Good Grades & Mystery Games (North University Series Book 2)

I’ve put off going to therapy for so many reasons.

I always thought that my problems were never big enough to receive professional help. There are people with real struggles and I’m just a girl with a slightly dysfunctional family and a need to always do her best. Voicing my fears out loud as well as someone trying to help me navigate it just felt like I was burdening them with my issues. I know it’s their job, but I can’t help but think I’m taking away space from people who truly need it.

Since Gio’s death, I’ve been trying my best to be strong. I need to move on and continue with my life. I know what grief does to people. I know how it holds people back from their potential and I don’t want that to happen to me. I already showed too much weakness towards Evan, so I cleaned up my act, put on a decent outfit and I went back to school. People talk. They always have. Before, the looks I got were either disgust or jealousy and now its pity.

My family is also trying to move on. When I went to visit them, no one spoke about it and they put their best faces on, acting as if nothing happened. I don’t know which is worse: talking about it or ignoring it. The latter makes me feel less lonely though.

My mom forwarded us all an email of a list of therapists in and around the area. The twins aren’t bothered about going, Hen says he’s considering it, but I actually took the leap. If I’m not going to talk to my friends, the least I can do is talk to a professional. What I wasn’t expecting was for her to see right through me.

I’ve been sitting in Dr. Nelson’s minimalist office for almost half an hour, and she’s already managed to figure me out. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t even know myself and the perception I have is simply based on how other people think of me. It’s fucked up and it doesn’t even make sense because I do know myself. I have to, right? I know how I present myself, but what I can’t figure out for the life of me is why. Which is one of the first questions Dr. Nelson asks me.

“Why do you think nobody likes you?” she asks. She reminds me of one of my old high school teachers. She has short light brown hair, owl-framed glasses and is wearing a grey romper. She seemed like the best choice because she’s young and doesn’t make me feel like I’m talking to a professional even though she is one.

I shift in the extremely comfortable seat across from her. “I never said that.”

She shakes her head lightly, glancing down to the notebook in her hand. I had to fill out a questionnaire before arriving, so she already knows what happened and how I’m feeling on a scale of ‘not great’ to ‘fantastic.’ I noted down somewhere closer to ‘not great.’

“No, but you’re thinking about it, right?”

I chuckle a little, brushing my hair that has fallen in front of my eyes out of my face. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything. I’m here for grief counselling.”

“Yes, but that also requires me to get to know you, too,” she explains. I resist the urge to roll my eyes. She’s just doing her job. “Can you talk to me about why you feel like you don’t have many friends other than the ones you live with? You wrote down that high school was particularly difficult. Do you think you could reflect on that time?”

I take a deep breath, trying my best to go back to that time. That part of my life stays with the other suppressed memories of my childhood, locked away in the deepest corners of my brain in a chest labelled ‘Do not open.’ I try not to think about it most of the time because I know that I’ve grown since then.

“I’ve always been confident. Well, I thought I was. I mean, I had to be. I had an image to uphold. I couldn’t embarrass my family and even though my parents dismissed my achievements, it only made me want to work harder. It paid off. I passed every test with flying colours, and I even became valedictorian by the end of high school, but still, nobody wanted to be my friend other than Wren and Kennedy. My brothers teased me about it, saying that it’s because I tried too hard at school and people thought I was stuck-up. But I just didn’t get it. There were so many people who could be pretty, smart, and popular, but just not me.

“Everyone would make groups that I wouldn’t be a part of. They’d plan times to hang out in the bathrooms and no one would invite me. They’d have parties and I would never go. I tried to rationalise it, believing that people were just jealous. It wasn’t until junior year until I finally plucked up the courage to ask someone in my Spanish class what was so wrong with me. ‘We just don’t like you. Your vibe is just off,” she said. They just didn’t like me. What the fuck does that even mean? They just had one look at me and decided they didn’t want to get to know me. And because it was high school, word got around fast, and everyone collectively decided they didn’t want me.”

I take a deep breath, my hands shaking.

“I thought things started to turn around senior year. Everyone wanted to party, and no one was taking anything seriously. I made the stupid decision to host a party, hoping people would come and when they heard how big my house was and the amount of food I was bringing, they did. Suddenly everyone was interested in me and because I was stupid and I got high off being needed and somebody choosing me, I made friends with the wrong people. I got used for my car, my house, my money, my fame. People would make up any excuse to hang out with me and I let them. For a few months, it was bliss. I was trying hard to fit in and it paid off. Then, when one of the biggest parties of that year got busted by the cops for underage drinking at a party I didn’t host, I got blamed for it. Still, that short period where we hung out, I sort of miss it.”

Dr. Nelson watches me for a second, processing the word vomit. She writes something down in her notebook before looking back up at me. “Do you miss it because they chose you?” I nod, tears fighting my eyes not to fall. “Why do you think that’s so important to you?”

“Because no one has chosen me just for me before,” I admit. Oh, shit. I’m going to cry right now. It’s my first session and I’m already about to bawl like a baby. Yet, I don’t want to stop talking. It feels too freeing. As if talking about it will take the pain away. “At the time, it felt like people were starting to really like me. Before I could even understand it, people have always taken one look at my family and their achievements and based me off that. I never got the chance to show my true talents or figure things out on my own. I thought that they started to realise I wasn’t as bad as everyone made me out to be and that they wanted me. Looking back, I know it was stupid because they didn’t want me. They just wanted what I could give them.”

“Do you think you still do that now – allowing people in because you’d prefer that they want something from you than nothing at all?”

I shake my head, wiping the tears with the back of my sweatshirt. “No, I’ve stopped doing that. I realised that what I need is people to like me for who I am and if they don’t – if they want more – then I don’t need them.”

“How do you manage relationships and friendships with this fear?”

“I don’t think it’s a fear. I’m not scared of it happening again because I won’t let it.”

“How do you ensure that doesn’t happen? I’m curious about your process, Scarlett.”

“I just don’t let people get too close romantically. That’s where it hurts the most,” I say easily. It’s the most natural response and the one that’s the truest. This isn’t an interrogation, but for some reason, it feels like it. She’s just trying to get to know me, but it’s so hard to explain that to her when I don’t even know who that is sometimes.

“Do you not think that limits you from gaining something possibly great?”

I shrug. “Maybe. I’d rather have nobody and deal with solitude than have people who are destined to break my heart.”

She nods, writing down in her notebook. I take the opportunity to take a real deep breath and allow the weight of the world to be off my shoulders for one minute.

“And now, as you deal with losing your uncle, are you still shutting people out or are you allowing anyone in?” she asks. “You said you weren’t alone when he passed. I’m assuming you still talk to that person.”

Just the mention of that day, the way Evan held me and cared for me makes me cry even more. He was just there. She holds the box of tissues towards me, and I grab them.

“God, I’m so fucking embarrassed,” I mutter, wiping my eyes and my face. She doesn’t say anything, but she smiles softly. “Yes, I still talk to him, but not about what happened. It’s hard to talk about it.”

“That’s understandable. It’s not something you exactly want to remember and that’s okay. Dealing with it and moving on is just as important,” she says gently. “Do you mind me asking what you talk about instead?”

I shrug, tilting my head up to the ceiling so I can stop the tears from falling. “He helps me forget. He distracts me and I don’t know if he’s doing it on purpose, but he doesn’t push me to talk about it,” I say, remembering the way he taught me how to play piano. How he let us sit in silence when I didn’t want to talk.

“And does that help?”

“With Evan it’s just…He listens to me. Even if we have a complicated relationship right now, he still manages to care and it’s beyond me why. I haven’t given him any reason to. We weren’t the kindest to each other for a while and then we talked, and I don’t know…I misjudged him. I think we’re similar in that way,” I explain. “Maybe if people got to know me more, they’d actually like me despite my money and my family. But I’m constantly putting up this barrier, terrified of rejection.”

“And you think Evan likes you for more than that?”

“I mean, he has to, right? I’ve put him through some real shit for the last few years and I know he’s probably scarred from witnessing what happened to Gio. And God, I feel like such a hypocrite,” I say when the realisation hits me, and I bark out a disbelieving laugh. “I just said that whole thing about people judging me and deciding they don’t like me, and I did the same thing to him. I’ve got to know him over the last few weeks and he’s…He’s probably one of the kindest people I know. He listens to me, he takes care of me, even when I don’t want him to. It’s not about him choosing me for me because in some way, I don’t think that would matter with him. Even if we had a rocky start, all he’s done since then is make me feel like I’m capable of more than I give myself credit for. He’s gotten to know me, and he hasn’t run away yet.”

Dr. Nelson smiles as more tears run down my face. I rub at my cheeks, sighing as the realisation that I might, actually, definitely like Evan Branson washes over me. “He seems like a good friend. Why do you think you care so much about being liked, Scarlett?”

I laugh. “I don’t care.”

“You do care, Scarlett and that’s okay,” she presses. She’s not going to let this go.

“It’s so easy to say that you don’t care about what people think of you, but the truth of the matter is, you do. Everybody does. Because people’s perception is what makes you, you. You can try to be a good person, and someone will think you’re trying too hard or you’re not trying hard enough. You can try and showcase your intelligence and you’ll get put down for it. So, really, even when I try to be my authentic self, I can’t ever find it because I’m still, subconsciously, trying to please others.”

“Don’t you think it would be freeing if you let go of that?” she asks curiously.

“People don’t need a reason not to like me and they just don’t and that sucks, okay? Even before everything that happened with the party, people had one look at me, and they realised they don’t like me. One person I could deal with. Maybe I’m just not their vibe, but when it’s everybody, I’m starting to wonder if maybe I’m the problem. Maybe I need to be the one to change because nobody else will. I thought I was just a hard person to love. I tried to change, and it didn’t get me anywhere. But I don’t want to do that anymore because I love myself and I just…I just…”

“Want to fit in and be accepted,” Dr Nelson says, finishing my train of thought. I nod. “It’s all anybody wants.”

“I want to stop feeling this way. I really do. I never used to think about what happened or what people think of me until Gio died and suddenly I’m questioning everything, my loneliness included. I just want to be happy again, but it’s only been two weeks,” I say.

I want to move on. Not because I’m cruel and that I didn’t care about my uncle, but because I have so many goals and aspirations that I can’t achieve if I’m stuck in my head. I don’t enjoy being down and feeling helpless. I like being a fun friend. I like laughing and having a good time, but I feel so guilty about doing that when I’ve just lost one of my closest family members.

“Grief and happiness can coexist. You don’t have to feel guilty for wanting to be happy right now. Nobody chooses to sit in grief, it just happens and that’s okay,” she says gently, as if reading my mind. The way she talks to me makes me believe her. She tells me things and for some reason, I believe they’re true. “You can be more than one thing, Scarlett. You can be brave as well as being scared. You can be confident and have insecurities. You can be rude or mean, but you can also be kind and selfless and loving. Really, you can be anything you want.”

I laugh a little. “Are you sure you’re not just saying that because it’s your job to talk me out of jumping off a cliff?”

Dr. Nelson laughs too, nudging her glasses further up her nose. “No, I’m not just saying that. You’re a smart girl, Scarlett and you’re feeling a lot of things right now. The best advice I can give you until our next session is to feel those feelings. Don’t push them away because they’ll creep up on you and come crashing down when you least expect it.”

I do my best to take in what she says, to let it truly settle with me. It turns out that I’ve had this warped perception of therapy for so many years. I knew I had shit to figure out but saying it aloud really showcased just how deep those worries go.

As I leave the office, I make a promise to myself, the same thing I’ve been trying to tell my friends for years, but never thought of applying to myself.

I’m not going to downplay my feelings. If I feel something, I’m going to do just that; feel it. Ignoring it just leads to breakdowns in therapist’s offices on your first sessions and I really don’t want to do that again.