Free Selective/Memory: The "Depth of Emotion" Book 2 (The Depth of Emotion) by DD Lorenzo

again. I believe we’re dealing with two separate issues, Aria, and this is the first time we’ve been able to approach the topic constructively, so I’d like to propose something to you.”
    Maintaining her composure, Aria nodded her head, indicating that she was prepared to listen.
    Dr. Sumner sat back into her chair to more effectively state the suggestion.
    “Write,” she said.
    “Write?” Aria echoed back to her incredulously.
    “Yes, write,” the doctor repeated.
    “Write a heartfelt letter to Declan. You may want to write several in fact.”
    Aria continued to look at the doctor as if she had three heads. After a brief moment of disbelief and shock, she enunciated her reply so there would be no misunderstanding.
    “I…am…not…writing…to…Declan,” she said very calmly, slowly, and succinctly.
    “It isn’t for him, Aria,” Dr. Sumner said, “but for you.”
    “What?” She laughed in disbelief. “Just how would that benefit me? Only if I tell him what a lousy bastard he was and how he hurt me—oh, and let’s not forget ungrateful!”
    She jumped up, stood, and then started pacing in anger.
    “Yes. That’s what you’d tell him,” Dr. Sumner said. “That and many other things.”
    Aria couldn’t believe her ears and stopped what she was doing to stare at the doctor.
    All at once, the hidden sadist in her jumped to life with pompoms, and the doctor noticed the moment the reaction hit her.
    “Unleash my beast?” Aria asked.
    The thought caused venom to surface and exude, as her shoulders squared and her lips tightened.
    “Yes!” the doctor shouted enthusiastically. “Unleash your beast—or at least, the beast that has been eating at you from the inside, but there is one thing…” Dr. Sumner slowed her voice.
    Aria hesitated. She heard the deliberation in the doctor’s voice.
    Of course, there was always a catch.
    “…You must pour out everything in those letters, Aria. Everything! Love, hate, malice, disappointment, hurt—don’t hold anything back. You write every spiteful, despicable, and hateful thing that you can never forgive of Declan. In those letters, you tell him every cruel thing that he ever said or did to you, and you purge yourself of those toxic emotions—butyou will never mail them. Never. ”
    Dr. Sumner was now wearing a humongous, megawatt smile.
    Aria wasn’t amused. The first word that came to her mind was safe ; the next word was nonproductive . Then she thought of what this could mean for her emotional state. “How does that help if I never get to say those things to him?” she asked, confused. “He’s the one that hurt me? He’s the one that all these feelings are directed toward! Shouldn’t he know?”
    The doctor understood her feelings, and nodded her head in agreement.
    “Yes, Aria, he is; and, in a way, you’re right—but you’re the one who is suffering. It’s affecting you . Your feelings are hurting you …”
    Then it happened. She guessed this was what Oprah would call an “A-ha moment.” Aria’s mind was a jumble, that much was true. Emotions that she was feeling, especially all the negative ones, were bottled up inside, due in part because she’d never divulged how she felt to anyone, not even those closest to her—her mom or girlfriends. All this hostility was festering inside of her and it was stagnating, growing putrid and making her personality grow somewhat cynical and bitter toward love, which was totally out of character for her.
    Composing herself, she returned to her seat in the plush chair. She pulled her hair around her again, in the familiar comforting motion. No longer wanting to think about what to do, she made direct eye contact with the doctor. She wanted to make a decision.
    “So, you think that if I do this, it might help me—really help—no bull?”
    Dr. Sumner had such a confident look that she was infusing that confidence into Aria by osmosis, making more of a believer out of her moment by moment.
    “I