Chapter Text
“Morning Jared. How have you been this week?” The dark-haired woman smiled as Jared entered the room.
“I’ve been stellar Beth. How about you?” He flopped onto the soft couch.
“I’ve been good.” She flipped open a notepad. “Now, did you try out some of the things we talked about last week?”
“Um,” Jared slumped into the cushions. “I tried to try them.”
“Jared.” Beth scolded. Jared knew what she was going to say. “I’m here to help you. But,”
“You can only help me as much as I help myself.” Jared recited. “I know.”
He’d been in therapy for almost two months. His mother thought it would help his ‘communication issues’. And, as much as he hated to admit his mother was right after throwing such a fit, he actually found it was really helpful to have someone to talk to. Someone who wouldn’t judge him, who could understand why he felt the way he felt, and most importantly, who wouldn’t put up with his shit.
“Exactly. So, what happened?”
“Well, today was the first day of school. And I saw Evan and I asked about his summer and stuff. And then I asked how he broke his arm; his arm was in a cast you see.” Jared left out the part where he joked about Evan breaking it from masturbating too much. He figured she didn’t need to know that. Beth nodded and waited for him to continue. “And he said he fell out of a tree and I laughed and then he told me this depressing ass story about how he was laying there for like hours waiting for someone to find him and no one ever came…” Jared trailed off, staring at the ceiling.
Beth waited a few seconds before prompting him to continue. “Jared?”
“So anyway,” Jared continued as though he’d never paused. “He’s all ‘you wanna sign my cast?’ And I’m confused because, you know, I’m a dick why would he ask me? So I asked him that and he said ‘well, because we’re friends’, and… he just looked so… I don’t know. Hopeful? Sad? I don’t know, but I couldn’t stand that look so I said… um.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘we’re family friends Evan, that’s like, a totally different thing and you know it’.” Jared sighed. “And then he walked away looking all sad. And I felt shitty.”
Beth sighed and wrote something down.
“What are you writing?” He asked even though he knew she wouldn’t answer.
“Jared,” She said seriously. “You have a chronic case of foot in mouth disease.”
Jared snorted. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“The way to remedy this is to think before you speak.”
“Am I really paying an ungodly amount of money for you to tell me something I could get for free off of a poster in a third-grade classroom?” Jared rolled his eyes. Beth quirked an eyebrow. “Sorry.” Jared mumbled.
“It seems like an obvious thing, and yet you struggle with it a lot.” She pointed out. “Sometimes, it may be helpful to write about things you feel strongly about. It may help you understand your feelings and be more prepared to talk about them later.”
“Yeah but that wasn’t me struggling with my feelings. That was just, me being a dick in a casual conversation.” Jared frowned at her.
“Is that so?” Beth raised her eyebrows. “You don’t think your feelings for Evan were impacting this interaction at all?”
Jared flushed. He knew Beth knew about his… feelings for Evan, he was the one who told her. But he still felt embarrassed when she brought it up.
“So what? I’m supposed to write in my diary about my crush? Pass.” Jared gagged.
“Not exactly.” Beth smiled slightly. “You said Evan writes letters to himself to help with his anxiety, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. But-“
“But you don’t need to talk to yourself. Your trouble is with communicating with others. Therefore, you should be writing letters to the people you struggle to communicate with.”
Jared sat up. “You want me to write a letter to Evan, about how I like him?” He was incredulous.
“Yes.”
“You’re crazy.”
Beth laughed at the expression on his face. “Only, you’re not going to give them to him.” She explained. Jared relaxed slightly. “These letters are just for you. But you need to be completely honest in them. You need to write them as if he would read them and they were your chance to say everything you really wanted to say.”
Jared clenched his fists all the way home. His mother asked how his session was. He didn’t reply.
He tore up to his room the second they got home, pulled out a blank piece of paper and started writing.
Dear Evan,
Looks like you’re not the only one with therapy homework. I guess I’m supposed to write letters to you to help me sort out my feelings and shit so I stop accidentally being a dick to you. So um, sorry I called you a ‘family friend’ today. We’re real friends, I guess.
Sincerely,
Jared
He set his pen down. He certainly didn’t feel any different. Maybe he wasn’t being honest enough.
He picked the pen up again.
PS, not I guess. We are real friends.
It still wasn’t enough.
PPS, I wish I would’ve been in the park that day. So you wouldn’t have been alone.
He shoved the letter in his desk drawer and climbed into bed.