Afterward by Jennifer Mathieu Page A

some ways, but in other ways it was something new. Something different. Something that wasn’t therapy or nightmares or tutoring sessions or awkward situations with my parents.
    And because I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I guess I couldn’t fight the urge to talk about it. And Dr. Greenberg is my only option.
    â€œYou think you’d like to play music with her?” Dr. Greenberg asks. He tilts his head a little, like that might help him hear my answer a little better or something.
    I shrug. “Maybe,” I finally manage. “I mean, playing the drums alone or along to music I listen to on my headphones is okay, but it’s not like playing it with someone else.” And I’m lonely and tired of living my life surrounded by people over the age of forty. But I don’t say that to Dr. Greenberg.
    â€œSo what did it feel like to ask her to come back?” Dr. Greenberg asks. “After she turned around and biked off?”
    I shrug again. Groovy nuzzles up under my hand, and I give him a few pets.
    â€œI don’t know,” I say.
    Dr. Greenberg nods and waits. I stare out the window at the pecan tree. There’s a smudge on the window. I wonder if Dr. Greenberg made it with his nose, staring out at the same tree. Dr. Greenberg coughs, but he doesn’t say anything. I think he’s waiting me out. It makes me want to talk to cut the awkward silence. Which is weird because the awkward silences never used to bug me before.
    â€œI guess I just didn’t like how she kept showing up like that, and I wanted to tell her to stop doing it because it kind of pissed me off,” I answer. There. I said it.
    Dr. Greenberg cracks a smile—you can barely see it through his gray, Santa Claus beard—and he says, “I think that’s great. We’ve been talking about healthy boundaries in here, and it seems like you made an attempt at drawing some.”
    Drawing healthy boundaries. Whenever Dr. Greenberg mentions that phrase it makes me think of taking a bunch of fruits and vegetables and surrounding myself with them—like a big circle of apples and eggplants and skinny green beans all laid out around me. Healthy boundaries.
    â€œAnyway, she probably won’t ever come back,” I say. “She could just have been trying to be polite.”
    â€œPossibly,” Dr. Greenberg says. He waits a beat. Two beats. “Do you want to talk about why she showed up this time? Before she turned around and biked away and then you spoke about playing music together?”
    I blink. My brain feels foggy like it always does when Caroline’s brother comes to mind, but there’s something dark and scary there, too. Something that makes me try to keep him outside of my head as much as I can. If I let myself think of him for a second or two, all I can see are his blue eyes. All I can smell is the stench of his dirty pants when I washed them out in the sink. All I can hear is him crying, sitting next to me on the couch, while I tried to show him the video games I was playing.
    â€œEthan? You hanging in there with me?”
    I place my hand on Groovy’s belly. It feels soft and warm. I take a breath.
    â€œYeah,” I say. “I’m hanging in there.” I pause and look down at Groovy’s sleepy dog face. The way his dog mouth is turned up it looks like he’s smiling. Maybe he is. I hear my voice saying, “She showed up because she wanted to know about her little brother, but I told her I couldn’t remember anything.” I immediately want to take the words back. It’s too much to say. I switch the subject fast. “But we barely talked about that. We mostly talked about music.”
    Dr. Greenberg leans over and makes a few notes on his legal pad. I imagine what he’s written about me.
    This kid is the weirdest kid I’ve ever worked with.
    Pretty sure there’s no hope for this one to ever be normal.
    Maybe I