Dissolving

Chapter 9 - Shrink Tricks

I must be the most miserable person to be around.

It is almost 4pm the next day – a Saturday – and I have refused to leave my room once I retreated back to it after having been forced to eat breakfast with my family. My mood has not improved in the slightest since Jordan and I got back from hospital yesterday. Actually, I think I am grumpier than I was then, if that is even possible. Every little thing is getting to me and a wrong look from one of my brothers can instantly set me off, as has happened twice during breakfast earlier.

Luckily, Alex had to go into work today, because I am sure that I would have been grounded faster than I could have said my name if he had been there to witness me throwing a fork at Noah for something he said.

Surprisingly, Ben, who is in charge here since he is currently the oldest in the house, let me off the hook with only a warning. He was pretty close to punishing me, however, when I blew up at Jack just a few minutes after the Noah incident because Jack made an innocent remark about something that I cannot even remember anymore. I am sure that it was very trivial. Sam, who joined us for breakfast because he thought he would come over to do some exercises with me later – which I have successfully avoided – convinced Ben that he should let that slip, too.

Of course, irrationally, that made me even angrier. Because the last person I wanted to defend me and my actions was Sam. He and I have had another massive fight yesterday when Jordan took me to therapy after the hospital visit, despite my protests. I accused Sam quite disrespectfully of not having a clue how to do his job properly.

In my frazzled state, I was desperately looking for someone to blame for my misery and Sam was the perfect target. I convinced myself that it is his fault that I haven't made enough progress yet, despite his claims that the demanding therapy regime he is vigilantly putting me through is just what I need to heal properly. Let's just say that none of my grown-up brothers were very amused when they heard that I had a go at him once again.

That argument with Sam is one of the reasons why I am currently hiding away in my room. Last night, after I had calmed down a bit and had time to replay our fight in my mind, I did feel really bad about my behaviour. However, stubborn as I am, I haven't managed to admit that to him this morning and I am still not speaking to him. Not for lack of trying on his part, of course.

I didn't expect him to show up at our house this morning, so when he sat there shovelling food into his mouth when I came downstairs, my first thought was flight. But Ben read my intentions correctly and held me back before I could disappear without eating breakfast. I kept ignoring Sam throughout it and went back to my room the moment I was done. He can shove his „exercises" where the sun don't shine, for all I care. I have no intentions to do them anytime soon again, since it doesn't work anyway.

About three hours ago, Ben tried to coax me to come downstairs and have lunch with them. But since all I have been doing is lying on my bed, I didn't and still don't feel hungry at all. I told him as much and – again, very surprisingly – he didn't even push me. Instead, he just brought me a bottle of water and an apple and left me alone after that.

The amount of sympathy my brothers are showing me is unprecedented and it is also kind of embarrassing. I am starting to feel pretty ashamed for treating them so badly while they go out of their way to act incredibly understanding and very successfully manage to ignore my bad mood.

The only exception is Sam, who definitely didn't have much patience with me last night when I was so horrible and rude to him. I don't remember ever having been in such a bad fight with him before. The disagreement we had on my third day of therapy was nothing compared to how we verbally laid into each other yesterday.