Rich Prick – Tijan Page 0,108

husband, and he got her to change her mind. She was even amenable to my soccer schedule, which came in handy because we’d had three matches before classes started next week.

“I’m impressed with you, Blaise,” she told me.

I nodded. “It’s a good thing you didn’t know me a few months ago.”

“You’ve made progress. I was initially worried about the emotional duress I’d be putting you under daily, and the ethics of that, but you handled it. And you did it well, and again, I’m impressed. For an incoming freshman, you’re setting up a phenomenal foundation to build upon. But…”

There was always a but, I was finding.

“You still have not confronted your mother about why she wasn’t honest with you all those years. That’s a problem.”

We’d been through everything else.

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy—EMDR. That’d been enjoyable (insert heavy, heavy sarcasm). But the post-traumatic stress crap I dealt with was better. Someone could touch my arm when I was in the middle of a flashback—and I’d had a few more over the month—and I could check myself.

I now recognized the state when I was in it, and I was also hopeful that eventually, the flashbacks would stop happening. For now, though, I could navigate my way out of them using the tools Dr. Ferrer had taught me.

That was all I wanted. It meant I wasn’t such a danger, but my head was still messed up. Sometimes I felt like the more therapy I got, the more crap we dug up, and the worse I got. That had lasted until this week when, surprisingly, some of that shit had started to lessen.

Dr. Ferrer said I could slow down my therapy, but she wanted to see me for another six months. Turns out, a childhood of abuse and trauma really fucks someone up.

“I have a guess as to why you haven’t confronted your mom, but I want you to tell me your thoughts. Because you do have them, right? You have some idea, don’t you?”

God, I missed Aspen.

Right now. I wanted her here. In my arms.

I wanted to hear her voice.

“Blaise.”

“What?” I hadn’t meant to wander off. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, but I would like you to answer my question.”

I didn’t want to answer, and not because I didn’t know. I’d thought about this; I just didn’t like saying it out loud. That made me feel…more raw, if that was possible.

More exposed.

I was getting tired of this daily shit.

Every day I felt exposed, vulnerable, emotionally stripped, and then every night I had to regroup from practice and from counseling. Aspen wanted me to do the work, so I was, but it was hard. The hardest thing I’d gone through… No. That wasn’t true.

Surviving him had been the hardest thing.

That’s when I knew I had to answer.

“Because if I confront her, I will hate her.”

Naomi shifted in her seat, her mouth tightening. She didn’t seem to have expected that answer.

“That door is shut right now, but I know it’s there,” I continued. “I’ve been angry at everyone except her. Been wanting to tear into everyone, hurt them, except her, and part of that is because she was all I had growing up. I had no one else—and yeah, I didn’t fully have her either, but she’s my mom. He broke her too. She didn’t know the extent of what he was putting me through. I hid it. He hid it. She hid from herself, drinking. Then this shit that he wasn’t my real dad came out, and I was relieved. I was thankful. But…”

I rubbed my hands over my face. “I try to sit and think about the ‘what if.’ What if she’d told me? What if she’d told Stephen? I don’t know who wins going down that path, so I don’t. Nothing can be changed. I survived. I used to think I was like him, that I was the lowest piece of shit on this earth, but I’m not. This—doing this shit, keeping focused with soccer, having Aspen in my life—I’m not him. I won’t be him. And I don’t know, a part of me is grateful I attacked Stephen, because I have that clarity now. I didn’t have that before. I couldn’t have that before, so maybe I should yell at my mom. I don’t know. Is that the right thing? Lash out at someone who was hurting right alongside you? Lose the one person I had during all that hell?”

I shrugged, no longer seeing my therapist. I didn’t feel the chair I