“You don’t get it. I look in the mirror and I don’t even know that girl. I’m not naive—I know the surgery won’t fix me. But it could make me a little more me again. Maybe just enough to get back on that stage.”

Dr. Layne sighs heavily. “How about this. Maybe today it would be more helpful if you could share a positive, happy memory.”

I scoff. “I’m all out of warm and fuzzy moments.”

Dr. Layne looks at me, somewhat sterner this time, and I realize I’m not getting off without penance today.

“Dig deeper.” She points to my chest. “It’s in there.”

I mutter a half-genuine apology to Olivia when I return to the circle. She smiles weakly.

Dr. Layne directs the group: “Let’s switch gears now to the power of positive thinking. Ava has offered to start us off with a memory.”

Olivia and Braden turn to me. I wish Piper were here making some joke about how stupid this all is. Because it is. All this talking and sharing and feeling. I breathe deeply and try to summon my best therapy-appropriate psychoanalysis.

“So we used to have a big, bushy sunset maple tree in our front yard that had all these leaves that would turn yellow and red and orange in the fall. Dad called it our burning bush. Anyway, when Dad would get home from work, I would run outside and he would scoop me up in his arms beneath that huge tree.

“ ‘Ready to fly?’ he’d say. Then he’d toss me up high into the air, so high that I got that roller-coaster stomach-drop feeling. It felt like the earth and my dad were a million miles away. For a split second at the top, I’d panic. But then I’d see my dad’s face and his arms outstretched to catch me. He’d fold me back into his chest and whisper, ‘I’ll always catch you.’ ”

Dr. Layne scribbles in her notepad.

“That’s beautiful, Ava. Thank you.”

Gold star for therapy today—an outburst and a breakthrough. She tells us to take a few minutes and write a good memory in our notebooks.

But Layne doesn’t realize my story is not a good memory.

Dads don’t always catch their little girls.

As I fell from my enflamed bedroom window, I waited for his hands.

I waited.

And waited.

Until I hit the ground.

He didn’t catch me.

He shoved me headfirst into a life where he couldn’t protect me from pain.

The memory is a lie.

Just like everything else.

Like my toe is a finger and my hair is hot pink. Like Glenn and Cora are my parents.

Like a boy could ever see me as a girl, or I wouldn’t be a laughingstock on that stage.

Like silly songs can chase away nightmares.

April 2

A memory?

How about this one?