Kimmie normally preferred to sit across from Natalia in the semicircle so she could stare at her, but when she showed up to group today, the only seat available was next to her.

“Hey, you,” Natalia whispered. “Smelly Pits tried to sit there, but I told him I was saving it for you. Thank god you showed up!”

Kimmie blushed with excitement before Dr. Rodriguez started the session. She could barely concentrate as Dime Bag Dougie complained about his tortured high school experience, because she was so elated at Natalia enlisting her as an ally. Kimmie’s mother had given her the advice that she was here to work on herself, and not to make friends. “Misery loves company, and I don’t want you getting sucked into someone else’s problems, okay?” At the time, her mother made sense, but now that Kimmie had learned more about psychology, she thought her mother was wrong. If anything, listening to the outside perspectives of others was helping her better understand herself.

When she was a competitive ice dancer, Kimmie had had no time to analyze herself, concentrating instead on her footwork and focusing on the next competition. But after it was over, she had been left with a huge void of unmanaged time and energy. Kimmie’s one-on-one therapist, Dr. Park, told Kimmie she needed to explore things she was interested in.

“But how will I know?” Kimmie asked. “What if nothing interests me?”

Dr. Park assured her that the big struggle of one’s teenage years was figuring out those things for oneself, and not just going with the pack. “Trust me, you’ll know what you like when you see it,” Dr. Park said. “And it’s okay to try things out and experiment, so if you try something and realize you don’t like it after a while, then that’s okay, too. You’re in charge of who you want to be, Kimmie.”

These were the words that Kimmie thought of when she turned to Natalia after group ended and said, “Hey, can I grab dinner with you and your bf? I’ll pay for it, and we can go somewhere totally expensive. I’ve got my mom’s platinum card.”

“Hell, yeah,” Natalia answered. “We should slut up and really raise some eyebrows at this snooty French place where my boyfriend is a dishwasher.”

Natalia texted her bf that she’d be out soon then accompanied Kimmie to her room so she could get her purse. Kimmie hadn’t brought any dressy clothes, but Natalia said she had a few pieces she could loan her. “Have you ever thought about dying your hair?” Natalia asked as Kimmie signed out. Kimmie hadn’t gotten her hair done in a month and was currently sporting gnarly dark roots, but where she’d be shunned in Manhattan for it, no one here had seemed to care.