Kelly doesn’t like the idea of sitting with panic or grief until those feelings aren’t so intense, but she comes around to it. “There’s no shame in walking away and taking a moment before responding to someone or to a situation.”

“Better than having a breakdown,” she finally admits. “Even if I hate it.”

I offer her a small smile. “Sometimes I hate it, too. Feelings are like that, especially when they’re related to trauma.”

When Kelly heads for the door, she’s standing up straighter and her eyes are dry. Her chin is lifted. She looks far more hopeful than she did when she walked in.

“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you. That really helped.”

“You’re welcome,” I say. “I’ll see you in two weeks.”

I watch her go, feeling hopeful, too.

That feeling doesn’t last very long after Kelly has shut the door behind her and the sound of her car engine has faded.

I’m left with a sinking feeling in my stomach. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling, and one that I know well.

All of those things I told Kelly about how the past can’t control her—I needed to hear those, too. They’re the same things I heard many times before they sunk in.

I guess I forgot. I guess I haven’t been doing as well as I thought. My hands tremble and I busy them by grabbing a tissue from the box on the coffee table.

Tears have gathered in the corners of my eyes without me noticing, and I feel a release in my chest, as if I’ve been trying to tell myself about my own power and my own control, but I wasn’t getting through. Maybe it took telling someone else to hear them again.

The school...the things they did there...I don’t have to let it control me. I can’t be blamed, of course, for the crimes of other people. And for suffering the way I did. I can’t even blame myself for how the feelings come back and how I forget that those days are long gone, and I’ll never be at the mercy of those kinds of people again.

“I can choose,” I tell myself in my empty office. “I can choose what to do. I have power over my life.”

I repeat them a few more times until they seem settled in my head, then wipe away a few tears with a tissue.

As I toss my tissues into the small trash can by my desk, it starts to vibrate.

It’s not actually the desk or the plastic bin vibrating. It’s my phone in one of my desk drawers.