Groan. I forgot about that little stipulation Cora sneaked in as part of my return-to-life extravaganza.

“Are you really making me do that?”

“Cora feels strongly about it. Says you need support during your reintegration.”

The word sounds foreign coming from Glenn, who generally steers clear of therapy talk. He’s a member of the Committee on Ava’s Life and all, but Cora holds most of the executive power while Glenn mostly represents the actual bloodline.

“Whoa, someone’s been learning the lingo,” I say. “Cora giving you extra credit for reading the recovery binder?”

Glenn’s hearty laugh fills the cab of his truck.

“I know Cora can be a little much—”

“A little?”

“Okay, a lot much, but you have to understand she couldn’t—” His voice breaks for a split second. I look out the window, pushing down the guilt. “She couldn’t save Sara. So she’ll be damned if she lets anything happen to you.”

Snow flurries flit by outside. A single white seagull circles aimlessly like it missed the migration memo, the pure white peaks of the Wasatch Range towering behind it.

Glenn pats my leg as we roll to a stop at the light.

“Whaddya say, kiddo? Give it a chance?” He looks at me so earnestly, my mom’s nose making me wish I were driving home with her, heading to my regular life, where reintegration and headshrinkers didn’t exist. “You know Dr. Layne only wants to help.”

Dr. Layne also holds a seat on the committee as my psychologist during the sixty days I spent at the regional burn unit. Sixty days for 60 percent of my body covered in burns, not counting the almost two months I spent comafied, sleeping while doctors salvaged what was left of me.

Dr. Layne has tried to coax me back to her support group ever since I left the unit eight months ago. I’ve avoided it mostly because I didn’t want to disappoint her again. Everyone was always barfing up their childhood sadness, having these emotional breakthroughs and breakdowns, but I couldn’t seem to reach any sort of epiphany.

Plus, the whole point of therapy is to pinpoint the pain, dissect it and stick it under a microscope.

Why would I want to feel the hurt more clearly?

Forgetting is no accident—it’s survival.

“It happened. It’s over,” I say. “Swapping woe-is-me stories with a bunch of other weirdos won’t undo the past.”

“You’re not a weirdo.” Glenn glances at me sideways as he drives. “You know the most basic cowboy rule? If you get thrown from a horse—”

I complete the well-worn adage often used in our family: “You get back on.”

Glenn nods. “Unless you land in a cactus. Then you have to roll around and scream in pain for a bit. I hope you know, kiddo, that’s okay, too.”