It hadn’t happened since my second visit to the emergency room, however. But I knew it was still there, dormant as I tried to bury it deeper inside me, hoping it would be so far down it would be unable to emerge again, regardless of what was to happen in my life. That was what Dr. Foster was referring to. That was what she wanted me to nod in agreement with. The time she came in my room and found a broken version of me that had never fully mended but that, over the course of a few short years, had somewhat successfully reattached itself back into one irregular piece. Not perfect, not smooth, but a single piece nonetheless.

“Don’t you think you’ve changed since that first night?” she asked.

“I couldn’t feel,” I reminded her.

“That was never your problem, Thomas.”

“Are we remembering the same night?” I asked, to which she smiled.

“You shut down precisely because you felt too much, not the other way around,” she said. “Now, look at you.”

I didn’t say anything.

“You’re not only embracing what you feel, but you are actually able to properly experience it,” she pointed out. “Not because someone else needs you to, not because you think you should, but because what you feel is important…to you.”

“Are you saying it’s a good thing, being unable to control what I feel?”

“What seems to be happening isn’t solely a matter of control,” she said, shaking her head slightly.

“It isn’t?”

“Are you unable to control your feelings for this boy, or is it that you can’t seem to run away from them?”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“Controlling how you feel isn’t the same as not being able to control if you feel.”

Then she took a long, deep breath before continuing. “You have always tried to do the right thing for everyone, Thomas. You’ve absolutely no restraints when it comes to putting into effect some form of duty you think you are bound to toward those around you.”

“I don’t—”

“And yet, somehow, you seem to have been brought back. Wouldn’t you say?”

“I—”

“Don’t get me wrong; this is all your doing.”

“What is?”

“I’m not saying you’re getting better because of this boy,” she said. “You’re the one who was able to keep that part of yourself safe.”

“Safe?”

“Safe. If you were the lost, broken boy you think you are, no matter how badly someone else were to try, they would never be able to get through.”

“Maybe.”

“It’s progress, Thomas.”

“If you say so,” I said, pretty unimpressed.

“I do. And I would know, for I would never let you go if I didn’t think you were better,” she said, smiling.

“Wait. What?”

“I’m afraid we can’t keep seeing each other, Thomas,” she said, turning serious.

“What? Why?”