Broken Glass (9 page)

“Now?” I asked her.

“Yes, honey,” she replied.

“Would you like us to leave?” Jake asked me.

“No, it’s fine,” I said quietly. I looked back at the nurse then. “It’s just that there’s only one person that’s seen me with my clothes off and that’s my fiancé. He was
killed in a car crash
.”

The nurse stared at me and I could tell she hadn’t been informed as to
why
I had tried to kill myself.

I took off my gown shamelessly and handed it to her. She handed me a clean gown and I put it on without any trouble.

“So, tell me,” I said then. “What hospital is this?”

“Craneville,” the nurse replied. I looked at Jake and Cassie.

“You put me in the
nuthouse?” I asked them angrily.

“Ava, it was for the best,” Cassie argued. “Your mom
—
”

“I’d rather be
dead
, Cassie!” I screamed. “And what about my mom, huh? Where in the hell is
she now? Is she here? Is she
?”

“Yes, she is,” someone said from the doorway. I turned around.

“Mom,” I said, slightly ashamed of my previous comments.

“I went downstairs for a minute to get some coffee,” she told me, coming into the room. “But I see you’re up and running now.”

“When can I leave?” I asked, going back to the bed and sitting down.

“Oh, you’re coming home with me tonight,” Mom replied. “As soon as the doctor runs another check-up on you. But you’ll be back here every other day for therapy for a while.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,’ I said, staring dumbly at her.

“I’m definitely
not
,” she said firmly. “Yo
u’re not going to pull this crap
, Ava Dawn.  I swear to God, I won’t let you take away all I’ve got left.”

I didn’t reply. She came over to me.

“Ava, look at me,” she said softly, putting her hand under my chin and tilting my head up so I would look at her.

“I love you,” she said. “And maybe that’s not enough for you right now, but that’s what you’ve got to work with. Don’t leave me, child. You’re all I’ve got.”

I burst into quiet sobs then and she held me to her, an unbreakable rock in the midst of a hurricane.

I went home wi
th mom that night at around eight-thirty
. All my stuff from Pete’s house and from the apartment I’d shared with Cassie was already there. My mom had also taken the liberty of signing me up for classes in the fall. I had no intentions of going back and I told her so right away.

“What’s the use?” I asked. “My life’s a waste.”

She didn’t argue. She knew it was my choice, but she didn’t agree with it. Maybe she thought it was just a stage I would go through until I got over losing Tyson. Didn’t she understand? I’d never get over it. And what was the point in breathing if I couldn’t really
be alive
?

I went back to Craneville two days later for my first therapy session. Now, let me take a moment to explain to you what Craneville is. It’s a psychiatric hospital in Constantine a.k.a. an asylum for wackos. I’d heard all kinds of crazy things about that place. Everything from psycho serial killers to drunks wer
e supposedly in that hospital, a
nd now here I was, getting therapy there.

I walked into t
hat office and I was instantly
pissed off
because I immediately
like
d
the therapist.

She wasn’t what I’d stereotyped a
therapist to be. She was
mid-forties, I gu
essed, with light hair, an average
figure, and a very pleasant smile. She also had an extremely warm presence, which I knew would make it harder to resist her tricks…and she was bound to have tricks because she was a therapist and everyone knows that therapists just like to screw people up mentally.

“Julianne Walker,” she introduced herself, shaking my hand. “Please have a seat, Ava.” I didn’t say anything as I sat in the chair across from her. I glanced over at my mom, who was lurking in the doorway of the room.

“Er, Ava, since it’s your first time talking to me, would you like to have your mom here, too?” Julianne Walker asked me. “Or would you maybe prefer for it to be just to two of us.”

In all honesty, it was my evil intention to make Mom stay, since she’d forced me into this. But I was having second thoughts.

“Maybe you should go, Mom,” I said quietly. She nodded.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll be back in an hour.” And she left.

“Now, do you drink chocolate milk?” Julianne asked
then. I raised my eyebrows at her
.

“Um, yeah, I guess,” I replied slowly. “Why?”

“Because I just happen to have the best chocolate milk on the planet,” she said with a smile, getting up from her chair and going over to the mini-fridge in the corner of the room. She opened it and pulled out a gallon of chocolate milk. She went back to her desk and retrieved two mugs from a drawer.

“You want some, right?” she assumed. I nodded.

“Sure,” I said. She poured some into both of the mugs and came back to her chair and sat down.

“Here you are,” she said, handing me a m
ug. I took a sip. It was insane. A
s soon as my taste buds took hold of that chocolate milk, a wave of
something
went through my body. I looked up at her and she was smiling at me.

“Sends a tingle down to your toes, doesn’t it?” she asked me. I nodded.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s delicious.”

“I saw skepticism on your face when I said it was the best chocolate milk in the world,” she said. “But it’s safe to say, I think, that I told you so.” I smiled slightly.

“Where’d you get this stuff?” I asked her.

“My son makes it, actually,” she informed me, taking a big swig from her own mug. “He started when he was eight and is still going at it
thirteen years later
. I don’t know how he got so good at doing something so simple as mixing together milk and chocolate. But, of course, he thinks it’s much more than just that. Anyway, he makes me a gallon a week and so when I’m having a rough day at work, I’ve got my best chocolate milk on earth to brighten me up. I swear, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think this stuff was made of magic.”

I surprised myself then when I chuckled. She gave me a strange smile.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s just that we’re talking about chocolate milk,” I said. “It’s not what I thought I was coming to therapy for.”

“What exactly do you think you’re here for?” she asked me, leaning back in her chair. I shrugged.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “
I’ve tried to kill myself twice…
unsuccessfully, of course, because my fiancé is dead and everyone thinks I’m off the edge.”

“Are you?” she asked.

“Am I what?”

“Off the edge?”

“Um…no, I don’t think so,” I replied, a little defensively. “I’m sane.”

“Sanity is too lightly defined,” Julianne said then, si
ghing. “No one, in fact, is sane—
it’s proven. Don’t use that word, Ava, it’s ridiculous. Off the edge…that’s what I asked you. Are you off the edge?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, after a minute’s pause.

“Well, you are,” she said, with surprising bluntness. “It’s very clear to me already. You’ve fallen off the brink of it all…and rightly so.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked her hotly.

“It means that the other half of you is gone from this life,” she said, her voice very soft now. “You have the right to go ‘off the e
dge
’
,
as you say. Hell, I don’t blame you for wanting to die. Without him, there’s only half of anything…half of everything.”

I just stared at her, transfixed. This wasn’t at all what I’d expected.

“I saw him, you know,” I said suddenly, ever so quietly. She nodded slowly.

“After he died, you mean?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “The last time I tried to…to kill myself…in the car, as I was drifting off, there was all this light a-and I saw Tyson. That’s his name. He was waiting for me, holding out his hand, and I-I was rushing as fast as I could to get to him. The thing about it was that I hadn’t been able to clearly remember
his face in my head until then,
but when I saw him at that moment, everything was crystal clear.” I paused for a moment, and then went on,

“I didn’t get to him. I guess I was knocked out of that state whenever my friend Jake found me in the car. When I was unconscious for those two days, I saw him again…but that time, I was in the wreck with him and I…
I saw h-his body on th-the tree.
”

I stopped then, covering my face with my hands and crying into my palms silently. Julianne didn’t say anything until I’d regained my composure and was able to look at her.

“This is going to sound crazy,” she told me. “But bear with me…you believe in the other side, don’t you? After death?” I nodded.

“Remember this:” she said, her eyes looking directly into mine. “He’s there. He’s on that other side. His death was untimely, Ava, and maybe he wasn’t ready to leave you, but he didn’t have that choice. What he does have is the ability to touch you…right here. In your heart. From the love he left behind, you’re able to connect with his memory. And that memory will help you to see things…to help you understand things so that maybe…so that you’ll be able to cope with it all easier, you know? So that you’ll be able to live, even though he wasn’t.”

Damn. She was good.

There was a knock on the door, and it opened. My mom stepped in.

“Hi,” she said, with a grim smile. “How’s it going?” Julianne’s demeanor immediately changed
from deep to casual and cool.

“Great,” she replied. “You’re just in time.” She stood up then. I stood up as well, looking at her in confusion.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Ava,” she said, extending her hand. I shook it. She winked.

“I’ll see you day after tomorrow for our two-hour session,” she said.

“Two hours?” I questioned.

“Yes,” she replied. “You have one two-hour session every week…if that’s all right.” I nodded.

“That’s good,” I said. “Great.”

I couldn’t believe it myself, but I was actually looking forward to this therapy with Dr. Julianne Walker. I had a strange feeling she might just be my last hope.

The next session was two hours, and I spilled my heart out to Julianne. I think it was the chocola
te milk…it sounds totally ridiculous
, but I just know there was something almost magic
al
about it. 

Over the next two months, my therapy went very well. And the fact that it went so well helped make it easier on me to pop those mild anti-depressants every day that I was required to. My sessions with Julianne didn’t feel like therapy, really
—
it was like talking to a friend whom I could trust with my darkest secrets. I was able to talk to Julianne about nearly ev
erything
. And she listened. Yes, she was getting paid good money to listen, but the fact of it all was that
she was listening
. I needed that more than anything. I talked of Tyson as if he was still alive and Julianne
just
listened
. She didn’t give me mocking stares, or treat me as if I was crazy for wanting to remember him…for
missing
him.

But at the end of my second month, Julianne informed me that she’d be taking a two-week vacation with her family. A selfish part of me became angry with her for leaving me and it took all the willpower I could muster not to scream and pitch a fit and beg her to stay. But it was just two weeks, she said, and she promised she’d be coming back. She even gave me a gallon of her special chocolate milk to hold me over until she returned.

“Maybe one day I could meet your son who makes this,” I told her before she left. She cocked her head sideways and gave me a soft smile.

“Pe
rhaps,” was all she said.

The chocolate milk only lasted three days. Something happened to me then. I had Mom convinced that I was fine, so she went to work as usual and left me home by myself. But I
wasn’t
fine. I’d stopped taking the anti-depressants I was o
n. I felt deserted and
lost
. After all, I really didn’t have anybody but Julianne and my mother anymore. Jake, Pete…even Cassie had become seldom correspondents. But who could blame them? I’d turned into a total nut job. I just wasn’t
me
without Tyson.