Scribbles of a Broken Heart

“He spent forty dollars on carnations and chocolate?”

“Yeah, every other girlfriend only got one. You should have seen their faces,” I laughed.

“So you consider his gift to be out of love?”

At looked at Ms. Templeton, my eyebrows scrunched, “Well, yeah. You don’t think so?”

“I find it,” she looked for the right word, “material.”
“You don’t know Garrett. You don’t know how he thinks.” I raised my voice, “You don’t know love. So what makes you qualified to judge its every aspect?”

To my surprise she looked at me with gentle eyes. “I didn’t know Garrett. And I don’t know how he thought.”

“Shut up,” I commanded her. “Shut up!”

“We are going to have to discuss this matter sooner or later Constance.”

“No,” I brought up my feet and crouched down on the chair, hugging my shins. “I’m not ready. And I have a lot more stories left. Like…” I used whichever memory surfaced first, “when he finally got off of grounding, how he took me out. And…and…the time we went to the park. Or…uh…”

“Constance,” she kept her voice even, “you’re deflecting. I have a feeling that those stories aren’t that meaningful-“

“Everything Garrett does—”

“Did,” she corrected.

“Shut up!” I stood up, wanting to slap her so badly.

“We need to talk about it.”

I covered my ears and started to shout incoherently. I wanted to block her voice. I wanted to block the world. I wasn’t ready to go there. I wasn’t ready to revisit what had happened almost four months ago. I still had stories—bunches of memories that I would gladly share than go back to that day.

She stood up and tried to place her hand on my shoulders. I veered away; I didn’t want her to touch me.

She yelled over me, “We have to talk about how Garrett died.”

“No!” I was seething. How could she bring it up as if it were any other memory?

How could she talk to me about it as if it was going to be easy? I pressed my back against her door, hugging myself as I slid down to the floor.

“Fine,” she replied. “This session is over. But tomorrow, you better be ready to talk about it.”

I hated her. Weren’t therapists supposed to make you feel better? She just watched as I broke down on her floor, tears not wiped away by hands too busy hugging my body. She couldn’t possibly understand why I didn’t want to relive that day; why it hurt me too badly every time his death crossed my mind

We spent the next thirty minutes in silence. My parents were on time picking me up, as they usually were. The three adults talked briefly before we went to the car.

The trip home was filled with more silence, so I just watched the houses pass by. I tried not to think about Garrett, about what Ms. Templeton said, about the emotions tomorrow would undoubtedly bring. It wasn’t fair that I had to talk about it. Ms. Templeton didn’t deserve to be the first person to hear what I experienced that day.

A tear escaped when we passed by Garrett’s house. The Carpenters had moved after the funeral. I bit my lip to keep more tears from falling when I saw another family merrily eat dinner at their dining room table.

What I would have given to have seen Garrett there instead.