The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

bandage on one of them, the one that I made the deepest cuts on. The other one is starting to heal and soon there will only be scars. More scars. One day I wonder if I’ll be one big scar that will own every ounce of my skin.
    Doug reaches into the pocket of his brown tweed jacket and retrieves another rubber band, a thicker one that’s dark red. I take it, slip it onto my wrist, and begin flicking it again. Doug scribbles some notes down, closes the notebook, and then overlaps his hands and places them on top of the notebook. “You know, the longer you stay in denial, the longer they’re going to keep you here.” He gestures around at the room. “Is that what you want?”
    I stop flicking the rubber band, fold my arms, and lean back in the seat with my legs kicked out in front of me. “Maybe.” I know I’m being a pain in the ass and I don’t know why. I feel bitter on the inside, unworthy to be here. I feel everything and maybe that’s the problem. I clench my hands into fists and jab my fingernails into my palms, which are tucked to my side so the therapist doesn’t see them.
    “I just don’t want to be here,” I mutter. “But it’s fucking hard, you know?”
    He leans forward with interest. “What’s hard?”
    I have no idea where I’m going with this. “Life.” I shrug.
    His gray eyebrows dip underneath the frame of his glasses. “What’s hard about your life, Kayden?”
    This guy doesn’t get it, which might make it easier. “Feeling everything.”
    He looks perplexed as he reclines in his chair and slips off his glasses. “Feeling emotions? Or the pain in life?”
    Fuck. Maybe he does get it. “Both I guess.”
    Rain slashes against the window. It’s weird that it’s raining instead of snowing and by morning the ground is going to be a sloshy mess.
    He cleans the lenses of his glasses with the bottom of his shirt and then slips them back on his nose. “Do you ever let yourself feel what’s inside you?”
    I consider what he said for a very long time. Sirens shriek outside and somewhere in the halls a person is crying. “I’m not sure… maybe… not always.”
    “And why is that?” he asks.
    I think back to all the kicks, the punches, the screaming, and how eventually I just drowned it all out, shut down, and died inside. “Because it’s too much.” It’s a simple answer, but each word conveys more meaning than anything I’ve ever said. It’s fucking strange to talk about it aloud. The only person I’ve ever said anything to was Callie and I sugarcoated it for her, to keep her from seeing how ugly and fucked up I am on the inside.
    He removes a pen from the pocket of his jacket and his hand swiftly moves across the paper as he scribbles down some notes. “And what do you do when it becomes too much?”
    I slide my finger under the rubber band and give it a flick, then do it again harder. It breaks again and I shake my head as I catch the pieces in my hand. “I think you know what I do, which is why I keep breaking these damn rubber bands.”
    He chews on the end of his pen as he evaluates me. “Let’s talk about the night you got in a fight.”
    “I already told you about that night a thousand times.”
    “No, you told me what happened that night in your own words, but you’ve never explained to me how you felt when you were making your decision. And emotions always play a large part in the things we do.”
    “I’m not a fan of them,” I admit, slouching back in the chair.
    “I know that,” he responds confidently. “And I’d like to get to the bottom of why.”
    “No, you wouldn’t,” I tell him, dragging my nail up the inside of my palm to soothe the accelerating beat of my heart. “No one wants to hear about that. Trust me.”
    He drops the pen on top of the notebook that’s on his lap. “Why would you think that?”
    “Because it’s true.” I stab my nails deeper into my skin until I feel the warmth and comfort of blood. “I’m nineteen years old and everything that’s done is done. There’s no point in trying to save me. Who I am and what I do is always going to be.”
    “I’m not trying to save you,” he promises. “I’m trying to heal you.”
    I run my finger along a thin scar on the palm of my hand that was put there when my dad cut me with a shard of glass. “What? Heal these? I’m pretty fucking sure they’re not going anywhere.”
    He positions his hand over his heart. “I want to heal what’s in here.”
    Usually I bail