The Session

The small room of my counselor's office was painted brown. One of the worst colors you could ever paint a room. My dad sat in the chair next to me, and my counselor sat right across from us. Her name was Susie Wright, and she was making notes in her stupid folder. A folder that had my name, Blake Jones, on the front cover. I asked to look at it once, but she said no because I was a child and wouldn't understand what was written inside it. Whatever! One day I'll get a chance to snatch the damned thing out of her hands and read what she was writing about me! Screw what she says! I'm grown at fifteen!

That's probably what was being written. "She thinks she's grown! She don't know how to stay in a child's place! She got pregnant at thirteen to PROVE how grown she is! She didn't want to get an abortion, yet doesn't have a job to support the baby that's been on this earth for a year!"

So what if I got pregnant at thirteen!? I was almost fourteen! I just wish people would just get the hell over it! Especially my dad! He hasn't stopped yelling at me since the baby was born! Every other word out his mouth to me is: "You brought this baby in MY house and I have to pay for her! Why should I have to pay for a baby that you had?! Why don't you go get a job and start spending YOUR earned money on YOUR baby!" I can't wait to turn eighteen so I can get the hell out of his house for good! Just because I made a mistake doesn't give him the right to treat me like crap! Not like my dad has ever NOT treated me like crap! The last time he told me he loved me was over two years ago!

And yet he sits right beside me with his head in his hands. I looked at him and almost felt bad for him. Then I rolled my eyes! The man's trying to pull off an act like he's exhausted, but he ain't foolin' me! He hasn't been in a counseling session with me since the very first day we came here, and that was only to sign consent forms! He was giving consent for this crazy ass woman to get inside my head! The only reason he was here was to tell on me! Which wouldn't even be happening if my dumb brother Matthew was better at covering for me!

Last night I snuck out of the house again. My eighteen year old brother Matthew was supposed to be watching Nevaeh while I was gone, like he usually does. And CORRECTLY if I may add! I went to a party, smoked weed, juked and made out with some guys, got drunk, and might of had sex with one or two. When I came home at four in the morning, who did I run into "worried sick"? None other than my dad! I didn't say nothing to him, just went upstairs to my room. The only thing my dad said was, "We'll be talking to your counselor about this." I made a plan to kill Matthew as soon as opportunity presented itself!

So now here we were. In the counselor's office. Both of us. It felt weird to have him sitting beside me for the first time in nine months. Then Ms. Wright spoke. "David, what were you feeling when you found out that Blake had been sneaking out at night to party?" Here we go, another "Blake thinks she's grown" speech! "I was scared!" my dad said. "I was worried! I was sick to my stomach! I was gonna call the police if she didn't come home when she did!" For second I thought I heard him choke on a sob, but then told myself, "This idiot isn't crying over me!" Ms. Wright turned her head to me. "Blake, how do you feel about the pain you've caused your father?" I smirked. "I really don't care!"

Why should I? I've caused the man pain since the day I was born! Why do you think he named me Blake? He wanted another boy! When the sonagram showed that I was a girl, my dad refused to believe it until the moment I was born and he had no choice! Most men have a little girl and cry tears of joy! I bet MY day cried tears of agony when he took one look at me!

Ms. Wright turned back to my dad. "David, how do you feel about what Blake just said?" Good Lord! What is with this woman and "feelings"!? MY dad sounded choked up when he said, "That's Blake! She doesn't care about anything! She never has and that's what scares me! If she keeps going the way she's going she's gonna end up pregnant again, in jail, prostituting, in rehab or dead! And she's just so nonchalant about everything! She has great potential inside her to be somebody and she's wasting it on BS!"

Then he started crying. My dad, the main one who was the source of my pain, started crying over ME! I felt like I'd been slapped in the face as I watched him cry his eyes out like a small child who had been burned one too many times. All this time I thought I was the only one who had been hurting when the truth was, HE was in pain as well.

As Ms. Wright handed my dad a napkin, I felt the tears begin to flow from my eyes. And once they started, they wouldn't stop. I cried the hardest I've ever cried before in the fifteen years I'd been alive! Ms. Wright handed me a napkin, and I just squeezed on it. I didn't even bother to wipe my tears with my hands.

Then my dad turned to me and, through his sobs, said those three words that I'd been dying to hear. "I love you." The tears flew from my eyes at a faster pace now. I looked my father dead square in the eyes and replied, "I love you too, Daddy." Then we both gave each other the hug that our relationship needed and cried the tears that started the healing process.