Steamed

my legs would’ve healed by then. If I hadn’t sanded off half my skin last night, I could’ve been basking in a sexual afterglow. As it was, I was still itchy. In more ways than one.
    When Wednesday finally arrived, my Group Therapy class proved to be more irritating than it had been the previous week. This time, instead of continuing to learn about group process by discussing Eric’s murder, each of us was forced to pair up with a partner and play the roles of client and therapist as a way to improve our counseling skills and encourage the expression and verbalization of emotion. We didn’t even get to pretend to be a single parent fighting poverty or a person with bipolar illness struggling with medication; instead, we were stuck being ourselves. Worse, each team had to sit in front of the class and demonstrate its techniques.
    The only positive note was that Gay Doug grabbed me and rescued me from having to partner with someone to whom verbalizing emotion was a new and foreign experience.
    Doug and I sat together in a corner of the room and practiced.
    “I don’t want to do this,” I informed him.
    “Yes, I can tell. Can you expand on that feeling?”
    “Yes. If I wanted to be in therapy, I’d do it on my own. Why am I paying eighteen thousand dollars a year for this?”
    “So you’re frustrated?” Ah, reframing and reflecting back.
    I sneered at Doug.
    “Chloe, look, part of being a good therapist is learning to understand yourself, so just behave.”
    When it came time for us to present our skills in front of the class, I noticed an unusual amount of interest from my fellow students. Before Doug had a chance to try to engage me in a scintillating interview, Gretchen cut in.
    “Chloe, we were just talking about you.” She gestured to a few women near her. “And this seems like a good opportunity to catch up on where you’re at emotionally with the murder. Are you maintaining your support structures? Have you disentangled yourself from the victim’s parents?” With eager social work faces on me, I looked to Doug to bail me out. Instead, he said, “Yes, Chloe. Can you express to us how this experience is affecting you?”
    Thanks, Doug. I gave a summary of my dinner with the Raffertys and noticed eyes widening when I mentioned Eric’s financial woes and his parents’ imminent move.
    “And how does it make you feel to be caught in this lie with his parents?” Gretchen wasn’t going to let up until I’d had a meltdown, preferably one complete with hurling objects and bawling.
    I sighed. “I feel,” I emphasized, “cranky that I’m stuck in the lie, and I blame my downstairs neighbor for being such a dork and making me so desperate to find a boyfriend that I went on the Internet for a blind date and now have to deal with this stupidness. And I just want to have my chef without all this other nonsense.”
    Determined to be the responsive social worker, Gretchen said, “But you need to own your part in this. Your neighbor didn’t make you do anything. You have to accept responsibility for your choices. And perhaps you’re more angry than frustrated? Maybe share a little bit more with the class?”
    Although I could’ve said a lot about the anger I was feeling toward Gretchen just then, I refrained from causing a scene by making some insightful-sounding BS comments on restoring my mental health. The class then bounced around the same theories I’d run by Josh last night. To my disappointment, no one was strongly convinced of any suspect’s guilt.
    Sensible Julie piped in. “The point is, first of all, you’ve gotten yourself caught up in this situation with the parents, and you simply have to extricate yourself and end their disillusionment ASAP. Like you said last week, you feel sorry for them, and you’ve become a victim of your own empathy. But now it’s time to wind things up there.”
    I actually agreed with Julie and promised the class and myself that I’d phone Sheryl and Phil and straighten things out.
    She continued. “Second, you should be careful trying to name the murderer. That’s not your job, and you may tick off the wrong person,” Julie warned. Students nodded in agreement.
    I carried a cell phone, I assured everyone, as though the miracle of wireless communication would keep me safe from a knife-wielding killer. Don’t slice me open yet! Not until I make a quick call to 911! But I did promise to be careful.
    In spite of finding my classmates somewhat