Left In The Dark

Chapter 30

By this time Gabrielle was actually tearing up. She caught me looking at her, after coming from that dark memory, and turned on a smile. Quickly wiping her eyes, she cleared her throat.

"Uhm, excuse me." She apologized.

I nodded and watched her scribble a couple more things down. To be honest I was surprised I wasn't in complete shambles after talking about that day. I guess I've had over a year to cry about it. I thought about that numbness. It must transferred over a little.

"So that was the last time you've heard of him?" She asked referring to Shawn.

I sighed and nodded my head, running my hand across my face. Internally I was coaching myself to keep it up. I've been doing well this far.

"Yeah." I answered in short.

I STARTED to feel grief swoop in but I fought against it. I was serious about getting better.

"So what happened?" She asked. A puzzled expression still apparent on her face.

I released an empty laugh and shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know."

"You never found about how he died?" She questioned.

"It was like he disappeared." I answered gazing at the rug, like it had the answer.

"I think I figured out YOUR problem." She revealed placing her pen down.

I peered up at her with raised brows as she continued.

"You can't accept the fact that Shawn is gone because it's not real to you yet. How can you accept something that isn't real?"

She was right. It didn't seem real at all. I've never thought about it like that. Everything just happened so fast that I didn't have time to grasp it all. Once he disappeared, I ended up like this. Deep into my depression. To me it didn't even matter how it happened. It was the fact that I could never physically have him back that made me avoid finding out. Because then I'd have to face it. I never wanted to face it. I guess it was my way of holding on to some glimmering hope that Shawn was still out there. That he was still alive somewhere. And that we could be together again.

"How?" I more so said to myself.

"You need to make it real Beyoncé. I think once you found out exactly how he passed, we can work on you moving on. You can't move through one door without closing the one behind you." Gabby concluded figuratively. "I have a feeling YOUR friend Michelle might know something."

I furrowed my brow but thought about it.

"I mean, the way she was acting, at least how you described it, sounds like she was feeling some extreme guilt. Her hugging herself and avoiding YOUR eye contact. Keeping her head down. Storming out the room..." She listed, checking off on her notepad.

She managed to read body language from over a year ago of someone that wasn't even HERE in the office. How she does that is beyond me.

She continued. "She just seemed way more emotional about it than the rest of YOUR family."

I thought some more. Did Michelle know something? She was acting the strangest out of all of them. It was clearly noticeable. I just thought maybe she was really emotional. She has always been the more emotional and sensitive one out of the THREE of us. Well, before I became this.

"You think so?" I asked to reconfirm.

Gabby folded her hands and rested against the desk. "It's a strong hunch."

"I should talk to her."

"I think that's a good idea."

We nodded in agreement and Gabby checked her watch. "Oh, well the session's up. Let me know how that talk goes okay?"