Chapter 1
ONE
Frank stared at him waiting for him to begin. To open up and spill everything out. Eddie can’t make himself look Frank in the eyes so instead he looks out the window. A view of the baby blue sky stares back at him and his chest clenches at the memories suddenly flooding him.
“Eddie, are you alright?” Frank ask but Eddie shuts his eyes trying to make the memories go away.
“When I was eight my favorite color was blue. Specifically baby blue. I wanted all blue shirts, and all blue walls. So one day I took my sister's baby blue nail polish.”
“Eddie-“ begins Frank but he just keeps talking remembering painting his toes giddily in his childhood bedroom. He asked his sister Adriana to help him do his right hand and she’d readily agreed.
“When my mom got home I was so excited to show her” he still remembered it. Running up to her excitedly.
“Mommy look!” He’d held up his hands and the smile fell from her face.
“Quitate Eso” she’d snapped, grabbing him by the wrist. Her fingers dug into him as she took him to the sink to wash that off. “That’s not for boys.” She’d said as he burst into tears confused as she forced him to remove the paint with nail polish remover.
“I didn’t understand what I did wrong” said Eddie, his heart racing as he looked down at the ugly rug and not at Frank. “She told me if she found me doing it again she would tell my dad.”
“That must have been terrifying for you as a child,” said Frank, sounding sympathetic. “Are you still scared of your father?”
For a moment Eddie flinched.
“He’s my father,” he says defensively. ”forget it, this was stupid” he stands up to leave feeling like a caged animal.
“Eddie running away from your problems won’t change anything” says Frank and Eddie snaps.
“Talking doesn’t change anything!” He snaps, turning back to Frank angrily. “Nothing ever changes. Chris is gone! So what good does talking about my fucking childhood do?”
“Eddie, you can’t bottle up your emotions.” Images of him punching a hole through his bedroom wall flash through his head.
“Why? How could things get any worse. Every time I open up-“ his voice cracks and he feels himself choke up.
“You have to be strong” he hears his father’s voice in his head and he feels his hands clench at his sides.
“Sometime I wish-“ Eddie cuts himself off before he finishes that sentence. He promised he would never talk about that.
Never.
Eddie's eyes fall to the clock and he wants to cry from relief when he sees their time is up.
“Eddie, please come back next week. I feel we’re on the verge of a breakthrough.”
Eddie nods his head before walking out of the office.
He doesn’t schedule his next appointment.