know, everything you say will stay here. Both legally and morally, it has to. Second of all, I know that you know Nikita, but she hasn’t told me much about you personally, apart from your relationship. You should feel comfortable discussing yourself as much or as little as you’d like and know that I don’t have any pre-existing beliefs about you.”
I nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”
“Lastly, if, at any point, I come to a subject that is too uncomfortable to discuss, you may tell me to stop. I believe that discussing everything, even the hard parts, is the road to recovery, but you’re not under any expectations to do that all in one session with me or even with me at all. I’m here to help, not hurt.” She smiled, and it gave me a warm feeling.
“Thank you.”
“We’ll start simple. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?”
It was a difficult question for me to answer because I didn’t talk about myself often. “Um. I don’t know. I’m Nathan. I’m eighteen.”
“When’s your birthday?” she asked.
“October 8th,” I replied.
“Did you celebrate this year?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Every year, I hold a big party at the end of homecoming week at school. Instead of going to homecoming, I have anti-homecoming. Everyone from my school is invited.”
“Wow, that sounds amazing. Did you have a good time?”
The night flashed through my mind in a few quick scenes. My father, furious that I didn’t mention that Deon had come back to school. Not being able to find Cherri and seeing her sitting with Deon in the gazebo outside. Getting into a fight with Cherri and then with my father about letting Cherri leave instead of forcing her to stay.
“No,” I said. “Normally, it’s fine, but this was a tough year.”
“How come?”
“My brother…” I stopped.
Nicole held up a hand. “Don’t worry if you don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s okay. It’s just one of the first times I’ve described him that way, so it caught me by surprise.”
“You don’t normally call him your brother?”
“Well, no. He’s my half-brother. We share a father. My dad brought him to live with our family for about a year when we were kids, and then he left suddenly. Right before high school, he went to prison, but he got out this year.”
“Were you frightened?”
“No,” I said. “More…frustrated. I was dating his ex, so…”
“Ah, that’s a tough spot. Did you know they’d dated?”
“Yeah. My dad helped bring her to me, but I wasn’t really into her. I was just doing it to get back at my brother.”
“Why?”
“For leaving, I guess? I don’t know so much anymore. When it was happening, it made so much sense, but now when I think back on it, I feel kind of dumb.”
Nicole smiled at me. “That’s common. We often make emotional impulse decisions that, when those emotions fade, we regret. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve done it.”
Dating Cherri wasn’t the first of those decisions I’d made by any stretch, but I kept that information to myself. “Anyway. She was still crazy about him, so it stirred up a bunch of trouble.”
“I’ll admit, I have heard just a sliver of this story from Nikita. I can’t tell you about what she and I talked about, but she did talk about some of the weird relationship dynamics there.”
“Yeah. I was really happy to break up with Cherri and start focusing on Nikita, but things between us have been less than ideal.” Despite the fact that Nikita was out in the lobby waiting for me, I knew that she and I weren’t good. She still had reservations about me and had every right to have them. I didn’t just hurt one person when I attacked Cherri. I hurt two. “She doesn’t trust me. At least, I don’t think she does.”
“Do you think that she should?”
“No,” I responded. “I don’t think Loches are meant to be trusted. We lie our way through our lives. My father and brother are no exception.”
“It’s a survival tactic, though it’s not one I would recommend. People think lying makes them bad people, but nothing could be further from the truth. Whether you’re defending yourself against others or yourself, sometimes lying feels like the only way out.”
I took a long drink of my coffee to let that concept marinate. “Yeah.”
“Tell me about your parents,” Nicole said. “You’ve brought up your father a few times. Are you close?”
I scoffed. “No. He is the worst kind of person.”
“I see. So not close with