The first hint of feeling I’d had all day.
Unfortunately—and inappropriately—the emotion that broke through was amusement.
I choked back a sudden burst of laughter, the sound coming out like a sob.
“I know,” Sharon tutted, squeezing my upper arm. “We’re all going to miss her and her beautiful, selfless spirit.”
The only spirit Mom had was the vodka in her ever-present drink.
That time, there was no choking back the laugh that forced its way out. Disguising it as more sobs, my shoulders shook as I buried my face in my hands and fought to get control. But once I started laughing, I could not stop.
“Sorry,” Aria said, wrapping an arm around me. “She’s, uh, super upset.”
“Of course she is, the poor thing,” Sharon sniffled, cluing me in that her own tears were starting again, which only made my laughter increase until actual tears flowed.
“Excuse us,” Aria said, pulling me away from the group and not stopping until we were alone in a small, dimly lit room filled with extra chairs. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Sorry,” I wheezed, “but that was funny.”
“What was?”
“All of it.” I gestured toward the door. “Sharon is out there blubbering and calling Mom her best friend. Mom talked so much shit about her. She’s the one who told everyone except Sharon about her husband’s wandering dick. She hated her.”
At the reminder of stupid, pesky feelings like hatred, I checked the time and saw I was past due for my meds. I fished my pill tray out of my purse and emptied two of the compartments into my palm before pulling out a small bottle of water.
“I know today has been rough,” Aria said, slipping into psychologist mode, “but you can’t overmedicate to get through it.”
“I’m not. These are my one o’clocks.”
“All of them?”
“Mmhmm,” I murmured, swallowing the pills a few at a time.
“What are you even taking?”
“Little of this, little of that.” I wasn’t being evasive, I couldn’t remember all the weird names.
A small frown pulled at Aria’s mouth as she studied me with a clinical eye. Usually that’d make me feel uncomfortable but I was used to it. I was also too busy trying to kill my emotions for the rest of the day to be bothered.
Her voice was soft and loaded with concern. “Are things not going well at therapy?”
I rattled the rest of the pills in my hand. “You’re looking at therapy.”
“Mom said you were doing inpatient at one of those high-end holistic places focused on wellness and spiritual healing or some shit.”
“Why go through all the hard work of trying to actually help when they can throw medication at rich people and call them success stories? It’s the same at all the spas she shipped me off to.”
“But she told me—”
“A lie. Surprise, surprise. Which is why it’s fucking hilarious that all those people were going on and on about Mom like she was a saint and not Satan.”
Aria’s eyes went wide. “Briar.”
“You’re right, that comparison is offensive… to Satan.” I cracked up again. “And now she’s his problem, the poor demon.” My laughter broke, catching in my throat to choke me as it mixed with sudden sobs.
Real ones.
Saying something about normal reactions, Aria reached for me, trying to hug me. Comfort me.
I didn’t want or need either.
“You don’t get it,” I said through happy tears. “I’m free.”
“What does that mean?”
Caught up in my relief and joy, my exhaustion and shock, I lowered my walls and shared. Not everything. Nowhere near it. But more than I’d ever told anyone else—much to the frustration of countless therapists, counselors, and doctors.
Aria stayed silent through it all, her pleasantly blank shrink mask quickly falling to reveal sisterly horror and anger.
Once I was done, she still didn’t speak. Her narrowed gaze was aimed at the wall, but I doubted she saw anything. I was pretty sure I was supposed to offer some reassurance or console her in some way, but my multitude of drugs had kicked in, and I was back to blissfully numb.
After a few stretching minutes, my sister finally dragged her gaze to me. Her beautiful face was set with stubborn determination, and when she spoke, her voice was firm.
“You’re not going back there. You’re coming to live with me.”
Chapter One
Dead
Briar
For Aria
I WISHED I were dead.
That wasn’t an exaggeration. It wasn’t dramatics. It wasn’t residual teen angst flowing unbridled through my twenty-one-year-old mind.
It was the truth—cold and unrelenting like the very death I craved.
Okay, fine. That was definitely skating the line of emo dramatics. Very Poe-esque. Or maybe Plath—she’d killed herself by sticking her head in an oven with the gas on. If that wasn’t theatrics, I didn’t know what was.
The point was, when my group counselor at Redmond Mental Health Center asked me how I was feeling, my first thought was that I wished I were dead. Not that I said it out loud, of course. Giving voice to the feelings that haunted me would ensure an involuntary stay in a special facility.
Again.
No, as I looked at my counselor’s stamped-on smile, I forced one of my own. And then I lied as easily as I breathed. Easier, actually. “I had a really good week. I’m finally moved into my new apartment. It’s small but really nice.”
“I’m glad,” he said, though his tone sounded anything but. I gave him another two weeks—a month, tops—before he quit.
They all quit eventually.
It was that, or they would end up putting a bullet in their heads. Listening to a bunch of clinically depressed people turn even the brightest rainbow into a rainstorm wore on anyone after a while.
And Derrick—who’d started out calm, cool, and filled with a bright-eyed optimism—had seemingly reached that point.
“Having your own space is very important,” he continued, saying shit I already knew. “Do you know why?”
I absentmindedly stroked the ends of my long hair. “It gives me a sense of responsibility, belonging, and control.”
Which does jack-fucking-shit to calm the unease that boils under my skin every second of every hour of every day.
“That’s right.” Derrick’s smile grew a little less artificial, as if my answer gave him a momentary validation that he wasn’t wasting his time.
He was.
But it was nice he could still believe he was making a difference, so I returned his smile.
Hey, just because I lived my life with death lurking over my shoulder and pessimism fueling my thoughts didn’t mean I believed everyone else had to.
We moved on from me quickly, switching to Jenna who was having a fit because her hours at work were changing and she just could not deal. The horror. The insult.
The humanity!
Depression was hard enough to deal with. Depression with control issues was worse. Jenna had both with the addition of an unhealthy dose of narcissism—the trifecta of terror.
She wasn’t the only one in a mood that afternoon. It wasn’t uncommon in the young adult group. Actually, I was willing to bet it wasn’t uncommon in any group. It made me wonder how effective that form of therapy actually was. Everyone seemed to feed off one another, making them desperate to be seen. To be heard. To receive confirmation that they hadn’t sunk into the nothingness of full adulthood, all hope and excitement gone from their young lives. Their stories fueled one another to top them, each determined to be the very best.