“I hate you all,” Bear mutters.

“This is why I have to go to therapy,” I explain to Kori. “The family dynamic is such that there was no hope for me to have a sane adulthood. I’m a product of my environment.”

“If that’s true,” Bear says, “you probably would have turned out to be a serial killer or a hooker, with the environment you had. You’re lucky you’re reasonably well-adjusted. For the most part.”

“Reasonably,” I repeat. “That’s a relief.”

“Isn’t it?”

Sort of. But I don’t know how close to the truth that actually is. There are probably all sorts of psychological diseases I could be diagnosed with, not to mention the fact that I seem to still have parental issues and the fact that it’s been three days since I ran out on Dominic and haven’t seen hide nor hair from him. Not that I actually expected to, even with the thinly veiled threat he’d ended our conversation with. It doesn’t help that I can still hear that low growl of his in my head and it makes my hands clammy and my dick hard. I’m probably oversharing, but I figure you’re used to that by now with this family. Might as well keep up with tradition.

You’d think that therapy is hard, that sitting in front of a person who essentially starts out as a stranger and spilling all your dirty little secrets is akin to pulling out your own fingernails one by one. And maybe it does start that way. But there’s something strangely cathartic about talking out loud about things you’re normally too reticent to say to the ones you love. A therapist keeps their mouth shut, doesn’t judge you out loud (though, you have to wonder what they really think after you leave), and gives you advice and/or drugs on how to control your crazy. The talking part I never had a problem with. The drug part was harder. It was easier to be a zombie to escape my problems than to focus on them sober. Benzodiazepines were the greatest thing I knew because they helped me float away. The highs, however, became shorter and shorter, and I had to take more and more. Don’t get me wrong: I wasn’t suicidal, just stupid. I did stupid things, got caught, got called on it, and got sober. It’s that simple. Though they say that once you’re an addict, you’re always an addict, and damn if there aren’t days when the earthquakes hit and my breath gets caught in my chest and I wonder how easy it would be to get more pills, how much better I’d feel if I was able not to feel, even for a few hours. I probably should have kept up with the therapy right when we got back to Seafare, but I got distracted by… other things.

At least Bear, Otter, and I are more or less back on the same page. That’s a start. I only have everything else to fix, from Dominic to my academic career to whatever might be wrong with Kori-Corey. Shouldn’t be too hard, though. I am a certified genius, after all. I even have a certificate that says so. You know, for all the good that does me.