Here Without You

by Jennifer L. Allen

“Baby—”

  “Just go, Ryan. I don’t want you here.”

  Dejected, I left her bedroom and I left her; my broken heart barely beating in my chest.

  After saying goodbye to her parents and to Ronnie, I left her house that day and never went back. I’d kept in touch, but I couldn’t go there, especially after she took off. I rarely returned to Lakeside at all after I enlisted. My parents’ travel schedule tended to clash with my leave, so more often than not, they ended up visiting me wherever I was instead of me going home to an empty house in a town full of memories I yearned to forget.

  As I lay in my childhood bedroom—complete with posters of Victoria’s Secret models I couldn’t remember the names of, memorabilia from my favorite sport teams, and trophies and awards from my major accomplishments—I thought briefly about what could have been.

  Anna would have been through with college by now, so we’d probably be living together, or at least in the same city. She’d be sketching or maybe even painting, if she’d honed her skills with the brushes in art school the way she’d always hoped. Without a doubt, I knew we’d have been happy.

  My phone buzzed with an incoming Facetime call, interrupting my musings. Kelsey. As much as I didn’t want to face the present, I knew I had to answer since it was our usual time to talk. I tapped the green circle.

  “Hey, princess.”

  ~ 6 ~

  Anna

  Ronnie was right, Dr. Matson cleared her schedule to see me. Surprised to hear from my mother, she’d wanted to see me as soon as possible. That’s how I found myself sitting in her office the day after I’d returned home.

  I was surprised to discover that Dr. Matson had an office outside of Three Lakes—the adolescent mental health facility I spent a short three and a half months in. Located off the main strip in downtown Lakeside, her office was inside a small converted house. The kitchen and dining room were made into a waiting area, and I guessed the bedrooms were offices or meeting rooms, but I hadn’t been down that hallway yet.

  Mom and I sat on one of the overstuffed couches in the waiting area. Designed to be comfortable with its soft furniture and soothing with its pale colors, the room made me feel like I was making the right decision being there.

  I stood from the couch and walked over to the wall, looking at one of the paintings, an abstract design in vibrant colors. Several of them dotted the walls in the room. I briefly recalled the various pieces of art in the hallways of Three Lakes. Residents in art therapy had proudly displayed their projects on the walls, and I wondered if any of the pieces here were from former patients of Dr. Matson.

  “Anna?” a woman called from behind me. The familiar voice sent me back in time.

  When I came to, I was in a ten by ten white room with fluorescent lights fitted into the drop ceiling.

  “Good morning, Annalise,” a warm, yet unfamiliar, voice said.

  I rolled my head to the side and spotted a woman in a white lab coat sitting on a stool in the far corner of the room. She looked to be about my mother’s age, mid-forties, with dark brown hair and dark eyes. She wore gray slacks and a pale pink blouse under her coat.

  “Anna,” I corrected her use of my full name. I never went by Annalise, it was so formal. “Where am I?” I asked her, though I already knew…not my exact location, but that I was in some kind of hospital.

  “Sorry, Anna,” she amended, smiling kindly at me. “You’re at Three Lakes. It’s a residential treatment facility for adolescents, like yourself, who are going through some difficult times in their lives. I’m Dr. Matson.”

  “I don’t want to be here,” I said defiantly, letting the doctor know up front that I wasn’t going to cooperate with whatever plan she and my parents had concocted.

  “I realize that, and I hope you change your mind. In the meantime, you’re going to have to stay. At least for the next three and a half months or sooner if you get better.”

  Three and a half months…I turned eighteen in three and a half months.

  “Where are my parents?” A tear escaped the corner of my eye and I tried to lift a hand to swipe at it, but I couldn’t move my arms. Brown leather straps constrained each of my wrists, keeping them down by my sides. “Why am I tied up?” I asked. My heart was beginning to beat a punishing rhythm in my chest. It hurt to breathe.

  “Do you remember what happened last night?” Dr. Matson asked, tilting her head to the side.

  Digging into the deep recesses of my mind, I couldn’t recall anything since…since Ryan left. Since I sent him away. More tears spilled from my eyes, rolling down my temples and into my hair.

  “You remember something?” Dr. Matson asked.

  “Ryan,” I whispered.

  She looked at her notepad. “He’s your boyfriend?”

  “Was.”

  “You broke up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember what happened after he left?”

  I remembered crying. Then Ronnie. Ronnie was in my room. She was telling me all sorts of things I didn’t want to hear about Ryan. About him finding someone else, loving her, getting married and having babies. I remember telling her to shut up. Then there was yelling…it was me…I was yelling. Then nothing.

  “You hurt yourself pretty bad, Anna,” Dr. Matson said, rising from her stool and walking over to my bedside. She had a mirror in her right hand, the kind a hairdresser would use to show you the back of your hairstyle. I eyed the mirror, scared of what she was going to show me. “You scratched your face,” she told me softly, raising the mirror so I could see. “Do you remember that?”

  I looked into the mirror and my eyes widened as I took in the red scratches all over my face. Some had bled and were beginning to scab over, but others were just angry and raw looking scrapes.

  I looked away and shook my head to answer the doctor’s question. I didn’t remember doing that. I didn’t remember it at all. Oddly, I believed that I’d done it anyway.

  Dr. Matson lowered the mirror. “We’re here to help you, Anna, not hinder you. Your mother and father love you very much. They want what’s best for you. Veronica, too. If you work with us, if you make a commitment to get better, you’ll be back home in no time.”

  I moved my eyes to the ceiling, focusing on a small water stain on the ceiling tile next to the air vent, and started my countdown. Three and a half months…

  “Anna…honey?” Mom’s concerned voice startled me.

  “Sorry,” I said, moving to smile at her and Dr. Matson. “I was just remembering the first time we met.”

  “It’s good to see you,” Dr. Matson said, stepping forward and putting out her hand. I shook it, and she and Mom shared a quick hug. Hm, they seemed close. “Grace, it’s good to see you as well. Let’s go back.”

  We followed Dr. Matson down the short hallway and into a small room with rose wallpaper and more paintings.

  “Are these from one of your patients?” I asked, gesturing towards the two red, abstract paintings that matched the color of the roses on the walls. I didn’t know how I knew they were by the same artist, I just did.

  “They are,” Dr. Matson answered, standing beside me. “Do you like them?”

  I tilted my head, studying the side-by-side paintings. I hadn’t really looked at a painting in years…since before. I tried to see what the artist saw, but I was at a loss.

  “They’re interesting,” I finally said.

  “I agree. Why don’t we all take a seat?”

  Doing as I was told, I sat on the cream colored sofa beside my mother. Taking my hand in hers, she leant her support. She was pleased when Ronnie had told her of my interest in seeing Dr. Matson again, and I didn’t want to disappoint her. Dr. Matson sat in a crimson armchair across from us.

  “So, Anna, let’s talk about why you’re here.”

  Mom squeezed my hand, giving me the encouragement I needed. “I’m ready for a change,” I said, then added, “I need to change.”

  “Tell me what you’d like to do, h
ow you’d like to be.”

  I blew out a breath. Dr. Matson wasn’t going to make it easy for me; I knew that from my time at Three Lakes. She wouldn’t give me the answers; she would make me come up with them.

  “I want to live again…really live. Ever since the…shooting,” the word still so hard to say, “I’ve been trying to stay numb. I haven’t wanted to feel anything.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “Because if I didn’t feel anything, then I wouldn’t be scared. I wouldn’t hurt for the people who lost their lives that day at the mall. For weeks, all I could think about was them. Images of the victims I’d seen that day flashed through my mind every day. The father and son from the play area who lost their wife and mother, the barista…every time I close my eyes I see her face.”

  “You were close to the events,” she observed.

  Even though I’d seen Dr. Matson at Three Lakes, I never spoke to her. I never contributed to group or individual counseling sessions. Dr. Matson knew nothing of me. She knew nothing of the incident that had changed my life, except what everyone had learned in the news.

  “So close,” I confessed. “I was sitting right outside the coffee shop when he started shooting inside. I…I looked right at her, his girlfriend, right before she died.” My mother gasped, I’d never spoken of that day to anyone, so she had no clue just how close I’d been to it all. “She looked so scared. She was so scared and I…I ran away.”

  “It seems like you feel some guilt,” Dr. Matson said.

  “Yeah…I guess I do,” I agreed, realizing it for the first time myself.

  “While there was absolutely nothing normal about what you experienced that day, it is normal to feel some guilt as a result. There are always what ifs. What if I had done this? What if I had done that? But Anna, in your case, if you had done something, then he might have taken your life, too.”

  I nodded, knowing she was right. Being more than a bystander that day could have killed me—it had killed others at the mall that day. Imagine if I had tried to stop or distract him?

  “Sometimes I wonder why I was spared,” I said, voicing another unspoken thought. “Seven people died, Ronnie got shot, and I was sitting right there and nothing happened to me. The guy had to have walked right by me. I just don’t understand.”

  “You probably never will, Anna. It’s not something you can understand. He was a very sick man.”

  “I was so naïve. Before that day, I’d heard the stories and read the news reports of shootings, but I never thought something like that would happen in my town, let alone in such close proximity to me. I was a happy-go-lucky teenager with nothing on my mind but my next school assignment and what the weekend would bring. In one moment, all of that was taken away from me.”

  “You were scared.”

  “I still am,” I admitted quietly, a tear running down my cheek.

  “Let’s talk about what scares you.”

  “Everything. Life, death…strangers, crowds…” I trailed off.

  “You’ve been away from home for a while now, on your own…how have you dealt with that?”

  “I kept to myself. Anywhere I went, I looked for all the exits so I would know all the ways out if I needed to escape.”

  “It must have been pretty lonely being by yourself for four years.”

  “I didn’t let myself feel,” I shrugged. “I stayed numb.”

  “Tell me about this numbness,” Dr. Matson probed, and I knew what she was getting at. She wanted to know if I used drugs or alcohol to numb myself.

  “I didn’t use drugs, and I didn’t drink,” I told her. What I didn’t say was that I probably would have used had I been able to afford the habit.

  The rest of the session was spent with me talking about what my life was like while I was away from Lakeside, and the myriad of emotions I’d felt over the years. I could tell some of it was difficult for my mother to hear, but I was glad she was there with me. I felt a little more relaxed with my mom by my side. Grace Romano was fiercely supportive of her children, and perhaps, for the first time in my life, I appreciated that quality.

  “Okay, Anna. I think we’ve had a great start here today. I’d like to see you again, same time next week. Is that okay?”

  “Yes.” It wasn’t like I had anything else to do, but in all honestly, I enjoyed talking with Dr. Matson. If I wanted to get better, I knew I had to make an effort.

  “Good,” she nodded, scribbling a note on a pad she’d pulled from the table beside her chair. “I’m giving you some homework this week. I’d like for you to make a list of some of the activities you enjoyed doing before the shooting. Can you do that for me?” I nodded, and she continued. “I’d also like for you to make a list of any goals you used to have.”

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  “Great,” she smiled, standing up. Mom and I stood as well. “It’s not going to be easy, but we’re going to work through this, okay?”

  “Yes,” Something that felt an awful lot like optimism began to rise in my chest.

  “I’ll see you next week, Anna. If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to your mom for a minute before you go.”

  “Of course,” I said, giving my mom a smile to let her know I was okay. With a small wave to Dr. Matson, I slipped out the door.

  ~ 7 ~

  Anna

  Silence echoed throughout the car as Mom drove us home from my first therapy session. She hadn’t said a word, aside from asking me if I was ready to go, since she stepped out of Dr. Matson’s office. I didn’t know what was plaguing her, but I imagined it had to do with what I talked about during the session.

  She pulled her Mercedes into the driveway, pausing only to wait for the garage door to rise, then parked inside.

  “I won’t be sitting in on your future sessions,” she said finally, taking the key out of the ignition.

  “Why not?”

  She fiddled with the keys in her hand, the clanking of the metal the only sound in the car. “Dr. Matson thinks it would be best for you to have one-on-one sessions with her. Said your father and I might be a distraction.”

  “That’s not true,” I argued. I wasn’t sure I was ready to talk to my therapist without the strength of my mother beside me.

  “You may be less willing to talk about some things in our presence, and that’s understandable, Anna. You’re a grown woman. You can attend therapy without your parents,” she gave me a soft smile. “If you ever want us there, just say the word, but I think Dr. Matson is right. I think you need this time with her to heal, and we may hinder your progress if you hold things back because we’re listening.”

  “I guess I understand that.” Sort of. Not really. I really wanted my mom.

  “I…I had no idea, no idea what you went through that day. You never talked about it. Veronica and Ryan told us what they saw, but I’m not even sure they realized just how close you were to it all. I knew we could have lost you, you and Ronnie and Ryan, but I didn’t realize just how close we’d come to that. Today was a surprise. I don’t want to dwell on the past, I want us all to be able to move forward. I want to help you move forward. I just had no idea, and it startled me to hear it.”

  I turned towards her, placing my hand on her arm. “It’s okay, Mom. I should have talked about it a long time ago. I’m—” I choked up.

  “It’s okay, Anna.”

  “No…it’s not okay. I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry for what I put you and Dad through. Ronnie, too. I’m sorry I upset you all, and I’m sorry I scared you. I was just so scared myself. I didn’t know how to process what I was feeling. I’m still not sure how to.”

  Tears trailed down my face, and she used her thumbs to wipe them away. Still holding my face, she smiled at me and said “We’re going to help you get through this, Anna. You weren’t ready before, but you’re ready now.”

  “I am ready,” I agreed with a sniffle.

  “Good,” she said, dropping her hands and gathering her bag. “Now, how about
we go inside and bake something?”

  “That sounds fantastic,” I grinned. It felt like forever since I baked something with my mom.

  “I’m proud of you, Anna,” Mom said with a quick smile, then she got out of the car and went into the house.

  I followed behind, reflecting on my session with Dr. Matson and thinking about the lists she’d asked me to make. Art was the biggest thing. It would be on the top of both lists—something I used to enjoy doing and a goal I wanted to set for myself. I wanted to start sketching again, and I wanted to get back on track for art school. I only hoped I still had what it would take to get there.

  “Hey, Ron,” I greeted my sister as I stepped through the garage door into the kitchen.

  “Hey, Ryan came looking for you while you were out.”

  “Oh?” My heart started beating a little bit faster at the sound of his name. “Did he say why?”

  “He wanted to say goodbye.”

  “He left?” I asked, my face falling.

  Ronnie nodded, giving me a sad smile. “He left this for you,” she said, rolling over to me and handing me a small folded up piece of paper.

  “Did you read it?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure why. I knew she’d respect my privacy. Even if Ryan and I weren’t anything anymore, we were a thing once, and that meant something between sisters.

  “Of course not,” Ronnie said, giving me a sour look.

  “I know. I’m sorry.” I looked over to my mom, who had been silently watching our exchange. “Can you give me a few minutes, then I’ll be down to bake?”

  “Sure, sweetie. Take your time.”

  Thanking her and promising I’d be right back, I ran up to my room, leaving her and Ronnie in the kitchen discussing what sweet treat to make. I shut my bedroom door behind me and flopped down on my bed, resting my upper body on my elbows, the small piece of paper clutched in my hand.

  Upset over missing him, I was disappointed I hadn’t spent more time with Ryan before he had to go. I knew he wouldn’t have been able to stay here forever. I never even asked when he had to go back. I would have liked to have been able to say goodbye, to thank him for getting me home.