untitled (10 page)

ing a pose for too long. The words are written in pencil, which is

weird, because she’s stockpiled purple pens for as long as I can

remember.

Sophie—

I know you’re still mad. I’m not sure you’ll even read this. But if

you do . . .

Please get better. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for me.

Mina

I press my fi ngers under the smudge the word
me
is written over,

trying to make out the word she’d erased. I trace two letters, the

shadowy, barely there curls of a
U
and an
S
she didn’t quite erase:
do
it for us
.

When Aunt Macy gets home, peeking into my room without

knocking, I’m still sitting there with the letter in my lap.

“Sophie?”

When I don’t answer, she walks in and sits next to me. I keep my

eyes on the letter. I’m not strong enough to look at her.

“You’re right. I’m a drug addict. I have a problem.”

Macy lets out a long breath, an almost soundless exhalation of

relief. “Okay,” she says. “Now look me in the eye and say it.”

When I don’t, she reaches over and grabs my hand, squeezing

hard. “You’ll get there.”

I believed her. I put in the work. I followed the rules from then on,

talking to the therapist, starting up my mental calendar, making days

turn into weeks and then months. I struggled and fought and won.

T E S S S H A R P E

77

I wanted to make myself better. For Mina. For me. For what I

thought might be waiting when I got home.

But this is the thing about struggling out of that hole you’ve put

yourself in: the higher you climb, the farther you have to fall.

17

NOW (JUNE)

I call Trev three times over the next week, but he won’t

answer. After the third unanswered calls, I switch gears

and go by the
Harper Beacon
offi ce, only to be told that Tom

Wells, the head of the internship program, is out of town.

With my parents still watching me so closely, I spend

most of my days in my garden, among the redwood beds

Trev built for me.

After the crash, Mina had insisted I needed a hobby and

presented me with a preapproved list. I’d chosen gardening

to get her off my back, but then, as usual, she’d taken it to

extremes. She’d shown up the next day, Trev in tow with

lumber, hammer and nails, bags of soil, a box of seedlings,

and foam knee pads so I wouldn’t hurt myself.

I like the feel of dirt between my fi ngers, nursing deli-

cate plants into strength and bloom. I like watching things

fl ourish, like the swath of colors I can grow, bright and

alive. It hurts to get up and down, but the pain’s worth the

effort. At least I have something pretty to show for it.

After a full day of weeding, removing rocks and clay

soil from the neglected beds, I spend another fi lling them

with fresh, rich compost. Midweek, I’ve got the fi rst two

beds in good enough shape to think about planting. I run

T E S S S H A R P E

79

my fi ngers compulsively over the worn wood, making lists

in my head of fl owers that’ll thrive this late.

Mina had painted hearts and infi nity symbols on the

outsides of the beds, adding to them when she’d sit out here

with me: her favorite quotes surrounded by stars, a pair of

crooked stick-fi gure girls holding hands and faded red bal-

loons. I brush my dirty fi ngers over the wood to touch what

she’d touched.

“Sophie.”

I look up from my spot on the ground. Dad’s on the

porch, dressed in his regular blue button up and tie. His

tie is crooked, and I want to reach out and fi x it, but I can’t.

“You have your fi rst therapy appointment with Dr.

Hughes in an hour,” he says. “I moved some appointments

so I can drive you. You should clean up.”

I let go of the wood and follow him into the house.

Dr. Hughes’s practice is in one of the older neighborhoods,

on a block where most of the houses have been turned into

offi ces. Dad parks the car in front of the blue and white sign

with Dr. Hughes name on it. The little one story craftsman

is painted the same color as the sign, cheerful against the

lighter blue sky.

I’m surprised when my dad gets out of the car after me.

“You’re coming in?”

“I’ll sit in the waiting room.”

“I’m not going to ditch therapy.”

His mouth tightens, his hand drops from the car door.

“I’ll pick you up in an hour, then.”

I’m almost at the door when he stops me in my tracks.

80

F A R F R O M Y O U

“We just want you to be better. That’s why we sent you

away. You know that, don’t you?”

I don’t look at him. I can’t give him the confi rmation he

wants. Not without lying.

I was already better.

The offi ce is full of comfortable-looking furniture and

Norman Rockwell prints on the walls. A receptionist

looks up with a smile from the papers she’s fi ling. “Good

morning.”

“Hi. I’m Sophie Winters. I have twelve-thirty

appointment.”

“Come with me, please.”

She brings me to a large room with a desk, an over-

stuffed couch, and a few leather chairs. I take a seat on the

couch as she closes the door behind her. My shoulders sink

into the cushions, half of my body lost in brown suede.

Dr. Hughes comes in without knocking. He’s an older

man, with dark skin, a neat silver goatee, and square black

glasses. He’s short, I’d be taller than him if I was stand-

ing up, and his sweater vest is stretched snugly over his

round stomach. “Hi, Sophie.” He sits down at his desk and

spins in his chair to face me with a smile. His eyes are kind

underneath his glasses. He radiates thoughtfulness. Just as

a good therapist should.

It makes me want to run.

“Hi.” I burrow deeper into the couch, wishing it’d just

swallow me up.

“I’m Dr. Hughes, but feel free to call me David. How are

you feeling today?”

T E S S S H A R P E

81

“Fine.”

“I’ve talked to Dr. Charles on the phone about you, and I

have her notes and your medical history. I’ve also had sev-

eral sessions with your parents.”

“Okay.”

“How are you adjusting?”

“It’s fi ne. I’m fi ne. Everything thing is—it’s all fi ne.”

He taps his pen against his notebook, watching me. “Dr.

Charles said you’d be a hard nut to crack.”

I sit up straighter, on guard. “I don’t mean to be.”

David leans back in his chair, his eyes crinkling as his

lips twitch. “I think you do,” he says. “I think that you’re

an intelligent young woman who is very good at keeping

secrets.”

“Got that from a few notes and, what, an hour-long talk

with Dr. Charles?”

He grins. “Now that’s more like it. Dr. Charles is excel-

lent at what she does. But as soon as you stopped resisting

therapy at Seaside, all you did was tell her exactly what she

wanted to hear—what she expected to hear from an addict

on the verge of relapse.”

“I am an addict.”

“It’s good that you acknowledge that,” David says.

“That’s important. But at the moment, I’m more concerned

with the trauma you suffered. What jumped out at me,

from Dr. Charles’s notes, is how you sidestep the subject of

Mina every time she’s brought up.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You didn’t break a coffee table when Dr. Charles asked

you about the night Mina was killed?”

82

F A R F R O M Y O U

“My leg makes me clumsy; it was an accident.”

David raises an eyebrow. I’ve done something that’s

made him take notice, and I’m not sure what it is. It makes

heat prickle down my back. I’m not going to be able to play

him like Dr. Charles.

“Why don’t you tell me about Mina?” he asks.

“What do you want to know?”

“How did you two meet?”

“Mina moved here after her dad died. The teacher sat us

next to each other in second grade.”

“Did you spend a lot of time together?”

I don’t answer immediately.

“Sophie?” he prompts gently.

“We were always together,” I say. I can’t keep it out of

my voice. That choked-up emotion bleeds through, makes

it waver. I look away from him, my nails digging into my

jeans. “I don’t want to talk about Mina.”

“We’re going to have to talk about Mina,” David says

quietly. “Sophie, you were put into an environment designed

to get you clean right after you experienced a major trauma

and loss,. While I understand what motivated your parents

to do that, it might not have been the best thing for you in

terms of processing your grief.

“Most of your therapy at Seaside was focused on your

problems with addiction. I don’t think you’ve been given

the space or the tools you need to deal with what happened

to you and Mina the night she was killed. But I can help

you with that, if you let me.”

Anger surges inside me, stampedes through my veins at

T E S S S H A R P E

83

his words. I want to hit him. To throw the stupid tasseled

pillows on the couch at him.

“You think I haven’t
dealt with it
?” I ask. My voice is hor-

ribly low. I’m about to cry. It builds in the back of my eyes,

threatening to break through. “She died scared and in pain,

and I felt it—when she went, when she left, I
felt
it. Don’t

you dare tell me I haven’t dealt with that. Every day, I deal

with it.”

“Okay,” David says. “Tell me how you do that.”

“I just do,” I say. I’m still breathing hard, but I will myself

not to cry in front of him. “I have to.”

“Why do you have to? What’s keeping you motivated?”

“I have to stay clean,” I say.

The answer would’ve worked with Dr. Charles, but not

with this guy. My quick search before Dad had driven me

over had pulled up four articles Dr. Hughes coauthored

about PTSD and its effects on teenagers. Mom and Dad

have done their homework. With my addiction tackled,

now they’re setting out to fi x me completely. A New and

Improved Sophie. Whole and mended, with no jagged

edges or sharp points. Someone who doesn’t look like she

knows how death feels.

“I don’t think you’re telling me the whole truth,” David

says.

“You a human lie detector?”

“Sophie, you can trust me.” David leans forward intently.

“Anything you say here, any secrets you choose to share,

nobody else will know, and there’ll be no judgment from

me. I am here for you. To help you.”

84

F A R F R O M Y O U

I glare at him. “You already got me to talk about it when

I didn’t want to,” I say. “That doesn’t really breed trust.”

“Getting you to open up isn’t tricking you. It’s about

your having a safe outlet to talk. You have to share with

someone or you’ll burst.”

“Is that in your professional medical opinion?”

He smiles, dispassionate, with no edge to it, no pity, no

judgment. It’s a nice change from everyone else. “Abso-

lutely,” he says wryly. He pushes the box of tissues across

the coffee table at me. I take a few, but instead of patting my

eyes, or blowing my nose, I twist them in my hands.

“This won’t happen again,” I tell him. “Don’t start

expecting it.”

“Whatever you say.” He nods and smiles. I look away.