A girl whose hair had begun to shine again, although her ponytail could’ve used a smoothing, the humidity of the day sending every little hair not long enough to be tied in the elastic standing on their tiny curly ends. She wore glasses, simple dark-blue frames. Her complexion was pale, but not sallow. Her eyes tired, but not lost.

I knew the girl was me, but beyond the clean clothes and classroom setting I saw another girl, just beyond her shoulders. One who was slumped against a wall with a needle in her arm and cum in her hair.

A girl who was trapped both physically and mentally.

I shook my head, willing away the image of someone I never wanted to see again. I closed my eyes tightly and when I opened them again, both girls were gone. The clouds cleared and soon my reflection was gone as well, and I was again staring at nothing but an empty brick wall.

Without thinking, I raised my hand to scratch at an itch that didn’t really exist, with fingernails that weren’t long enough yet to actually do any real scratching. The scabs and pock marks were all gone, but in their place were the raised red scars just starting to take on their shapes, some of them were already turning their permanent shade of white, others lingering at bright red.

The teacher was a man in his sixties. He stood with his back straight and his head down at the podium. His voice was monotone, with zero inflection, as he read off his lesson plan.

I took a deep breath and tried paying attention but everything he was covering, about the founding of our country and the Declaration of Independence, I’d learned in the fifth grade. Leaning back in the chair I cross my arms over my chest and since my feet didn’t touch the floor I swung my legs back and forth, accidentally kicking the chair of the boy in front of me.

“I’m…” I started, but then the kid turned around and the wind was knocked out of my chest when my eyes landed on the familiar, beautiful big smile and the tattoos covering his neck. I gasped, covering my mouth with my hand.

Impossible.

“Hey, watch it,” he said, his unfamiliar high-pitched voice bringing me back to reality, where he was just a dark-haired boy with olive skin who didn’t look anything at all like the man I mistook him for.

“Sorry,” I whispered. The boy turned back around to face the teacher who’d turned off the lights so we could follow his slides on the overhead projector, which was blurry at best. The Sons of Liberty’s heads were all large and skewed, distorted pictures of a probably already distorted tale of American history.

It wasn’t the first time his face appeared on someone else’s, just like it wasn’t the first time my stomach dropped with my disappointment when I realized it wasn’t him.

It would never be him.

Later on that day, I sat in the small cramped office space of Edna Elinberry, my counselor who my dad insisted I see three times a week. One of the many terms of my return home, and one I didn’t really mind all that much. Edna was quirky and kind of funny. Being a recovering addict herself, she could relate to me in a way not a lot of other mental heath professionals could.

“I saw him again today,” I told her, staring at the books and other knick-knacks on the overstuffed bookcase in the corner. Lord of the Flies was on the top shelf dangling over the edge, one heavy footed passer-by could send it crashing to the floor.

“Brandon?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. Brandon was someone who’d recently started working with my dad. He’d asked me out a few times and, even though he was good looking and seemed nice enough, I just wasn’t ready to complicate my life in a way it didn’t need to be complicated. “Not Brandon. HIM,” I said, still finding it hard to utter his name without feeling a sense of sickness wash over me.

“That happens when we lose somebody we cared about,” Edna said, watering each of the thirty some odd plants in her little windowsill. She wore loose, light-faded jeans with a long, white, ribbed sweater. Her bright red hair was something from the eighties, permed in tight curls and cut longer in the back and short on the top. She had pink lipstick on her teeth at all times. “Especially, one who’d had such a huge impact on your life. It will fade with time.”

“But…but what if I don’t want it to fade?” I asked, realizing by asking the question it meant that I wasn’t entirely sure that moving on was what I really wanted.

Edna put down her watering can on the floor and side stepped one of the seven coffee tables in the cramped space, plopping down on the denim sofa and motioning for me to do the same on the one across from her. We both kicked off our shoes and sat Indian style across. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and I copied. When she opened her eyes she asked, “You cared for him a great deal, right?”

I nodded. “I…he saved my life.” Immediately the words felt wrong. “I think I…no, I KNOW that I LOVED him,” I corrected. “And I just don’t see him when I sleep. I hear him, too. In my head, chatting away and making jokes and being ridiculous…” I trailed off, biting back tears.

Edna smiled and reached across the coffee table to give me a reassuring pat on my knee. I watched her hand but didn’t jump away, her smile grew brighter. “Dre, when you love someone it’s very common to carry that person around with you until you’re ready to let go. You hear their voice, you think you see them on the street, you dream about them at night. It’s all very normal and a very healthy part of grief. It will fade with time. But only when you’re ready.”

I bit my lip. “I don’t want him to leave,” I said, surprising myself when the tears welled up in my eyes. Edna side stepped the coffee table and sat down next to me, pulling me in and holding me tight against her ample breasts. Everything about her was comforting, and in a way she reminded me of a younger version of Mirna.

“He saved your life. It’s natural that you feel something toward him, along with a sense of guilt because you lived and he didn’t.” Edna paused, gathering her thoughts before she continued. “You know, kid, it sounds to me like you still need that closure we’ve been talking about.”

“Closure?” I squeaked. The idea of it sounded ridiculous. “I’m not sure about that. How can you close something that never really opened?” I felt myself starting to tear up and immediately felt embarrassed.

Awe shucks, Doc.

She nodded and handed me a tissue. “From what you’ve told me, you’ve never gotten a chance to really grieve, to close that chapter in your life and move on.”