November 5, 2018

Chloe cried into her hands. So much had happened that recounting it—reliving it—tore open the wounds she thought were healing. Her mother lied to her for nearly two full decades about her father. And in the end, Nathaniel took her back.

“Chloe?” Doctor Bosworth spoke softly, “Why does that bother you so much?”

When she was calm enough to form words, Chloe said, “Because she doesn’t deserve to be happy after what she put me through; after what she kept from me.”

“I will never take your anger away; that’s completely understandable. But should Nathaniel be robbed of his happiness, too?”

“He’s not happy; he can’t be.”

“Is he only happy with you then?”

Chloe opened her mouth, but quickly closed it again. She didn’t know how to answer the question. Not once did she mean to imply that Nathaniel shouldn’t be happy, nor that Chloe was the one that could. Nathaniel was the best thing to happen to her. At times she thought he was the best thing to happen to her mother, but that obviously wasn’t true. Her mother would never change. Even now, she was just a ticking time bomb that would blow everything up and it would hurt Nathaniel most of all.

“I want him to be happy.” Chloe said. “But he deserves a nice woman who won’t play games with his mind. One that won’t take advantage of his drive to help others.” She drew a breath through her nose, exhaling sharply through pursed lips.

Doctor Bosworth nodded. “So, did you contact your father?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I honestly have had so many other things going on that I just can’t handle that right now. I think…I think I want to, though. But I think I want to meet him when I have a better handle on the situation with my mom. And Nathaniel.” She shrugged.

Doctor Bosworth took some notes and smiled. “I think that’s fine. It’s already not going to be an easy conversation to have with him, but having that drama in the background would be so much worse.”

Chloe smiled sheepishly and gave a small nod. “Thank you.” It was strange to have a decision of hers praised. That didn’t happen often. It was nice, even from her counselor.

“Now, I do have to ask: what happened to David? You haven’t mentioned him in quite a while.”

“Like I said earlier, we didn’t really see each other. The few times we spoke, I didn’t want to burden him with my drama, especially since he already didn’t like my mother. I think we broke up earlier than September.” Chloe pondered the thought for a moment before waving it away with her hand. “It doesn’t matter, I guess.

“Anyway, things settled down for a while after that. I got a part-time job, I pretty much only texted Nathaniel, and I kept debating whether I wanted to meet my father. David, being David, surprised me with a date one night.”

Doctor Bosworth smiled. “Is that what you want to talk about now?”

Chloe smiled sadly and sighed. “Yeah. I think I should. Seems right to, at least.”

“Okay. Just take your time.”

“Thank you.” Chloe gathered her thoughts. “It doesn’t matter when it happened. Because this date happened after so much time apart that the idea of being alone wasn’t scary anymore. And there were times when I would forget I was engaged. And sometimes, on the loneliest of days, I would take my ring off and pretend I was right where I wanted to be. The problem with doing that, though, is that I started to forget why I wanted to marry David. Whatever reason I had…I couldn’t remember. So we went on the last date we would have together.”