I don’t think this therapist is going to help. Yes, I want to forget my past, forget him, but going to see someone about my problems feels weird. I keep walking towards the tall, white brick building that is 1 block away. I guess there is no point in turning back now since I’ve gone this far. The large glass doors appear ahead of me and I reach to open them. The door handles are icy cold, I hesitate, but I decide I need to do this.
The elevators to my left ding and an elderly lady steps out of the doors, looking like she went through a fist fight with herself. Her hair is in tangles and there are bruises all over her arms. I hurry in the elevator and press the door close button. My heart is racing, I’m breathing heavily and the door opens to the dark office with a 40 year-old woman sitting in front of me behind a desk. I walk up to the desk and say my name, “Hi I’m Erin, Erin McCarthy.”
“Hi Erin, Dr. Susan will be with you shortly. You can take a seat in to waiting room, thank you,” says the too cheery lady.
“Um, actually where is your bathroom?” I say.
“Oh, it’s just around the corner and on your right hand side,” she says.
As I walk around the corner towards the bathroom I trip on the carpet, I can feel my face getting red. Quickly I run into the bathroom and slam the door shut. In the mirror across from me I see myself. I guess I have an average body, I’m not fat, but I’m not really skinny either. I stare at my face, my nose is too big and I have huge brown eyes. My hair is a greasy brown blob that boys don’t find attractive. My clothes aren’t name brand like the other girls at my school, and they are old and stained. I can’t look at myself anymore so I head out of the bathroom and make my way back to the waiting room. I sit down in one of the chairs and wait for the therapist to call my name.
After what seems like 20 minutes but was probably more like 6, the doctor comes and finds me. She is really short and has short curly blonde hair. She is wearing black pants and a green turtle neck.  I stare at her walking away from me leading me to the room I’m supposed to go to. I make myself get up and I follow her into the dark room. She has me sit down on a brown sofa that looks so used it sags in the middle. I plop myself down, and wait for her questions.
Dr. Susan doesn’t say anything to me, she just stares at me. “What? Aren’t you going to ask me questions about how horrible my life is and why I’m here?” I say.
“I was just waiting for you to start. I’m not here to magically fix your life with questions, I’m here to help you figure out how you want to live your life and help you through the process,” she says.
I find this surprising. I was not expecting this was how it was going to go. Maybe this won’t be so bad.
“I do want to go over your past with you though, I have the police report with me but that is from someone else’s point of view. I need to know what happened from your point of view because you know more about your own situation than anyone else does,” she says.
I knew I was going to get asked about it, but I don’t think I will ever really be prepared to say what happened out loud. “Um… Well, I guess I’ll start off with the fact that my father was not nice to my mother. She came out of her room almost every night crying and with a new bruise on her face. On my brothers birthday things got really out of hand and he broke her arm while they were fighting. My mother tried to call the cops but my father was too angry and drunk. He grabbed a knife from the kitchen and walked towards my mother. She was holding Benny at the time because he was crying and upset about my father. He did not know mother had Benny in her arms when he stabbed her. They both died that night, Benny and my mother. Benny had just turned 4, I was only 7. The cops took me to a foster home; I’ve been there for 8 years.” I’m scared of what she will say next. I pull my sleeves down a little farther, hoping that she doesn’t make me go on about what happened next.
“Okay, thank you for sharing that. I know how hard that must have been for you. I think we should take a break to let you think about everything and we will meet again tomorrow. See you then Erin,” she says.
I leave the dark room, walk past the lady behind the desk, go back down the elevator, and leave the building. A taxi takes me to school and as it pulls up to the school doors the clock says 7:59 AM. I climb out of the taxi, grab my school bag and give the driver the money. As I turn around the class bell rings and all the students milling around outside head into the school. My first class is geometry, great. I sigh and walk up the steps. When I reach the doors I stare at the door handle. I try not to think about the therapist I just spent the last 10 minutes with. What would all the kids say if they found out? Well, there is no way that they are going to find out anyways, I think to myself. I open the doors, walk down the hallway to my left and get to Mr. Mills classroom. I sit down in my seat in the back middle. The guy in front of me stares at me as get my geometry binder out. “Can I help you?” I say
“Actually you can help me, my name is Jacob by the way,” he says.
“Um, I know who you are,” I say. “And what am I supposed to help you with?”
“You see I have this problem, how am I supposed to talk to you if I don’t have your number?” he says.
Is this really happening? Is the third hottest boy in my school asking for my number right now? “I um guess I can give it to you,” I say. I write down my number on a piece of paper and hand it to him. He winks, tucks it into his pocket and turns back around. I stare at the back of his head for the rest of class. Mr. Mills’ voice drones on and on, but I don’t pay attention. All I can think about is Jacob. The class bells rings and he turns around again.
“See you later Erin,” he says and gives me one of those sly smiles boyfriends give to their girlfriends.
For the rest of the day I keep checking my stupid flip phone for a text message. There is no one to tell about this exciting feeling. I have no friends, no family and definitely no boyfriend to tell. Through every class I wait for a message but nothing comes. The last bell of the day rings and I get up from my seat and squeeze through the crowded hallways filled with teenagers flirting, kissing and showing off. I finally get to my locker and there he is. Jacob is leaning with one shoulder on my locker. He is so tan, his black hair is the perfect short length and his muscles show through his shirt. 
He is too good for me, I already know this. He probably just wants to use me and then brag to his friends. I take the next couple of steps to my locker. We are so close I can smell his cologne. I reach for my sleeves and pull them down over my wrists. He grabs my waist and pulls me closer. He leans down and tries to kiss me. “What are you doing?” I say as I push him away and take a step back.
“What have you never been kissed before?” he says.
“Um, I don’t have to answer that. Plus I don’t even know you! And you don’t know me. You can’t just go around kissing random girls,” I say back.
“What like it’s a bad thing?  Plus how am I supposed to know you? You don’t talk to anybody; no one knows anything about you!” he says.
“It’s better that way,” I say. I slam my locker and walk away from Jacob, from my problems, and from my fears.
I run to the buses outside of the school. I get on bus number 86 and find an empty seat. I sit down and stare out the window all the way home. Tears slide down my face, but they dry as soon as the bus pulls up to the foster house. The grass is too tall, the windows are cracked and the house is in desperate need of paint. I climb off the bus and wait for it to drive down the road until I can no longer see it. No one has figured out that I live here, I make sure of that. My phone buzzes in my pocket and I pull it out. There is a text message from a number that I have not seen before.
“I want to know more about you,” it reads. My phone buzzes again, “Btw, this is Jacob.”
  I shake my head; I can’t share it with him. I can’t share anything with him. My foster mom calls my name from the sagging porch and I walk towards the house, ready to do the dishes and laundry to get my mind off Jacob. The door appears ahead of me and I stop. Why can’t I live in a normal house? Why can’t my life just be normal? I know I can’t change what happened but sometimes I just things would’ve been different. I grab the door handle and open the door, and open myself to what is my reality.
I walk into the small dirty kitchen and start to run the faucet with warm water. I clean every dish twice. I grab everyone’s dirty laundry from their rooms and run them through the washer and dryer. Everyone’s clothes that I fold are either torn or still have stains in them that will never go away. The kids in this house deserve so much better than this life. I decide to skip dinner and just go to sleep.
I wake up at 6:30, shower, brush my teeth and put some of my torn clothes on. A taxi is waiting for me as I step outside my door. The taxi drives me to the front doors of the therapist’s office. The handles to the building are still icy cold, but this time I don’t hesitate. I take the elevators back up to the therapist’s floor, check in with the lady behind the counter and wait for the doctor to come get me. Dr. Susan calls my name and I walk towards the same room as before. She stops me and points to a new room, the door is closed so I don’t know what to expect. I open the handle and peek inside. There is a massive window that goes from the ceiling to the floor. The window overlooks a courtyard filled with thousands of different colored flowers.
“Beautiful isn’t it?” Dr. Susan says.
“Yeah, it really is. Why am I in here today?” I ask.
“I brought you into this room because I believe you are like a room full of closed doors. Behind all those doors are new undiscovered secrets. Some of the doors lead to dark and scary places, but some lead to beautiful, peaceful places,” she says to me.
“I don’t know about any beautiful places, all I can think of are the dark and scary places,” I say.
“I will help you get past those dark and scary places to find the beautiful ones, but you have to open up to me. Can you do that for me?” she asks.
I nod and tell her about how difficult it is to live in two separate worlds. The world at school where no one knows who I am, where I have no friends, and the world at my foster home where I cry myself to sleep every night because there is no one there who I can talk to.
“I don’t like to talk to people at school, it is too unpredictable. I’m afraid they will think of me as a poor foster child whose father is a drunk who killed her whole family. I don’t want to be based on what my father did. I want to be me, I want to be labeled for the things that I do myself,” I say to Dr. Susan.
“Have you told anyone at school about what happened when you were 7?” she asked and I shake my head no. “Well, maybe it’s time to let someone in. You shouldn’t keep all your doors closed off to everyone. If you want to be able to let go of your past you need someone who you can trust to lean on.”
“I can trust you” I say.
Dr. Susan laughed and shook her head, “Sweetie, I don’t count. You just met me and you know I will never be able to tell a soul about what happens here.” She stares at me with her questioning eyes.  “I think it’s time we break for the day. I just want you to think about all the stuff we talked about today and come back tomorrow okay? See you then sweetie.”
The appointment lasted longer than yesterdays did. The clock in the waiting room read 8:10 AM.
I check my phone and there was a text message from Jacob, “Are you coming to school today? I’m sorry about yesterday. Can we just talk about us?”
I text back, “Meet me outside at the park next to the school after the last bell.”
I went back down the elevator, out the building doors and back into the taxi cab. The taxi brought me to school in time for the start of the second class period. I paid the driver, got out and headed inside. I went to all my classes and all I could think about was meeting Jacob after school. What did he want to talk about? And why did he say he wanted to talk about us? Is there even an “us”? The last bell of the day rang and I made my way back to my locker through the crowded hallways. For a moment I was worrying Jacob was going to be at my locker again but thankfully he wasn’t. My stomach is full of butterflies by the time I reach the doors to the outside of the school. Just across the street is the park where I will be meeting him.
I cross the street through the after school rush of cars and reach the park. It is a small, rusty old park where all the stoners go during lunch to get high. Jacob is already there waiting for me, he is sitting on the bench next to the creaky swings. He looks up and sees me and he smiles his sly smile.
“I was afraid you weren’t going to show up,” he says.
“I wouldn’t say for us to meet and not show up. But actually I almost didn’t come so you were right to be worried,” I say and kind of half laughed.  “So, what did you want to talk about?”
“I just wanted to apologize for being too forward yesterday. I know some crazy s*** must’ve happened to you that you don’t want to talk to anyone about and I’m okay with that. I don’t want to push you into something that you don’t want to do,” he says.
“Oh, okay. Well thanks I guess,” I say. Maybe he isn’t so bad after all. What guy would go through this much trouble for a girl? Maybe he’s the person Dr. Susan was talking about. “Hey Jacob, I actually want to talk about it.”
“What? Are you sure? You know you don’t have to,” he says.
“I need to,” I say as I grab his hand. “Okay, so when I was 7 my father killed my mother and brother when he was drunk. I tried to call the cops but my father started to come after me too. I was scared so I ran up the stairs. When I got to the top of the stairs my father was still behind me with a knife in his hand and I pushed him away,” tears start to roll down my cheeks and Jacob wipes them away with his hand. “My father fell down the stairs and he started bleeding from his head. I ran back down the stairs but he was dead by the time I got to him. I called the police and I was put in a foster home. And I have been there for the past 8 years.”
My mind is spinning.  I haven’t told anyone this story. Only the cops knew what happened that night but they never asked me questions, they already knew. Jacob stares at me and holds my hands, rubbing his thumbs across my knuckles.
“Erin, I want you to know that that little girl you described to me doesn’t make you who you are today. You are so much more than your past; you’re a strong girl, hell the strongest one I know and you can get through all that craziness and still come out sane. Thank you for letting me in,” he says as he wipes more tears away.
I lean in to kiss him, he pulls me closer and we kiss. I pull away and lay my head on his shoulder. I no longer have all those dark and scary places wrapped up inside. Beautiful, peaceful places are all that I have left now.