Where It Leads Us

Chapter Five

I dropped by the counselor's office, where Ms. Wilson had been waiting, the counselor held responsible for juniors and seniors, since seven-thirty in the morning. I sat there on the chair with her desk in front of her, the only thing that separates us from each other, giving me room to breathe, and space to keep in my own bubble.

When you are in counseling, the one thing I know they don't make you utter is the word 'suicide.' I remember it because I have to list a few terms relating to it every time I bring up Elise's death, just to brace myself for when the therapy hour begins.

My therapy session with Dr. Gregory has not changed my well-being, my mental health per se is because of how he kept saying, "I understand," when in truth, he doesn't.

Ms. Wilson first asked me what I was thinking, then I told her that I was already thinking about going home and that I may not be ready to face everyone yet. Then she starts to ask if you were home, what would you do?

I didn't give her a response at first. At the moment, my head was so chaotic that I couldn't even think clearly and the only thing that mattered was that guy—the only person—who mentioned the suicide of my sister, Elise, after two years. Two years. Two years have elapsed since anybody mentioned her and what she did. Two years of me wanting to move on when it only took one single question to get me back again to that grieving stage.

And yet, I wanted to do so anyway because, somehow, with the idea of always holding onto her, a part of me feels relaxed. I felt sane, at least, thinking that she was there, here, everywhere, watching me weep over her. All over again. At least she knows or gets to know, that I'm not the kind of person that forgets someone too easily.

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. Five stages of grief yet I am not close to acceptance. In reality, I am in the middle of denial and anger and some days I am in the middle of bargaining and depression, but never at the last stage.

What if, after depression, there is the sixth stage? Much like a relapse? And it's what I'm doing. When I get on to the first stage, I step on to the other stage and to the other and the next, until it leaves me falling back to stage one. Denial.

My lowest point was that when therapy appears to be a helpless position for someone like me, I find myself buying a book at the bookstore about Grieving for Dummies. I remember reading a line in the book: no one else can spare you the pain that accompanies the grief your loss engenders no matter how desperately that person wants to alleviate your suffering.

Most people will say they understand the discomfort although we all know that we experience and interpret things differently in reality. It's an unusual thing to expect a human to understand you fully, it's even a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.

So, hoping for a person to really understand me made me give up on that thought from the first day I started grieving.

"Is it okay if I borrow the keys to your car?" I sprinted my way into the kitchen which made Clarissa drop the onion on the floor.

She looks up at me as I flash her a smile of my own.

"Why? You don't drive," Clarissa grabs a knife and a cutting board on the kitchen island behind her. She starts chopping the onion into cubes.

"I do," I say, "Dad made me take some driving lessons after school, almost three years ago."

Clarissa furrows her eyebrows at me, unsure about her decision with the request I made.

"You don't have a license," She says.

"Fair enough," I say.

"Where are you even going? It's almost dinner time," When she turns the heat on, Clarissa grabs a skillet from the cabinet and puts it on the stove. She waits for the pan to heat up before she grabs butter from the refrigerator, slices it and tosses it into the pan, sizzling and evaporating. The kitchen smells like butter from a distance now.

"I just wanted to check if Bill's studio was still around," I told her.

She instantly looked up at me, and stopped cooking as she wipes her hands on the kitchen towel. Clarissa walked up towards me, searching for something on my face.

"Are you okay?" She asks.

"Yes. Are you?" I ask, making her roll her eyes.

"I already told you that he might have left the country. I doubt that his studio's still around after two years," Clarissa says.

I look at the pan on the stove, staring at it. Clarissa hurries back to cooking, lowering the fire before she tosses the onion cubes next.

"Keyword: might. We are not sure about that. Maybe he's still here, somewhere or maybe he left to a different town or who knows what," I continue to speak.

"Honey, I don't know if it's a good idea."

Clarissa says, ignoring me, "You'll get those paintings soon. You'll just have to wait."

Clarissa is referring to the works by my mother that was still displayed in Bill's studio. Two years have passed since she died and every day, I hope and wait for the paintings to be sent to me, but they never have.

Without another word, I left Clarissa in the kitchen, I went up the stairs and back into my bedroom. It won't help much to look for it on Google Maps, because I don't know the exact name of the street, but I know which route to take to get there.

I disconnected the plug that was charging my phone and scrolled through my contacts immediately. Before I can even digest all that I've been doing at the moment, I am calling Aaren Walters.      

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