I’ve been having these nightmares lately. We’re in a small plane—Josh and I. The plane starts to shake and I hold on to the edge of the armrest, my knuckles white from my grasp. “I got you,” Josh whispers in my ear, his breath warming my neck and relaxing me enough so he can take my hand. “I’ll always have you.” He uses his free hand to secure my seat belt. “You’ll always belong to me, Becca.”

That’s the last thing he says before the plane nosedives and crashes into a field.

I always wake up at the point in the dream when I get my camera out and take pictures of Josh’s dead body.

“Morbid” was the word Dawn, my therapist, used to define my dream.

“Morbid” wasn’t really what I was hoping for and I told her that.

She looked at me for a long time and then finally said, “Guilt.”

Guilt was the cause of my constant nightmares. It made sense, I guess, considering I’d spent the two weeks after the competition on the Internet, frantically searching for a reason for his sudden withdrawal. Maybe there was a family emergency, or an injury, or… anything that wasn’t me. Nothing came up. He disappeared. No one could get in contact with him, but his management—his mother—and his agent had come out and said that he was fine physically. It was all I could talk about during my sessions with Dawn. Until one day, she “strongly suggested” that I cancel the e-mail alerts and stay offline. So I did what she said, and I took her advice to focus on classes, focus on building my strength instead of trying to find reasons to excuse my weakness. And Josh, as she said, was my excuse, not my weakness. Whatever that meant.

~ ~

Journal

I spent a good portion of group therapy today listening to Aaron talk about Brandi, his ex-girlfriend, and all the guilt he felt for her death. All I could think about was whether my mother felt guilty for all the shit she put me through, or if she was pissed she didn’t succeed in taking me with her. When it became my turn to “speak,” I typed on my phone and let the words echo off the walls in the small room.

“I hate you.

I love you.

I hate that I love you.”

I was speaking about my mother. I saved the text as Josh.

~ ~

Journal

A couple weeks ago, Dawn found this app and she made me download it. She has the same one on her iPad. It shows her what I’m writing in real time so I can’t delete my thoughts and provide her with something safer. She’s mastered differentiating my truths from my lies based on how long it takes me to respond. I hate the stupid app. I hate it so much that I came home and defied her by looking up all things Josh Warden. Now I hate myself. Good job, World.

~ ~

Journal

My mother took me to get ice cream on my tenth birthday. She didn’t yell. She didn’t hit me. We smiled and we talked and we loved. It was one of the happiest days of my life. The next day, she asked if I’d stolen money from her purse. I told her I hadn’t. She said money was missing and that she hadn’t been anywhere in days. I reminded her of the ice cream. She didn’t believe me. I worked out later that she was drunk during our little outing and legitimately had no memory of it.

I wonder if she remembers her hand wrapped around my throat or the pillow she tried to suffocate me with.

Earlier, Dad bought five tubs of ice cream. We threw one against a brick wall, chucked one off a bridge, took a baseball bat to another, and then ran over one with the car.

“You know it’s your grams’s birthday in two weeks,” he said, watching me from across the kitchen table.

I dropped my spoon into the now empty fifth tub of ice cream and looked up at him.

“Should we go and surprise her?”

Whatever look I had on my face made him laugh—this deep, gruff chuckle that warmed my heart. I reached over to him and grasped his hand, causing his smile to spread. Then I grabbed the worn piece of paper sitting between us and picked up a pen and handed them both to him.

Today, we marked “Ice Cream” off my list of fears.

~ ~

Journal

My dad invited Aaron to come to North Carolina to visit Grams with us. I don’t know why he did this. But of course Aaron said yes and now all three of us are going. I guess Dad assumes Aaron is more to me than he is and I can’t fault him for that. He probably believes Aaron is saving me in some way, and to a degree, maybe he is.

I probably shouldn’t feel as angry as I do about it. Okay, so angry might be too strong of a word, but that’s how I feel. And trapped. I don’t know. But I feel like what he assumed was a kind gesture is having the opposite effect. I feel forced, like I’m being pushed into something I’m not at all ready for.

Or maybe I’m just reading way too much into it.

Either way. Aaron is meeting Grams. Yay.

~ ~

—Becca—

“How long has it been since you’ve seen Josh?” Dawn asks, her gaze dropping to the iPad on her lap.

Just over three months, I type.

“And you think you’re ready to see him again?”

I’m not really sure, but I want to be there for Grams’s birthday. Besides, he’s traveling so much with his skating, he probably won’t even be there.

“Do you want him to be there?” she asks.

I pause, my fingers hovering over the screen.

“Okay, let me rephrase that. Do you think three months is long enough to change how you’ll feel when you see him again?”

I look up at her and shrug.

“I’m concerned,” she says, setting the iPad to the side. “I’m worried that seeing him will have the same effect it had when he was in town last. It broke you, Becca, maybe not completely, but it still broke you. And I know feelings were still there, even if you refuse to tell me that. It caused problems for you and Aaron and—”

Anger builds in the pit of my stomach and her iPad sounds, alerting her to the words I’ve begun to type.

You do realize that I’m not here because of Josh, right? I don’t know why everything always comes back to him. He was just a boy.

“Becca, look at me,” she says, her voice soft.

I wipe at my eyes, not wanting her to see the tears. I hate when she does this—when she talks about Josh like he’s poison in my veins.

“Don’t deny yourself the feelings you had for him. All of them. The good and the bad. Because we both know he wasn’t just a boy. He was a boy who at one stage loved you beyond your unspoken words. You deserve to feel that love. And denying that means you’re denying you ever felt worthy of that love. I know you’re here because of the hell your mother put you through, but your mother’s dead, Becca, and nothing we say or do will change that. Josh, on the other hand… he alone has the power to change everything. So I’ll ask you again. Do you want him to be there?”

I stare at her. Right into her eyes, and I try to find a reason to fight her because fighting would be so much easier than hurting. But there’s nothing there. Nothing but sincere concern. So I let the anger fade and welcome the truth that keeps me hostage.