Cry Until You Bleed

34- Moving Forward

*Tonight's game was super intense but we still won! WE'RE ON A FREAKING ROLL, MAN*

“I can’t believe they did that,” Mia says with a burst of laughter as we’re sitting on the couch watching one of those stupid Jackass movies. “That’s so stupid.”

“That’s the whole point of the movie,” Desiree points out, laughing at what had just happened. “They just do really stupid and painful stuff and then they get paid for it. It’s stupid but it’s funny as hell.”

“Have you ever seen this, Ana?” Mia asks me, pretty much asking me to get behind her on this subject and it’s mostly because she would rather watch a romance than this but Desiree had talked to her into it.

I shake my head at her. “No, I haven’t. I like it though, it is pretty funny.”

“Next time, I get to choose the movie,” Mia huffs but then, the next stunt happens and she laughs at it, obviously finding it funnier than she feels like admitting.

“Shut up, you’re laughing,” Desiree says, laughing herself.

It’s Friday now and I just got out of my session with Dr. Lombardi, which is why we’re ending our week with a nice movie night. She talked to me again about getting rid of my ghosts and everything by telling somebody about what happened. At first, it seemed kind of ridiculous to me because it’s not like it’s a total secret. It was a pretty public ordeal in our town. My whole family knows about what happened and so do my friends from back then and so does Renée. However, after I thought about it for a while, I realized that even though people know what happened, I’ve never actually told anybody before. The closest thing I’ve ever gotten to telling somebody what happened is when I had a nightmare and I kind of let the broad idea of everything slip when I was talking to Niles.

Even if I did decide to tell somebody about that night, I’m not sure who I would even tell. Not Dr. Lombardi because although I’m sure that she really does sincerely care about me, but she still only gets paid to listen to me and I don’t know… it just doesn’t feel as genuine as my other conversations because I know that she has to listen to me. It’s literally her job. I don’t want to tell Mia or Renée either, because they obviously have their own problems to deal with and they don’t need to hear about mine although Renée obviously already knows.

I could tell Penn or somebody but there’s so many reasons why that’s a bad idea. For one, he’s family. He’s my brother. How weird would that be? Me describing that attack to my brother considering the nature of it all and besides, he already knows the story. He was the first one to the hospital when the doctors had to brief him on what was going on.

“Okay, that’s not even funny, that’s just incredibly disgusting,” Mia cringes, looking away from the TV screen as both me and Desiree start to laugh because, while it was gross, what just happened was pretty funny as well and Mia’s reaction just made it even better.

“You’re such a wimp,” I tease her, nudging her with my shoulder.

“Oh, shut up, that is so gross,” She defends herself. “I’m allowed to not want to watch that.”

“Sure, whatever you say,” I sing with another laugh.

“Hey,” A new voice enters the conversation from behind the couch and all three of us turn around to see Niles standing behind the couch with a charming half-smile on his face.

“Oh, hey,” I chirp, remembering that he has practices on Fridays and he usually stops by then because he walks over here from the ice rink to get a ride home with his sister. “What’s up?”

He shrugs. “Sophie’s pulling a few extra hours so I guess you’re stuck with me for a while longer than normal.”

“Bummer,” I reply teasingly. “Well, come have a seat. You can watch the movie with us.”