I Miss You

I slouched in the arm chair that was supposed to be comfortable, but really was a pain to sit in. My dad sat in one next to me, with one of his polite smiles on his face. I might add, with a polite smile, that we shouldn’t have been sitting in this office at all.

Bryan Shull sat across from us, behind a dark wooden desk. Bryan Shull was a counselor. He was a ‘problem-solver’. My dad could make me go to counseling, but I never said I was going to enjoy it.

“Lena, you know why you’re here, don’t you?” Bryan asked me.

Here we go. “Yup.”

Bryan and my dad exchanged a look. Honestly, I thought my answer was fine. I knew why my dad was making me do this. I wasn’t stupid. I just thought it was stupid.

Bryan’s face was a face I didn’t really want to stare at. Primarily because he was kind of attractive and I felt weird being attracted to my counselor, but mostly because he would not stop looking back. He had light brown eyes and dark brows, and the way they seemed to see straight through me was disconcerting. I wasn’t used to being read like an open book.

“I think it would be best to start with an open ended question,” Bryan said, giving me a smile. He picked up a stress ball from his desk and threw it from hand to hand. “What’s on your mind?”

Well, I could tell him the truth: that I did not agree to this, I was doing just fine, and everyone should stop worrying about me because I was not going to kill myself. I looked at my dad, then back at him. “What do you mean?”

“What have you been thinking? Since your mom died,” Bryan said.

I automatically hunched my shoulders in a little, as if I had received a blow to the chest. Every time someone brought up her death it was like a reminder, even though I hadn’t forgotten. She had been gone for five months now. Five months and four days. I thought about Bryan’s question. “I haven’t abused myself, or turned to drugs or sex if that’s what you’re really asking,” I replied testily.

“Ah, no. I asked what you have been thinking, not what you’ve done,” Bryan said calmly.

I stared at him, feeling irritated. “Did you just hear me? I said I haven’t—”

“—I heard you,” he interrupted. “But it still wasn’t the answer to my question.”

What the hell? “I don’t know. I don’t write stuff down.” I said this with an edge. Bryan was known for his strategy of supplying his patients with a notebook, and by the time they finished they were miraculously healed or normal…or whatever I was supposed to be by the end of this. I was hoping he caught my hint that I wasn’t going to be like his other patients who made daily accounts of their thoughts in a stupid journal. No way.

But he said it anyways. “Maybe you should write things down.” Bryan looked at my dad when he said this. He probably wanted him to make daily checks in this so called ‘notebook’ he’d like me to have. But my dad wouldn’t have to since I was not going to have one.

“Look, I’m not taking a notebook. It’s a waste of time, and it’s not my thing.” I looked out the window, as if that closed the whole subject.

Next to me my dad sighed. “Lena, if you would at least try to cooperate—”

“This is so stupid!” I yelled at him. “Why do I have to have counseling? Ally doesn’t. You don’t!” I glared at him. Bryan leaned back in his chair, watching me. It was unfair. If my dad was going to make me do counseling, make me come sit here and answer dumb questions that he could have asked me himself, I thought him and my sister should have to do it with me.

“You don’t seem to be handling things as well.”

I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “I’m doing fine.” I looked at the wall, ignoring their stares.

My dad’s voice was sharp when he responded. “That’s ridiculous. You don’t talk to anyone, do anything. What happened to Libby and Neal? If you were fine, we wouldn’t be here.”

I wiped the hot tears off my cheeks. I was fine. I was. My dad just didn’t know how I coped with everything. I had a theory that it was better if people didn’t see your pain. No one wants to see someone hurting. I didn’t want anyone to see it.

Bryan took the silence as an opportunity to jump into the conversation. “Who are Libby and Neal?”

“No one,” I answered angrily. I didn’t want to talk about them.

Libby had been my friend since kindergarten. She was the girl that was an automatic friend, as in share a puzzle and become soul mates. We did everything and anything together; we played Barbies, made forts, discovered boys together. She was the first person I told when mom got sick.

Neal had been one of a kind. He was hard to describe, but so easy to at the same time. He lived four houses down from me, so we always used to sneak out and camp in the tree house his dad had made for him and his little brother. That was when we were kids of course. But he was like a brother to me. I used to tell him everything, from my school problems to my current crush. Now, everything I heard about him was from my dad who’d heard it from his mom. Not like I wanted to hear it. I didn’t want to know anything about him anymore.

“Well, obviously they’re your friends?” Bryan broke my grain of though. He looked at my dad for confirmation. “What do you three do for fun?” he asked, breaking my thoughts.

“I don’t see them anymore,” I said sharply. My dad sighed heavily, tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair. That was part of the problem. My dad always had these little signs, to show you he wanted to say something. But no matter how many times you asked him to share his thoughts, he wouldn’t talk.

“Why not?” Bryan seemed highly interested.

I took a deep breath. I shrugged, feeling a tingly feeling in my nose as there always was before I cried.

Bryan tried again. “When did you last see them?”

“After the funeral,” I said quietly. I was waiting for him to ask me why then, what happened, how come, but to my surprise he didn’t say anything at all. He just nodded once, and kept his eyes on me.

Over the next hour, Bryan asked me all these questions that really had nothing to do with anything while my dad sighed next to me because he didn’t like my answers. That whole session really had no point at all; at least that’s what I thought. After we talked about Libby and Neal, Bryan found out what music I listened to, my favorite subjects in school. I was glad he didn’t ask anything else about my friends, or my mom. Even still, I didn’t really want to answer his questions anyway. I was thankful when he said, “Times up,” and let us leave.

The ride home was in close range of being worse than the counseling. My dad just sat there, staring at the road and gripping the steering wheel. I had no idea what I had done, what had made him so mad. Usually he tried to make small talk even if I was in a bad mood. I was looking out the window, arms crossed with my feet up on the dashboard. He didn’t yell at me for that either, like he usually would.

“What did I do?” I said, moving my hands in frustration.

“Nothing, Lena.”

“Um, obviously I did, because you’re acting different.” I jolted forward in my seat when he stopped a little too fast at a stop light.

“I’m acting different?” His voice was quiet, but that seemed worse than yelling. Just when I was about to respond, he turned to me.

“What did I do wrong, Lena? Why is this—everything—so much harder for you? Ally is doing alright, isn’t she? Why can’t you…”

“Be like her?” I finished angrily. My dad didn’t know half of what was going on with Ally now. She wasn’t the same sweet girl she used to be. “No.”

“Well, be something! All you do is mope around. You can’t even talk to a counselor, much less your family! Damn it, Lena…Mom is gone,” he finished quietly. We drove in silence until he sighed heavily, pulling into our driveway.

I sat in the car for a few minutes after he’d gone into our house. I hated him for wanting me to be like Ally, for making it seem like Mom hadn’t even been here. He didn’t understand how it felt as a daughter to have your mom be gone. To know that when I wake up in the morning she wouldn’t be humming in the kitchen, making my favorite blueberry waffles. That she wasn’t there to talk me through girl problems, or have those days where she’s in a good mood and acts completely crazy but it’s worth it because that is when I’ve laughed the hardest I have in my whole life. She can’t do those special little things anymore that make her exactly what she was; a mom. I bit my lip as my eyes watered, stepping out of the car.

I had no idea how my dad expected Bryan Shull to make things better. He didn’t know me, and he hadn’t known my mom.

It was the beginning week of summer after first grade. Nothing felt better than playing video games all day and playing baseball in the park with Ally and my dad. Actually, Ally was more interested in painting her nails bright pink and playing with her new Barbie. But Dad and I had fun.

I ran around the bases, laughing as he chased after me, holding up The Claw. I was terrified of The Claw. He brought it out every time he was teasing me, or trying to make me smile. Dad would stop everything he was doing, and look scared as his own hand turned slowly into a claw shaped form. And he would chase me and growl stupidly like all dads did when they were playing with their kids. But I thought it was silly and loved it all the same, so I ran as fast as I could to get away. He always caught me though, and tickled me until I almost screamed for him to stop.

“We should go back and see what mom’s cooked up for dinner. Alright, kiddo?” Dad smiled, picking me up from the ground and putting me on his back.

I called to Ally, teasing her that I was taller than she and I would rule the world and destroy all her lame dolls. She started whining.

“Dad! Lena is so mean to me all the time and I never get to have a piggyback ride, and she always gets to have one. It’s not fair!” She crossed her arms and pouted, planting her feet on the sidewalk, just like an eight year old would.

Dad put me down, and walked up to Ally. “You want a piggyback ride?”

She nodded, sniffling. And he picked her up and made her cheer now that she was taller than me.

“So! I can still beat you home anyways!” And I ran all the way past the jungle gym and the construction workers building the new houses and Neal’s house, bursting through the front door.

“Mom! I beat them both home!” I called, running into the kitchen. She was standing behind the counter with her strawberry apron on. She would always wear that when she was cooking, even if she was making the simplest of food. When I had asked her why, she’d said she could still look good while getting dirty. After that, I made her buy me an apron, too.

“There’s my girl! You’re a track star! The fastest girl in the country,” she said, smiling that special smile she always used for me. I loved her smile. She had crinkly eyes, and a little dimple on the right side of her cheek that I used to stick my pinky in when we snuggled together on the couch.

I shook my head. “No, in the world, Mom. I’m the fastest girl in the world.” Of course I thought I was. I could run away from anything, and it’d never catch me. Never. Only my dad was fast enough for that. I didn’t know it then, but maybe that was my downfall. I always had thought that I could escape.