Cry Until You Bleed

41- Returns: 3

Okay, I can do this. I tell myself as I’m drying my hair in the bathroom after taking my daily shower right after lunch. I don’t always take my showers right after lunch, I usually take them early in the morning before breakfast but today, they were very crowded so I decided to just wait until afternoon.

Anyway, I’m about to go into Dr. Lombardi’s office for our daily sessions and I’m going to talk to her about going to Niles’ hockey game this Saturday. The reason that I want to push it for this week is because his next two games are away and there’s no way that they’d let me go to an away game and I don’t want to wait three more weeks to go to one of his games. Today is Wednesday, almost a week after my trip downtown with Niles, so I have a few more days to try and get Dr. Lombardi to let me go to the game on Saturday.

After drying my hair thoroughly so that it doesn’t form wet spots on the shoulders of my scrubs, I toss the towel in the dirty towel bin and then leave the bathroom to go to Dr. Lombardi’s office and when I get there, she greets me with a warm smile as she prepares her notepad for some more note taking for today’s session.

“Hello, Dr. Lombardi,” I greet her with a small smile. “How are you today?”

“I’m good, Ana, thank you,” She says, reciprocating my smile as I sit down in my usual chair. “How are you?”

“I’m doing okay,” I assure her. “What are we going to talk about today?”

“Well, you look like you have something on your mind so is there something that you would like to talk about first?” She wonders and I wonder to myself how she can detect that just off of my greeting. Am I not usually so polite and chipper? I guess it is her profession to be able to read people so I’ll give this to her.

“Now that you mention it,” I begin. “I would like to talk about this Saturday.”

“Niles’ hockey game,” She nods in recollection. “I’m still thinking about it, Ana, but I think that this weekend is too soon for you to be surrounded by such a rowdy crowd.”

“I know that you’re worried,” I assure her. “But I know my limits and I really think that I can do this. I’m not saying it because I really want to go, even though I do really want to go, I truly, honestly think that I can do it.”

“I’m sure you do, I’m not questioning your faith in yourself at all but if something were to happen to you while you were out, it would be on my shoulders. You are my responsibility, Ana, I can’t push your boundaries unless I’m absolutely sure that you can handle it.”

“Then it’s not pushing my boundaries,” I sigh. “Look, I’ve given this a lot of thought. What if Sophie goes with me just to make sure that I’m alright and if I ever feel too overwhelmed with anything then I’ll tell Sophie and we’ll leave. This hockey game is really exciting for me and I really want to go but my mental stability is a lot more important to me than this game so if I can’t handle it, I’ll tell her and then we can leave.”

“Ana,” Dr. Lombardi sighs skeptically.

“Please,” I plead with her, not knowing what else to do. “Trust me on this one, Dr. Lombardi, I know what I’m talking about. I’m not afraid of any of the things that I used to be afraid of at all. Well, okay, that’s not completely true but I’ve been doing so well.”

“I know that you have,” She confirms with a nod. “And I’m incredibly impressed with your speedy improvements but this is just such a big step for you and I’m not 100% sure that you’re ready for it.”

“Well, what’s the worst that can happen? If Sophie’s there and I have those panic pills then nothing will get too far if I start to feel panicky. But I really don’t think that I will. When we went downtown on Thursday, there were a lot of people around in the hamburger place and I didn’t even start to panic at all. Not even a little bit,” I defend. “I can do this.”