He let the silence linger in the room as he waited for someone to answer. He waited, and waited; it was clear that Jarrod wasn’t going to move on until someone answered the question he posed to the group. He was a stubborn man and usually got his way with us. Eventually, someone always broke down and started to talk.
“It feels like shit,” I said to appease the silence.
“Why?”
For God’s sake, now I was going to have to keep talking. I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth. Nothing about the group session that day appealed to me. I had no urge to dredge up my emotions and I knew that thinking about Brianna’s incident was bound to stir something up inside of me.
“Because she had her whole life ahead of her,” I added.
“Has! She has her whole life ahead of her,” Kimber screamed at me. “She was alive when they left. She could make it.”
“I hope she does.”
“Okay, Kimber, you seem pretty emotional. Tell us how you are feeling,” Jarrod asked.
I was grateful for the attention being taken off of me. There wasn’t much that I felt I could add to the conversation. My brain was all twisted up with memories of my own past, and I could hardly keep myself together. I bet other people said that I had my whole life ahead of me and why would I have done what I did.
There was a lot of truth in the idea that I could see what was going on for other people better than myself. But really, I did have my whole life ahead of me. I was young, had money, a couple good friends, and if I could get a handle on the addiction I was realizing I had, I might even have a good life in my future.
“I’m pissed. Okay. Is that what you want to hear?” Kimber screamed. “She was a young, beautiful mother, and God is an asshole for doing this to her.”
“God did this to her?” Jarrod asked.
“She did it to herself,” I said almost under my breath.
“Don’t be an ass,” Kimber yelled toward me.
Kimber was pissed off. She was angry at Jarrod, at me, at God. I could see the hate spewing out through her eyes. There would be no talking any sense into her that day. It was the first time any of us had seen her get really emotional. Even though Kimber didn’t know the new girl at all, there was obviously a little of herself in Brianna and that scared her to death.
“I’m not trying to be an ass. We control our own actions. The night I got so drunk that I drowned myself in my swimming pool, I can’t blame that on God. He didn’t force feed me those drinks all night long.”
“Okay, let’s not get into the whole God thing,” Stan added. “The fact of the matter is that we all need to take responsibility for our actions. Not just what we do to ourselves, but what we do to the people around us.”
“Did you talk to your daughter?” Jarrod asked Stan.
“Yeah, we talked. She yelled, and I apologized. She yelled some more, and I told her I was sorry some more. When it was all said and done, she invited me to come visit her when I get out of here. She said she has a spare bedroom and that my grandkids are excited to see me.”
“That’s great, Stan,” Jarrod replied.
We were all just filling the time. Jarrod was a good therapist to try and get us to talk, but we really wanted to know how Brianna was doing. It was weird to me that I cared so much for someone who I didn’t even know. I really couldn’t remember a time when I had met someone and actually liked them at first, so feeling so bad for Brianna was a huge emotional step for me.
Group session dragged on for the whole hour as Jarrod tried to fill out time and take our minds off of what we had witnessed. As the hours of the day went by slower and slower, we still hadn’t heard an update about Brianna. My blood was boiling at the lack of information. Someone had to know what was going on with her. If she was alive, they just needed to tell us. If she was dead, they could do the common courtesy of telling us that, as well.
“Hey, guys, who wants to go swimming?” Melanie asked.
Everyone said yes. Not that we all actually wanted to go, but any sort of physical activity was likely to keep our minds occupied more than sitting in a group sharing our stories. I had waited for over a week to try out the hot tub; it was going to be fantastic.
I was nervous to go swimming. I couldn’t deny it, but I knew I had to just do it. If I started avoiding pools because of what happened to me, there would be no possibility that I would move on.
When we walked outside, Cassidy was sitting on the edge of the pool like she was about to get in. She had on a hideous, red, one-piece swimsuit that clashed with the red in her hair. I had to assume that the suit was standard issue at Paradise Peak because Melanie also wore the same one.
Although the style and color of the suit was clearly horrible, Cassidy wore it like a model. Her curves hugged the edges in all the right places. If I had to guess, I would say that the red suit was probably two sizes too small for her, but Cassidy had probably done that on purpose in an effort to try and look somewhat cute in the large piece of fabric.
“Everyone needs to read the rules and abide by them. If anyone is horsing around, they will not be allowed back in the pool area for a week,” Melanie called out.
We all diligently read the rules as we walked past and put our things on lounge chairs. I could tell a few of the other patients had been to the pool before as they walked straight over to a stack of towels and took one for when they got out. There were a few people who went right into the big pool without even touching the water to see how warm it was.
With the frigid air around us, I knew the pool had to be heated, but I still had a need to dip my toes in the water before I just jumped in. It reminded me so much of home and the new big mansion I had that looked over San Francisco. It had been a bit of a lavish purchase, but it was still my home and I couldn’t wait to get back to it. The only thing I really hated about my house was that it was empty. The entire place was extremely lonely when I was the only one th