Free The Half Life of Molly Pierce by Katrina Leno

together, Molly. You can drive to the doctor.
    It’s sunny but cold outside. I make my way to the car and the air outside helps clear my head a little, lifts me up from the constant dreams of drowning. For a minute I entertain the idea of finding Sayer leaning against my car again, without the umbrella this time, a slow smile spreading across his face when he sees me.
    But of course nobody’s there.
    I drive slower than usual and I keep the windows rolled down, and the breeze hitting my face leaves me red cheeked and puffing, but I’m glad for it. It keeps me here. It keeps me present.
    It’s a short drive to Alex’s office and he’s waiting outside for me. I didn’t expect that. I think back to how I must have sounded on the phone and I’m sure I scared him. I haven’t talked about suicide in a while, but it was there once. That was the entire reason I started going to him, wasn’t it? An offhand comment made to Clancy, overheard by Hazel, related quickly to my parents. And there I was. Dumped unceremoniously in Alex’s office. He wasn’t like any therapist I’d seen on TV or imagined for myself. He listened when I talked and it seemed like he actually cared about what happened to me. He became a sort of friend, didn’t he? He had become a presence in my life. Someone to call when there was no one else. If I had asked him to come pick me up at school, he would have, wouldn’t he? It hadn’t occurred to me but he would have. Of course he would have.
    I haven’t gotten out of my car and after a few minutes he comes over and opens the door for me. I realize I’m crying. I’m losing tiny bits of my memory at a time. I don’t remember turning my car off. I don’t remember covering my face with my hands. I’m living disjointed. I’m living in bits.
    I have to tell him or it will never stop.
    Maybe I’ve finally realized that.
    I get out of the car, declining his help, and I trip and almost fall into him but I still won’t let him hold my arm. I sniff until I stop crying and I walk ahead of him, leaving him to lock up my car, make sure I’ve taken my keys, my purse. He shuts the door. Follows me.
    In his office I fall down into the armchair and he sits on the desk.
    The rest of the memory wasn’t anything special. Lyle and I stayed underneath the oak tree for a while and we were friends. We talked. And a few times there was almost an air of forced calm, of purposeful peace between us. A tension we were trying hard to move past.
    But then he said something and I said something and he didn’t like what I said. He got up and left. Maybe he asked me something, but I can’t hear what he asked me and I can’t hear what I answered. But he didn’t like it. Whatever it was, he didn’t like my answer and he looked at me for a couple of seconds and I looked down at my hands and then he got up and left.
    Well, that would make sense.
    The next time we saw each other we fought, didn’t we? He told me he loved me at some point. I told him I couldn’t think about him that way. Those things, at least, had fallen into place.
    Alex is waiting for me to say something. I look up at him and there’s that look again. That look I’ve been seeing on everyone’s faces lately.
    It’s like they’re waiting for something.
    It’s like they’re waiting for me to do something.
    “I haven’t told you everything,” I say. I don’t know where it comes from, this sudden desire to tell Alex the truth, but it’s like I’ve reached the genius conclusion that he can’t help me if I’m not honest with him. I’ve pretended I was okay. I’ve been an idiot.
    “What haven’t you told me?”
    “Last year. When I told my brother I was thinking it would be easier. On everybody. To, you know.”
    I can’t bring myself to say it.
    To kill myself.
    To end my life.
    To walk out into the ocean or slit my wrists in the bathtub.
    “When your troubles started,” Alex supplies.
    “My troubles, yeah. Something else started back