The Beautiful You

Forty-five ~ fantasmas

"I'm sorry to hear that," Dr. Gonzales said. She hasn't written anything in her notepad. Her notepad was closed for most of my session. Today she was just listening to me, and it was incredibly uncomfortable. It always felt like the notepad was another party, something that put a distance between us, but right now it felt claustrophobic.

I shrugged, picking at the dry skin on my fingers. It's a habit I've picked up in therapy. I think Dr. Gonzales noticed, but she hasn't said anything about it.

Not yet.

"I wanted to meet with you before that day, but your schedule wasn't flexible." She sent me an apologetic smile. It was my fault anyway. I could have come in before the anniversary, but I didn't want to.

I made excuses.

So the best I could do was a quick phone call the morning of Battle of the Bands.

"Are you feeling better?" She asked.

I shrugged. "I feel..." I paused. I didn't know how to describe this feeling. All the feelings I've been feeling since then or even now. "I don't know."

"How do you want to feel?" She asked.

I glanced at her bookshelf. The same bookshelf I stared at for an hour the first time I came here. Only this time something was different. It was strange, in her inventory of books there was a single framed photo sitting on the center of the shelf.

Perfectly spaced and placed.

Just perfect enough for me to take notice of it in my chair, from my perspective. It was too noticeable, too out of place. Inside the frame was a picture of two young girls with their arms slung around each other. It was an old picture from the way the colors were muted and the picture itself was low quality and grainy.

"What's that?" I asked, nodding my head in the direction of the photo.

She turned her head towards the bookshelf and smiled. "You're quite the observer."

She stood up and walked towards the photo, gently picking it up from the shelf, and handed it to me. I pressed my fingers against the wooden frame and stared at the young girls.

I recognized one of the girls. She didn't look any older than 12, but somehow I knew her. Her brown eyes, and curly black hair. She was familiar.

I glanced back up at Dr. Gonzales.

"Have you figured it out?" She smiled.

"I feel like I know her," I said.

She laughed. "You do, but you know a different version of her."

I glanced back down at the photo, until it clicked.

"I see the lightbulb," she teased.

"It's you."

"It's me." She nodded.

I pressed my finger against the glass pointing to the other girl. "Who is she?"

Dr. Gonzales smiled down at the image. "That's my best friend, Julieta."

"Why do you have it here?" I asked.

Dr. Gonzales wasn't someone who kept random pieces of herself in her office.

She's purposeful.

"It's nice to keep some memories in my office."

"It's really old," I said, placing my thumb over the damaged corner of the photo that had a deep wrinkle.

She nodded. "It's the last photo I have of us together."

"But you said she's your best friend?"

She nodded. "She is."

"Then why would this be the last photo you have?"

"She died in a car accident that summer," she said. "That was the last time I saw her. That was almost 36 years ago."

"So, she was your best friend."

A small smile appeared on her face, and she shook her head. "She's still my best friend."

"But she died."

"Even in the past, the present, and the future she will always be my best friend. Just because she's not here doesn't change that. I knew her in the past so I'll carry her with me into the future."

That's like what my mom said too.

I stared back down at my hands, fiddling with the strings of my sweatpants. "Doesn't that make you depressed?"

She laughed. "Oh, it did a long time ago."

"So why would you carry her if it hurts?"

"Grief is strange, and at times inexplicable. It takes shape in different ways, but I don't see it as a burden."

"I'm not so sure about that."

I don't understand. How is this feeling not a burden?

She's right; it is strange.

"Apollo, just because Jackson died doesn't mean anything changed about your relationship with him. He's not here in a physical sense, but he's with you. The same way Julieta is still my best friend even after her death." She paused. It was an intentional pause, she likes to wait for me to catch up. "I think that burden you feel is your unexpressed grief. It's like a wound you tried to pack without disinfecting. It's something that's festered because you were too afraid to pull back the bandage and look."

I think I understood that.

I know it. 

It was all building up, and maybe it still is.

"I don't know what to do," I murmured.

"At first, grief is heavy, but time will make it lighter. Maybe someday you won't think of it like that."

I didn't want to upset Dr. Gonzales. I didn't want to tell her that although our experiences were similar, they weren't the same. My problem was never his death itself, it was why Jackson died.

So I swallowed it down, and managed a quick reply. "I hope I can get to year 36 and talk about it like you do."

She smiled, taking a long pause before she said, "I'm glad you feel that way."

I think she knew I was keeping it all inside. I'm never sure if she knows, but it's safe to guess.

"I want you to write something," she said suddenly. "Write a letter to Jackson in that journal I gave you. It can be about anything. I just want you to write to him. It can be in the past, present or the future, it doesn't matter. Just let it out on the page."

I shrugged. "What do I do with it?"

"Read it, out loud. Then, you can do whatever you want with it. Because it'll already be out. Those thoughts and words; They'll no longer be inside you."

"Do I have to?"

"No, you don't have to," she said. "At least not right now, in time." She paused glancing down at my fingers and the dry skin. "But wouldn't it be nice, for once, not to keep it all inside?"