During her first week of therapy Kimmie learned she had most likely been suffering from low-grade depression ever since returning home after her career-ending injury, and that the first time she felt any sense of joy was when Vronsky kissed her at Steven’s party, which she latched onto like a drowning person to a life preserver. Desperate to keep the good feelings coming, she had become wrongly convinced that he was the sole reason for her happiness. If this were true, then what she had thought was love wasn’t love at all. Her brain was just trying to find a way to make her feel better.

This revelation was a great relief to Kimmie. Maybe she wasn’t to blame for her error in judgment in rushing into sex with Vronsky. If anything, he was the one who had unfairly taken advantage of her delicate mental state. She was the victim in the whole thing, the same way all the girls he had seduced before her were victims, the Little Red Riding Hoods to his Big Bad Wolf. In her second week of therapy she jumped at the chance to change the narrative. If she didn’t want to be the victim, then it was within her power to do something about it. Life had been a dick to her, but not anymore. It was time for her to take action and kick it squarely in the balls.

II

Kimmie attended group therapy once a day, usually in the morning, but sometimes she went to a second session in the evening, as well. There was something about listening to the troubled lives of other teenagers that made her stop analyzing her own problems. All she had been doing was dissecting her own psyche for weeks now and frankly she was sick of herself. Plus, there was a girl who often attended the evening group sessions who Kimmie had a crush on. When Natalia had caught Kimmie’s attention last week, Kimmie had an intense feeling of admiration for her, a feeling not dissimilar to how she felt around Anna the first time she met her. It wasn’t romantic, this longing she felt, but a different beast altogether. She didn’t “want” her. She wanted to be her.