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two

16 September, 2014

-Kait

Dr. Hill told me that I have to write my feeling down in a journal. I'm not sure why but I have an idea that it's because writing is a source of healing. I have trouble healing over what happened that night. I see it again in my dreams every night and no matter how hard I try to push it away I can't. It's haunting me and won't leave me alone to my own thoughts. What makes things worse is that everyone around me is always asking me if i'm okay, as if they are obligate to feel some sort of pity for me. I'm tired of feeling pitied for, I don't want to be the girl everyone feels sorry for anymore.

I think about you everyday and hope that someday I can tell you this all in person one day. I hope someday one day it won't be so hard without you.

-Rowan

Putting away the leather bound journal I checked the clock realizing it was time once again to see Dr. Hill. This week had been a little more with work and events that had been planned like dinner with my parents. They had been extra worried about me this week and in conclusion invited me to dinner. Though I had no desire to go and sit through a lecture of a dinner I accepted the invite or rather demand that I come and enjoy dinner with our broken family. Family dinners were never the same, always lacking the presence of Kait.

The streets of Portland blossomed with variations of reds and oranges. The trees showing off the colors of autumn everyone found beautiful. The crunching of leaves sounded beneath the tan booties I had chosen to wear in the fall season. A scarf wrapped around my neck and pea coat wrapping around my body to conserve heat.

Sitting down in the same spot I always did Dr. Hill greeted me with a smile rummaging through her filing cabinet to find my file I assumed.

"How has this week been?" Dr. Hill began walking over and finding her seat in the chair she sat in across from me.

"Fine I guess." I shrugged not in the mood to really discuss my problems.

"I guess? That doesn't sound too convincing. How about we start off with the journaling, how is that going?" Dr. Hill crossed her leg over the other opening up her notes that she had taken in the previous session.

"It's fine, I actually don't mind it." I said honestly thinking back to the quiet time I had writing away whatever came to mind.

"That's great to hear! I'm glad it's beneficial to you. I just wanted to touch on what we were getting into last time. You have or feel like you are responsible for what happened to Kait. What makes you think this way, why do you think you are responsible?" Dr. Hill pushed on some reading glasses to better see the information in front of her. Her chocolate brown hair neatly straightened with  slight curls at the ends.

I sat for a moment deciding what I should reveal and what I should keep to myself. "If I wouldn't have said yes, it never would have happened. I knew we shouldn't have been doing what we were doing but I didn't care and neither did she. I should've known better and I ignored what was right."

"You can't keep blaming yourself Rowan because, if you wouldn't have said yes Kait would have gone by herself. We all knew Kait and we know that whatever Kait wanted she got. If it weren't you who said yes to her she would have gone out on her own."

"But I knew that we weren't allowed to go out and I ignored that. I was older than her and I should have known better than to disobey house rules." I looked back at Kait and our age difference. I was twenty last year while she was nineteen, we were a mere year apart.

"Rowan, you think you were in control of the whole situation but you weren't. Yes you can take responsibility for breaking the house rules but what happened after that was not in your control. Others around you can be unpredictable and there's nothing we can do about that. You didn't know by sneaking out of the house that what happened would happen." Dr. Hill took off her glasses and placed them on the coffee table uncrossing her legs to lean her elbow on her knees. Her dark brown eyes concentrated on me as I looked down into my lap.