Broken (8 page)

Chapter 7

Wednesday seemed to come within the
blink of an eye. As I got ready to meet with my therapist, I
started to feel nervous and my stomach was nauseous. I tried to
kill time by reading the new Cosmo magazine I had picked up at the
grocery store, but I couldn’t concentrate on the article. I threw
the magazine back onto my night stand and decided to head on over
to my appointment. I’m sure I would have to fill out some sort of
paperwork so getting there a few minutes early was actually a good
idea.

The therapist’s office was
located in the next town over and was a quick fifteen minute drive.
When I pulled into the parking lot, I realized I was a full half an
hour early. I turned the radio on and flipped through the channels
looking for a song.
Ugh . . . Every single
channel is playing a commercial.
Frustrated, I flipped the radio off and anxiously began to
bite my finger nails. I could hear my mother’s voice in my
head.
Stop biting your fingernails that is
a disgusting habit.
This was something she
had told me since I was a little girl. I rolled my eyes at my
memory.

I couldn’t take the anticipation any
longer and headed into the building. As soon as I stepped inside
the building noticed the directory hanging on the wall. Scanning
the list I found Helen Read’s name. Her office was on the second
floor suite 213. I opened the door and walked up the flight of
stairs directly in front of me. Once I reached the top of the
stairs I made my way down the long corridor ahead of me. I began
looking for Helen Read’s name to be posted on the office door. The
majority of the offices were either doctor’s or lawyer’s offices.
When I finally reached her office, I quietly opened the office door
trying not to disturb anyone.

The waiting room was small but
decorated nicely. I was immediately drawn to the three Ansel Adams
replicas that were hanging on the walls. He was my favorite
landscape photographer. His black and white pictures were truly
amazing. As I stared at the pictures, I heard someone clear their
throat from behind me. I quickly spun around.

“
Hello there, you must be
Leila?” A very attractive woman with an Australian accent said. I
knew immediately it was Helen.

“
Yes, I am,” I said
nervously walking toward her with my hand extended.

“
I am Helen, very pleased
to meet you. Are you a fan of Ansel Adams?” Helen asked
curiously.

“
It is very nice to meet
you as too, Mrs. Read,” I said nervously.

She began to laugh, “Oh please call me
Helen. Mrs. Read is my mother-in-law’s name.”

I could feel my nerves lessening. She
had a very calming presence about her.

“
You never answered my
question.”

I looked at her puzzled.
“Question?”

“
Yes, do you like Ansel
Adams?” She laughed.

“
Oh yes, he is my
favorite,” I replied with a huge smile on my face.

Helen extended her arm through the
doorway. “Why don’t you come into my office and we can get to know
each other a little bit.”

As I stepped into her office, I
noticed it wasn’t much bigger than her waiting room. Her desk was
kiddy-corner in the room and there were two overstuffed chairs and
a loveset positioned around a small table.

“Please have a seat and tell me a
little about yourself.” Helen smiled.

I briefly told Helen about my life. I
started with my family, moved onto my friends and ended with
Garrett and why I was here to see her.

“Now that you have explained to me
your situation, I would like to ask you a couple questions,” Helen
said. “First of all, what would you like to achieve from your
sessions?”

I looked at her and shrugged my
shoulders.

“Surely, you have some idea on what
you would like to accomplish by coming to see me,” Helen
replied.

“To be honest, I am really not sure
what I want to accomplish. I guess I am here because. . .” I let
out a big sigh.

“Leila,” her voice kind and
reassuring, “anything you say to me does not leave this office. You
can come here and tell me absolutely anything you want or you can
come here and tell me nothing. Therapy is only going to work if you
want it to.”

“I guess . . . I just don’t want to
hurt anymore,” the words just started rushing out of me. “I’ve had
this empty feeling inside of me for so long, I don’t know what it
feels like to be whole. I keep searching for someone to make me
feel like he did but no one does.” I hung my head. “I feel so lost,
I just want the old me back and I don’t know how to get back to
that place.”

“I’m not going to lie this is not
going to be an overnight fix. It has taken you how long to get this
place? Four years? You are going to have to work hard and bring up
memories you may not want to talk about, but it is the only way you
will be able to heal,” Helen said kindly. “I would like to see you
once a week for an hour long session.”

“I am willing to do anything you tell
me to do,” I said.

For some reason, I trusted
Helen. I really wanted to move on with my life. Everything I had
done up to this point had not helped. I felt like this could be my
last chance to
fix me
.

When I left Helen’s office, I couldn’t
help but feel hopeful. I had this stupid grin on my face that I
couldn’t get off. The thought of once again being happy and leaving
this self-destructive lifestyle behind actually made me
giddy.

I got into my car and immediately
called Nicole to tell her about my session. I could tell by the
sound of her voice, she was pleased that I actually followed
through with my appointment.

“I can’t believe you actually went,”
Nicole said flabbergasted.

“Seriously, I feel better already,” I
exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me to go to therapy three years
ago?” I laughed.

“
Honestly, I don’t think
you would have listened to me three years ago,” Nicole said
seriously. “I am so proud of you for going and I can’t wait to get
the old you back.”

“
I love you,” I
said.

“I know you do. I will call you
tomorrow. I got a hot date with Michael tonight. I need to shower,
do my hair and put on my face,” she laughed.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” I
laughed.

“Ha! You are too funny. You are way
out of my league.”

As I hung the phone up the
last thing Nicole said to me ran through my head.
You are way out of my league.
I began to realize that all this time I had been whoring
around and Nicole hadn’t really dated at all. She would go on the
occasional date but always gave me an excuse as to why she didn’t
want to go out on a second date. It now dawned on me. She had
always been there for me, babysitting me.
Fuck me
. Not only had I been ruining
my life for the past four years, but I had been preventing Nicole
from quite possibly finding the man of her dreams.

Chapter 8

The next month and a half flew by. I
had been seeing Helen on a weekly basis. During our sessions we
talked about everything from Garrett, my mother, work, friends, to
life in general. It was really great to have someone to talk to
that didn’t judge you on the decisions you had made in the
past.

Overall, everything in my life had
been going great. I’d been sleeping without any assistance from
alcohol and cut down on my drinking to almost nothing. I hadn’t
brought a man home with me since Adam. I had no clue therapy would
help me this much. If I would have known, I would have gone years
ago.

Over the last few weeks, I had picked
up extra hours at Danny’s. Jessie, one of the other waitresses was
on vacation, and Danny needed someone to cover her shifts and my
weekends had also been busy. Katie and I had photographed weddings
every weekend since September.

In keeping my promise to
my mother, I called her every few days. Any downtime I had, I spent
with Nicole. At first, I was furious with Nicole for telling my
mother about my depression. But after seeing Helen, I began to
realize how bad I had gotten. Helen encouraged me only to go to
Danny’s when I was scheduled to work. She felt Danny’s was one of
my "triggers
"
.

Just as I was getting out
of bed, m
y cell went off.

It was a text from Nicole.

Nicole--

OMFG! I just won tix to
the Halloween Party tonight at Sin Sity. We are so
there.

Me --

Sin Sity? That’s like a
million miles away. . .

Nicole--

It’s not a million miles
away. It’s only forty-five minutes away! Come on don’t be a baby
bitch. We haven’t been out in ages. It’ll be so much fun. We can
totally hit the 80’s club and rock an 80’s costume.”

Me –

I’m not in the mood to
drive that far out. You can’t come up with something a little
closer.

Nicole—

Ummm. . . Hello! I won
FREE tickets! These things are worth $25 a piece.

Sin Sity was a brand new club that
opened a few months ago. Our local radio station had been
advertising it like crazy. It was four different clubs under one
roof. One of the clubs was themed the 1980’s and only played 80’s
music. The second was a techno club hosting all the up and coming
DJ’s. I heard Pauly D from Jersey Shore was going to be there. The
third club had live bands playing on a nightly basis and also
served as a pool hall. The fourth club was a swanky martini bar
that played jazz and swing music.

Nicole --

Come on . . . Don’t be a
party pooper. We need this. I need this. I’d do it for
you.

Me--

Fine! You’re a pain in the
ass. I’ll go but . . . You’re driving.

To be completely honest,
deep down inside, I wasn’t sure if I was actually ready to go out.
I had made so much progress with my therapy in such a short amount
of time. I was beginning to feel like the
old
me. But the thought of going out
to a strange club made me think I couldn’t resist the temptations
that would be surrounding me. I was fearful I would slip back into
my old habits.

Chapter
9

About an hour later, Nicole showed up
at my apartment. Barging her way through my door, in her normal
fashion. She had five huge shopping bags in her hands. I just stood
there in my kitchen with a look of shock on my face.

“
Are you going to just
stand there?” She said jokingly.

“
What the hell is all
that?”

“
Our Halloween costumes, I
hit the thrift store on the way over. They were having a huge sale,
so I bought anything that looked like it was made in the 80’s,” she
laughed.

“
Apparently, you
did.”

She dumped the bags on the couch, and
we began sifting through the piles of clothes. Nicole found an
oversized black and white shirt that had crazy shapes all over it,
and I found an oversized gray sweatshirt. We took a pair of
scissors to both shirts, cutting one of the shoulders so it would
hang off. I also cut the bottom of my shirt to make it cropped.
Once my shirt was perfect, I put one of my black camisoles
underneath it. I paired it with a pair of fitted ripped jeans that
hung very low on my hips and a red pair of stilettos.

Nicole left her shirt long and added a
belt around it. She put on a pair of skin tight black leggings and
black stiletto heels. With my hair already wavy, Nicole teased it
up and put a ton of hair spray in it. Nicole had pin straight hair,
so we crimped it and put a huge black bow in it. Once we were done,
I looked like I’d walked off the set of Flashdance, and Nicole
looked like one of Madonna’s backup dancers from her Like a Virgin
tour. I had to admit we looked pretty hot.

We gave ourselves a quick glance in the
mirror and headed to Nicole’s car. I plugged my iPod into her radio
and blasted 80’s music, and we sang along to the songs the entire
drive to Sin Sity. About forty-five minutes later we pulled into
the packed parking lot. “Damn,” I said in amazement. “This place is
huge.” The building stood four stories tall. It had a huge neon
sign on the roof that blinked “Sin Sity”.

As we walked up to the
door, we could hear the music blaring from the 80’s club. The
club’s name was Totally Rad and a remix of
Cruel Summer
was playing. Nicole and
I turned to each other and smiled, as we knew the night was going
to be epic. As Nicole walked up to the bouncer, she told him her
name and that she’d won tickets off the radio. He checked his list
and our IDs, stamped our hands and we walked in.

The place was enormous. It puts
Danny’s to shame. As we walked through the main entrance, we were a
level above the dance floor. To the left of us against the far wall
was the bar. It had shelves and shelves of liquor with pink and
blue neon lights running under each shelf. To the right and the
left of us were tables that overlooked the dance floor. The walls
were pitch black and lit only by wall sconces with pink and blue
lights. The whole place screamed 1985.