The room was silent except for the small clock ticking in the background. Brooklyn tried her best not to look interested in the boring office. Everything in there was brown-maroon, and dreary. Not a single light was turned on. In fact, the only light in the room at all came from the open window as the sunlight peered in. Brooklyn sat in one of the oversized chairs. The man sitting in the desk across from her was younger than she expected—he was probably in his thirties. He had shaggy, sandy-blond hair and a very light complexion. His green eyes were piercing and reflected a depth and dimension that Brooklyn had never previously encountered. He was wearing a yellow button-down shirt paired with a strangely colored brown tie.
Brooklyn had the impression that he had purposely chosen his odd attire to somehow make her feel more comfortable, to be certain not to overwhelm her with a commanding professional appearance during their first session. There was a notepad on his desk. He hadn’t written anything down. He was staring at Brooklyn, chewing on his pen. The nameplate on his desk read: Dr. Todd Spencer, MD.
“Are you going to say something, or just continue to stare at me?” she asked, feeling bold.
“Brooklyn, I was waiting for you to begin the conversation. I only want to talk about the topics that you desire to talk about and I only want you to talk to me when you are ready. I am ready for any conversation, but I need you to be ready first.”
Brooklyn crossed her right leg over her left. She straightened her back and extended her arms, placing her now-folded hands on her knee. Her eyes narrowed into a slight glare.
“What do you want me to say?” Brooklyn asked nervously.
“I want you to say whatever it is that you want to say. I want you to talk about the things that you feel you need to talk about.”
“Okay,” Brooklyn was frightened that a complete stranger was to begin analyzing her. “I don’t want to be here talking to you.”
“Actually, that is a great start for this conversation,” he said. “Can I ask you why, Brooklyn? Why is it that you don’t want to be here to talk to me?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a slight attitude in her voice.
He watched her closely as she began to shift in her chair. Her body language was beginning to send him signals that the necessary dialog would shortly follow: arms folded tightly, torso extremely stiff, and a pout on the lower lip. In his world, theses were all good signs.
“Brooklyn, it’s okay to be angry.”
“Angry? I’m not angry. Angry people throw things and scream a lot.”
“Is that really what you think?” Dr. Spencer asked. “Angry people do many other things besides screaming and throwing things. Anger comes out in all different shapes and sizes. People use a variety of outlets as means to let their anger out. People who scream and throw things are dealing with the anger in a way that is most comfortable for them. Eventually, the anger will come out; it can’t stay hidden in you forever. It is not healthy for your anger to remain below the surface.”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to you. I think that I’m doing the best I can here.” Brooklyn uncrossed her legs and then re-crossed her left leg over her right. Her bottom lip quivered. “I was happy. I liked my family and my friends and my life! And now, it’s like I’m supposed to pretend that none of it ever happened. I have to pretend like my parents are not dead; they simply ditched me to enjoy some vacation in Germany, and my brother, Nick, never existed. I still don’t know who killed my family, or why they did it. Or better yet, I don’t even know why I’m even alive. I should have died that night with them.” Her tone changed from anger to sadness. “I have all these questions and no answers. My life has been taken away from me. I miss my family. I have grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and friends out there. They don’t even know where I am. They must be worried, and I want to tell them that I’m all right.”
“Brooklyn, I must confess that I am not privy to the exact details about why it is extremely important that you have no contact with anyone from your past life. I guess for today it is on a need to know basis and somebody has decided that I do not need to know. So I don’t have any answers for those questions. But I do know that important decisions have been made with your safety and well-being as the utmost priority. I wish there was something more I could tell you to help ease the pain that you are experiencing. This is going to be a long journey and a hard one at best. I will help you figure out the best ways to navigate through this stage. Given adequate time, I am confident you will begin to find some peace in all of this.”
Brooklyn leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. Wasn’t he supposed to be an expert with all of the answers at his fingertips? Did he really not have the power to find a way to help her? The air in the room felt like it was being sucked out.
Once again, he concentrated on her body language. The pounding of the signals emanating from her body was reaching a fevered pitch: her arms were folded in a way that could only be described as a one-person bear hug; her torso was as stiff as if rigor mortis had set in, and the lip pout could never become more extreme.
“What are you feeling?” he asked her.
”I’m mad and I’m trying to hide it from you. It’s hard trying to pretend that I’m not angry. I think there is an angry woman hiding inside me that would have liked coming out just now.”
“Okay, and I certainly appreciate the fact that you shared that with me,” he replied with a warm and genuine smile. “Just don’t forget she’s there. We don’t want to upset her any more than she already is. We’re going to take this one day at a time and I promise you we will get through this, together.”
Brooklyn looked down again, fidgeting with her hands, but the bear hug had clearly loosened up and her entire posture seemed more relaxed and composed.
“Brooklyn, I get the distinct impression that there is something that you want to say.” Dr. Spencer stated.
“I want to go to school,” she blurted out. “Wow, I really had not anticipated that statement today. Why do you want to go to school Brooklyn?” he calmly asked.
“Why . . . um . . . do I have to have a reason?” “I think that you do have a reason or else you would not have asked the question today. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not objecting to your request. But the last thing I want is for you to move too quickly and then have to take ten steps back. So I would like to know the reason why you want to go to school.”
“I feel like you’re analyzing everything I say,” she said.
“I’m not analyzing you,” he encouraged. “My job is to listen to you. To help you deal with what you are feeling inside. This is a safe place here. You don’t have to hide who you really are with me.”
“And who do you think that I am?”
Dr. Spencer smiled at Brooklyn. “I think that you are an amazing young woman who has shown extraordinary strength during a horrific time in your life. Even though you may not grasp it, you have persevered thus far, and you will continue to persevere and mature with each passing day. I may not know your favorite food or your favorite color, but I think I know what’s inside you. And the fact that you are alive and sitting here right now proves to me your determination to make something of this second chance you have. I have the utmost admiration for you.”
A minute went by. Brooklyn thought hard about her response. “I don’t want to be that girl. The one who can’t get out of bed or concentrate on anything other than the nightmare I lived through. I’m mad. I’m really mad that someone took my family from me. I’m really mad that I was taken from the only relatives that I have left and shipped off to a strange state to live with this family that I know nothing about.” The tears started falling. “I have no pictures. All I have is what I remember up here,” she said, pointing to her head. “All I want is to start my new life. I want to go to school so I can make new friends and move on. The last thing I want to do is to wait around an unfamiliar house and be reminded of everything that
I lost.”
Dr. Spencer nodded. “Brooklyn, I’m really proud that you are able to communicate your needs to me. If this is what you want then I am in agreement with you. Promise me that if it’s too soon, you will let me know. And you need to continue with your medication. That’s not negotiable right now.”
She nodded. She didn’t like the idea of being on the medication, but she had begun to notice a difference these last few days. She was calmer and less apprehensive toward everything around her. She kind of liked the way that it made her feel. When she turned her head, it felt like everything moved in slow motion. Her body felt as if it were floating at times, as if she were in a pool. The only reassurance she had was that she didn’t feel like the medication messed with her mind; it just calmed her down. Her thoughts, although disturbing and difficult, were also a security blanket that could not be taken away from her. They are her thoughts and they can’t be changed.
“Brooklyn, I am curious about how you are sleeping.”
“Okay, I guess” she said, taking a deep breath and wondering if she should tell him the truth. “Well, I had a nightmare last night.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Not really,” she said, looking down. “Is that okay? That I don’t?”
“Yes,” he replied. “For now, anyway. But I want you to learn to eventually become comfortable talking to me about what happened that night.”
“Side note: I think that Christmas is really going to suck,” she mumbled.
“You don’t have to celebrate it if you don’t want to.”
“Okay, I’ll think about that. I mean, is that rude to the Thompsons?”
“No, I don’t think so. Besides, the Thompsons will understand and they will be there for you when you decide to reach out to them.” He took a glance down at his watch. “Our time is up now. Here’s my business card with all of my contact information. My plan is that we’ll meet once a week, and if there is ever anything you want to talk about, please feel free to call me in between our sessions. And, I would like you to keep a diary. You don’t have to write in it every day, but I think it would be a good way to get some of your emotions out there.”
She took the business card out of his hand and studied it for a second, then pulled out her new pink cell phone and programmed his name and number in.
“Here you go,” she said, handing the card back to him. “I don’t need it anymore. It’s in
here.”
Dr. Spencer grinned and said, “Keep it. Put it in a safe place in case you lose your phone someday.”
“I guess it really can’t hurt, just in case.”
Mary was waiting for her in the waiting room when she walked out. Brooklyn told Mary that Dr. Spencer had given her the go-ahead to start school the next day. Mary was a little apprehensive at first, but she trusted that it would probably be best for Brooklyn to go with the flow and do what she wanted. After all, Dr. Spencer had the best reputation in Detroit for working with teenagers suffering from PTSD. The Thompsons were very confident in their choice to hire him.
“Well, we better make sure you have everything you need, and we’ll get you there early to get you enrolled. I’m sure you can sit in your first day until Greg can talk to the school and fill them in,” Mary said.
“Good idea,” Brooklyn replied. “I don’t want to stand out.”
She had managed to make it through her third day in Michigan, but she still felt a stranger in her own skin. The weather was cold and uninviting. She missed the sun, the beach, and the comfortable sound of the waves crashing. Most of all, she missed her family.
CHAPTER 10