracks. “We just want you to be better. That’s why we sent you away. You know that, don’t you?”

I don’t look at him. I can’t give him the confirmation he wants. Not without lying.

I was already better.

The office is full of comfortable-looking furniture and ­Norman Rockwell prints on the walls. A receptionist looks up with a smile from the papers she’s filing. “Good morning.”

“Hi. I’m Sophie Winters. I have a twelve thirty appointment.”

“Come with me, please.”

She brings me to a large room with a desk, an overstuffed couch, and a few leather chairs. I take a seat on the couch as she closes the door behind her. My shoulders sink into the cushions, half of my body lost in brown suede.

Dr. Hughes comes in without knocking. He’s an older man, with dark skin, a neat silver goatee, and square black glasses. He’s short—I’d be taller than him if I were standing up—and his sweater-vest is stretched snugly over his round stomach. “Hi, Sophie.” He sits down at his desk and spins in his chair to face me with a smile. His eyes are kind underneath his glasses. He radiates thoughtfulness. Just as a good therapist should.

It makes me want to run.

“Hi.” I burrow deeper into the couch, wishing it’d just swallow me up.

“I’m Dr. Hughes, but feel free to call me David. How are you feeling today?”

“Fine.”

“I’ve talked to Dr. Charles on the phone about you, and I have her notes and your medical history. I’ve also had several sessions with your parents.”

“Okay.”

“How are you adjusting?”

“It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is—it’s all fine.”

He taps his pen against his notebook, watching me. “Dr. Charles said you’d be a hard nut to crack.”

I sit up straighter, on guard. “I don’t mean to be.”

David leans back in his chair, his eyes crinkling as his lips twitch. “I think you do,” he says. “I think that you’re an intelligent young woman who is very good at keeping secrets.”

“Got that from a few notes and, what, an hour-long talk with Dr. Charles?”

He grins. “Now that’s more like it. Dr. Charles is excellent at what she does. But as soon as you stopped resisting therapy at Seaside, all you did was tell her exactly what she wanted to hear—what she expected to hear from an addict on the verge of relapse.”

“I am an addict.”

“It’s good that you acknowledge that,” David says. “That’s important. But at the moment, I’m more concerned with the trauma you suffered. What jumped out at me, from Dr. Charles’s notes, is how you sidestep the subject of Mina every time she’s brought up.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You didn’t break a coffee table when Dr. Charles asked you about the night Mina was killed?”

“My leg makes me clumsy; it was an accident.”

David raises an eyebrow. I’ve done something that’s made him take notice, and I’m not sure what it is. It makes heat prickle down my back. I’m not going to be able to play him like Dr. Charles.

“Why don’t you tell me about Mina?” he asks.

“What do you want to know?”

“How did you two meet?”

“Mina moved here after her dad died. The teacher sat us next to each other in second grade.”

“Did you spend a lot of time together?”

I don’t answer immediately.

“Sophie?” he prompts gently.

“We were always together,” I say. I can’t keep it out of my voice. That choked-up emotion bleeds through, makes it waver. I look away from him, my nails digging into my jeans. “I don’t want to talk about Mina.”

“We’re going to have to talk about Mina,” David says ­quietly. “Sophie, you were put into an environment designed to get you clean right after you experienced a major trauma and loss. While I understand what motivated your parents to do that, it might not have been the best thing for you in terms of processing your grief.

“Most of your therapy at Seaside was focused on your problems with addiction. I don’t think you’ve been given the space or the tools you need to deal with what happened to you and Mina the night she was killed. But I can help you with that, if you let me.”

Anger surges inside me, stampedes through my veins at his words. I want to hit him. To throw the stupid tasseled pillows on the couch at him.

“You think I haven’t dealt with it?” I ask. My voice is horribly low. I’m about to cry. It builds in the back of my eyes, threatening to break through. “She died scared and in pain, and I felt it—when she went, when she left, I felt it. Don’t you dare tell me I haven’t dealt with that. Every day, I deal with it.”

“Okay,” David says. “Tell me how you do that.”

“I just do,” I say. I’m still breathing hard, but I will myself not to cry in front of him. “I have to.”

“Why do you have to? What’s keeping you motivated?”

“I have to stay clean,” I say.

The answer would’ve worked with Dr. Charles, but not with this guy. My quick search before Dad had driven me over had pulled up four articles Dr. Hughes wrote about PTSD and its effects on teenagers. Mom and Dad have done their homework. With my addiction tackled, now they’re setting out to fix me completely. A New and Improved Sophie. Whole and mended, with no jagged edges or sharp points. Someone who doesn’t look like she knows how death feels.

“I don’t think you’re telling me the whole truth,” David says.

“You a human lie detector?”

“Sophie, you can trust me.” David leans forward intently. “Anything you say here, any secrets you choose to share, nobody else will know, and there’ll be no judgment from me. I am here for you. To help you.”

I glare at him. “You already got me to talk about it when I didn’t want to,” I say. “That doesn’t really breed trust.”

“Getting you to open up isn’t tricking you. It’s about your having a safe outlet to talk. You have to share with someone or you’ll burst.”

“Is that in your professional medical opinion?”

He smiles, dispassionate, with no edge to it, no pity, no judgment. It’s a nice change from everyone else. “Absolutely,” he says wryly. He pushes the box of tissues across the coffee table at me. I take a few, but instead of patting my eyes, or blowing my nose, I twist them in my hands.

“This won’t happen again,” I tell him. “Don’t start expecting it.”

“Whatever you say.” He nods and smiles. I look away.

A YEAR AND A HALF AGO (SIXTEEN YEARS OLD)

On the morning of my sixteenth birthday, I wake up with a purple Post-it note stuck to my forehead. I pull it off, wondering how in the world she’d managed to stick it there without waking me up.

Congratulations! As of 5:15 this morning, you are officially sixteen. Proceed to your closet for part one of your surprise.

—Mina

P.S. Yes, you have to wear what I picked out. No arguments. If I leave it up to you, you’ll just wear jeans. Please, go with me on this for once. The color is perfect.

I shuffle to my closet and pull it open. She’s bought me an entire new outfit. It’s not a surprise, considering how much she complains about my fashion sense. I rub the soft jersey dress between my fingers. Its dark red color is nice, but it’s too short.

I pull it out of the closet anyway and see the note she’s taped to it.

No arguments!!!

Rolling my eyes, I layer two camisoles underneath the dress to cover the scar on my chest and pull on a pair of leggings and knee-high boots. I’m putting the finishing touches on my makeup when there’s a tap on my door.

“You awake, birthday girl?�� my dad calls.

“Morning, Dad. Come on in.”

He pushes open the door, a big smile on his face. “That’s a pretty dress,” he says. “Is it new?”

“Mina,” I explain.

Dad grins. “Speaking of Mina…” He hands me an envelope. “She sneaked in this morning. Wanted me to give you this. You girls have plans today?”

I nod. “You and Mom have me tonight,” I promise.

“Good,” Dad says. “I’ve got to get to the office. Your mom had to go in early. But there’s a surprise downstairs for you.” He ruffles my hair. “Sixteen,” he says. “Can’t believe it.”

I wait until I hear his car pull out of the driveway before I do my morning lines of Oxy.

I’m sure he wouldn’t believe that, either.

Go to the Old Mill Bridge and walk to the middle.

—M

Mina loves birthdays. Trev and I have been trying to top her for years, always failing. For my thirteenth birthday, she’d gotten my dad to help her in an elaborate ruse involving a flat tire, a clown, and a skating rink full of balloon animals. She’d spent an entire year saving for and planning Trev’s eighteenth. I’d helped her decorate his sailboat so it looked like it’d been shipwrecked. We filled it with presents, and then sailed it out to one of the little islands dotting the lake. She’d arranged for Trev to borrow a friend’s boat and texted him coordinates, sending him on a quest to find his treasure, with little chests of foil-wrapped chocolate coins marking each stop.

Now it looks like I’m in for another surprise of my own.

The Old Mill Bridge has long been closed to car traffic, with a newer, shinier version built down the river. I brush my fingers over the moss-covered bricks, looking for something that doesn’t belong.

The flash of bright color grabs my eye—a red balloon tied to one of the stone columns. I walk up and untie it, but there’s no note. I look around, expecting to see her leap out from somewhere, bounding toward me, all smiles and trickery and delight.

“Mina?” I call. I search the ground. Maybe the note fell.

But I find nothing.

My phone rings.

“You forget something?” I ask after I pick up.

“Pop the balloon,” she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice.

“Are you watching me?” I ask, looking around. I go to the edge and peer down the bridge, trying to find her. It feels good to lean on the solid stone railing, take the weight off my bad leg for a second.

“I’ve got binoculars and everything,” Mina says, lowering her voice, trying to make it sound dangerous and failing when she bursts out laughing.

“Stalker. Where are you?” I peer behind me, trying to spot her.

“I had to make sure no one took the balloon! I had your dad text me when you woke up.”

“You could just show yourself,” I suggest. I look down over the railing and finally spot her on the north side, down the trail near the riverbank. She’s a blur of yellow, her dress bright against the gray railing. She waves.

“Pop the balloon first, then I’ll come up,” she says.

I dig my keys out and jab the longest one into the balloon. It pops, and something small and silver falls to the ground, skittering across the pavement. I chase after it, bending down on my good knee to pick it up where it’s spun to a stop.

For a long moment, I’m silent, the ring in my hand, the phone against my ear.

“Soph? Did you get it?” Mina asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I…” My thumb swipes over the ring, over the word engraved on it. “It’s beautiful,” I say. “I love it.”

“It’s like mine,” Mina says. “We match.”

“Yeah,” I say. “We match.”

I press my thumb against the word, let it imprint on my skin.

Forever.

NOW (JUNE)

Dad drops me back off at home. He stays at the curb, the car idling until I’m safe inside the house. I wait until he’s gone, then I get in my car and drive to Sweet Thyme Nursery.

I try to distract myself among the rows of plants, leaning too hard on the cart as I push it along. I breathe deep, gulping in the scent, rich and earthy and green, and it loosens something inside my chest that’s been there since I stepped inside David’s office.