4.9

            "You haven't had any incidents like this since you started attending the boarding school, correct?" Dr. Day looks up from her clipboard of papers, looking professionally out of place on the tacky couch in the family living room. It turns out that I can't get through one visit to my family without my mother calling my original therapist.

            "No," I lie, avoiding her eyes. "Not really."

            "Your school counselor – Dr. Moore, is it?" She doesn't pause to let me answer. "He faxed over your file and there isn't anything written about occurrences such as these."

            As she looks through her papers I don't whether or not I'm supposed to respond. My mother is hovering in the kitchen, pretending to make tea and not look like she's eavesdropping through the doorway where I can clearly see her.

            Its day two and I still feel like a guest in my own home. I feel like I have to walk on eggshells to get everywhere or my own parent might call an ambulance and whisk me off to the inpatient part of the hospital.

            "Piper?"

            I didn't realized Dr. Day has been talking.

            "Why yesterday? If you've been fine for months, why are you have the incidents again? What triggered it?"

            I meet her scrutinizing gaze. "I fainted."

            "But why?"

            "I don't know." I shrug and try not to let her see how uncomfortable I am. "Why do people faint? Sight of blood, drastic change in body temperature, not eating breakfast, exercising too much-"

            "Piper, you know what I mean." She waits a moment to let her words sink in and then sets the clipboard and papers on the couch beside her. Dr. Day leans forward, clasping her hands together as she stares at me. "Why did you get so upset with Lane?"

            "We're not friends. My mom invited her."

            "Why aren't you friends anymore? Your mother said you two used to be close," she presses.

            "Trevor was cheating on me with her when he was still alive."

            "But you knew this, and you were still friends with her. I remember you telling me that you two still remained good friends despite what Trevor was doing to both of you."

            "I wasn't sober then." My head is swirling. Hearing his name and choking it out of my own lips is something I didn't expect to have to do when I came home.

            "When did you become sober?"

            I have to blink to keep my eyes dry. "When he died."

            "And then you were no longer friends?" I nod. "Why?"

            "Because he died."

            "So you're saying," she continues, oblivious to the storm raging inside my head, "that you didn't want to be friends because she reminded you of Trevor?"

            "No."

            "Then what are you saying?"

            I can't respond. In the kitchen, my mother is silent, listening so intently that she can't be bothered to hide that she is. I fidget with my hands in my lap, hating the itchy fabric of the pastel dress I wore in attempt to look like a normal, happy teen. Even with dark socks up to my knees my legs are cold and I just want to go and get changed.

            "Piper," Dr. Day carries on, "do you blame Lane for Trevor's death?"

            "Yes."

            No.

            "Why do you think it was her fault?"

            I stand up, done with the conversation and the internal struggle between wanting to pretend to be normal and wanting to scream until the windows break. Ignoring her protests, I grab my jacket from the railing, slip on my shoes and leave the house.

            "Piper!" I hear my mother from the doorway. "Piper, come back here!"

            But I'm already halfway down the street.