More Therapy – Chapter 4

The next few days went by pretty fast. I ended up hanging out with Josh and his friends on Saturday. It was the first time I left my house to hang with friends in more than a year. Mostly, we just played Xbox and ate pizza.

My dreams were still fairly weird, but not scary weird. One night, I dreamt that I was back on Catalina with my brother and his friend. Even though I was naked in the dream, I was chill about it. We all just ran around playing volleyball and hiking. It was totally normal that I didn’t have clothes on. I don’t know if it was stranger that I was having more and more dreams of myself running around naked, or that I was somehow okay with it.

When Monday rolled around though, everything changed. For starters, my dad had left for the airport before breakfast, which means he left without telling me goodbye. L

I came down for breakfast in a bad mood. I was woken up by several people in our front yard who were making a lot of noise. “Mom, what’s happening outside?” I asked.

“Outside? Oh, the real estate agency sent people over to take pictures of the house and put up the ‘For Sale’ sign.” She said casually.

“We’re selling the house?” I asked.

“Of course, we’re moving to New York, remember?” She informed me as she was finishing up cooking us eggs and bacon. “Do you want toast?”

“Oh, I thought that wasn’t for a while.” I said. I really thought I had more time. “Yes on the toast. Oh, where’s dad?”

“He had to fly out to get setup on his new job and look for a place for us to stay.” She said.

“He’s coming back, right?” I asked.

“In a couple of weeks.” She said, finally taking a seat while carrying us each a plate of food.

“Two weeks? That’s TOO SOON!” I bellowed. “Really mom. I need more time.”

“Honey, you’ll have plenty of time. School starts the same there as it does here.” She said calmly.

“I mean with Dr. Crowe! She won’t want me to leave this soon. We just started making progress.” I cried.

“Annie, we’ll find you a therapist when we get to Syracuse. I don’t think she’ll mind. Dr. Crowe’s the one who helped your father get his promotion.” My mom said.

“What? Why would… I’m not ready. And Dr. Crowe is the only therapist we’ve found that doesn’t suck.”

“Watch your language. I’m still your mother.” She said finally. “Now hurry up and eat your breakfast and get ready. When they’re finished outside they will be taking pictures of the interior too.”

I wasn’t very hungry after that. I did finish the bacon and scraped some grape jelly on the toast, which I took upstairs. Everything I did was a panic after that. I closed my eyes, and then quickly slipped out of my pajamas and into my bathing suit. Next I went in and took a quick shower before drying off with a towel and using a hair dryer on my bathing suit. It was the first time in a week that I wore the bathing suit under my clothes.

My mom had me go outside while the real estate agency photographed the house. She was frantically cleaning and straightening everything. She said it was so we got a better price for the house, but I think she just didn’t want our neighbors to think we were messy people.

When they left, I stayed the rest of the day inside. I was a nervous wreck all day, and when I went to sleep that night… well, I don’t exactly know what happened when I went to sleep. I had a dream that I was running around the neighborhood chasing after a lost puppy all night. In the dream, I knew that the puppy was named Sophie, and I really needed to catch her. But every time I got close and started calling her name, she would somehow appear further away.

When I woke up, I was exhausted. I thought I must have been tossing and turning all night. Something felt odd though. As I opened my eyes and started to focus, I realized that I was naked under the blanket. I wrapped the blanket tightly around my body and got out of bed to look for my clothes. They were lying on the floor by the open door. I knew I had closed it before bed, since my mom always stays up late watching TV.

I closed the door and grabbed my pajamas and tossed them onto the bed. Next I picked out some clothes to wear before shutting my eyes, dropping the blanket and getting dressed. That was when I noticed something else. My feet were filthy. I pulled up the pant legs and saw that I looked like I had been rolling around in the mud.

The bed was just as dirty. In a panic, I pulled the sheets off of the bed and took all of the bedding down to the laundry. When my mom heard the washing machine start she came in and asked what was going on. All I could think to say was, “My sheets were dirty.”

“Oh sweetie.” She told me. “I know this move is putting a lot of stress on you.”

I nodded. I was too embarrassed to give her more details.

“How long has it been since the last time you wet your bed?” She asked, concerned.

Wet my bed? Oh… I sighed. She thought that was why I was washing my sheets. I decided that it was less embarrassing to let her think that than tell the truth, so I said. “Since I was 7, I think.”

My mom gave me a hug and said, “Sweetie, you should get in the shower. You smell awful.”

I didn’t argue.