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15.

“So,” Doctor Garbuglio began.

Freya was imagining an arm reaching around his neck and choking him out. She was pretty sure Dr. G wouldn’t know to turn his chin toward the elbow. He’d black out with his eyes bulging and that insufferable look wiped right off his face.

“Your mother tells me there was a problem at your Karate class.”

“Krav Maga,” she corrected, and he made a motion with his hand as if it was no importance. He waited for her to go on and she stared back at him.

“So there was a problem at Krav Maga,” he amended. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“Lassa didn’t tell the instructor about Randall. So they were doing a drill with fake knives, and I started crying. It was fine. It stopped after a few minutes and I went on with the class. One of the guys from school filled Vitko in after class, he was very apologetic. It wasn’t his fault.”

“Your mother tells me you were upset when she picked you up.”

“Of course I was upset. She was the one who made me take the class. She should have told Vitko. I looked stupid in front of everyone.”

“What did she say when you told her how you felt?”

“She said ‘I didn’t think you would have a problem.’ Like it was my fault. Now I have to go back there, and it’ll be even more awkward. I’m the only girl in the class, and now they all think I’m some snowflake. It’ll be much harder to make any friends.”

“Do you want to make friends in the class?” Dr. Garbuglio asked. She gave him a look, it was a weird question.

“I’d like to have the option. I didn’t want to take this class in the first place. I wanted to g—“ Freya halted, realizing she was about to say something stupid and tell the man who could put her in an asylum she wanted to get a gun.

“What did you want?” Garbuglio honed in on the evasion. He was very good at that.

“I just wanted to stay at home,” she said, realizing too late that that would give him another angle for attack. She saw him consider it, but he didn’t press the point and chide her for hiding in her room the way Lassa would have. Instead he just nodded.

“Other than that, how did you like the class?”

“I don’t want to go back,” she said.

“Because of what happened?”

“No. It’s stupid in the first place,” she said.

“How so?”

“I weigh 95 pounds. I’m literally half the size of some of the boys in the class. I could study this every day for the rest of my life and any of those guys could still beat me up.”

“You’re probably right,” Dr. Garbuglio said, surprising her. “Does your mother know you feel this way?”

“It wouldn’t matter. She would still make me go.”

Dr. Garbuglio nodded in agreement.

“Let’s talk about that and assume that you’re right in both cases. Assume you have to go to this class. What’s the best case scenario?”

“Um, I take the class and don’t get injured? Eventually I don’t have to go anymore?”

“Is that really the best possible outcome?” he pressed, giving her doubtful look.

“I guess I could get in better shape. There’s a lot of running and push-ups. I didn’t mind that.”

“What about the people in the class? You said it would be harder to make friends now. Were any people in the class you would like to be friends with?”

“Well, it’s the youth class, so everyone goes to Grayson. One of the guys there was in drama last year, he played Joe Summers in The Lottery. He’s a good actor when he isn’t being a clown.”

“What’s his name?”

“Dan Gregulus,” she said, immediately wishing she hadn’t mentioned him.

“Did you talk with Dan?”

“No of course not, we just all ran laps together at the start of the class before everyone showed up.”

“Why do you say of course not?”

“Because he’s a senior and on the track team. He probably doesn’t even remember my name.”

“Oh I see. So you’re not allowed to talk to him?”

She rolled her eyes at Dr. Garbuglio, but he only inclined his head, indicating he was still waiting for an answer.

“Just generally seniors don’t really talk to sophomores. He’s like, thinking about graduating, applying for colleges. All of his friends are track people and other seniors.”

“Well it’s been a while, but when I was a senior in high school I didn’t have a problem with talking to sophomores, especially girls. I suspect that hasn’t changed.”

Her cheeks got hot with embarrassment at the implication. She didn’t want to talk about this at all, especially not with Garbuglio.

“I mean, I don’t really care if I talk with him or not. He’s just the person there who I recognized.”

“When entering a new social group, that’s what people do. They start with the people they recognize and they branch out from there. Let’s think about best-case scenarios again. Even if you and Dan have little in common, Dan has been taking this class for a while, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Well, consider Dan to be the door through which you can get to know the other people in the class better. Try and talk with him, and if he is in fact, unwilling to talk to a lowly sophomore, then you can just disregard him and find someone more open-minded. If you have to be there anyway, you migh as well try to make friends.”

“That’s all ruined though,” Freya said, feeling a tug in her chest.

“Why is it ruined?”

“I cried in front of everyone. I made a fool of myself.”

“OK. I’d like you to try something. Think about your own friends. Have they ever cried in front of you?”

“That’s different. We already knew each other for a long time before that.”

“Did you stop being their friends when they cried and displayed vulnerability to you?”

“No. Of course not. It made us better friends.”

“Why is that?”

“Because they trusted me enough to cry in front of me,” Freya said. The memory of Betty’s face before she moved away was pushing to the forefront of her attention. Her eyes were all puffy and a wet line ran down from her nose. If only Betty were still here, this would all be so much easier.

“Well, you’ve done the same thing in front of that class. I think you’ll find they’re more sympathetic than you think. A lot of them will think you’re very tough if you go back to the class and keep trying. Many of them may even make an extra effort to be your friend because they know you went through something terrible.”

“I don’t want people to be my friend because they feel sorry for me,” Freya replied, bitter at the thought.

“You can think of it as people feeling sorry for you, or you can think of it as people showing empathy for something that happened that was beyond your control and is not your fault. Some of them may have suffered loss too. They may have experienced some parts of what you’re going through. If you don’t try you will never get to find out.”

Freya took a deep breath. Annoying as he was, Dr. Garbuglio was probably right. She was starting to understand why he was a therapist. He had changed his approach radically this session, she wondered how long he’d spent reviewing his tapes and thinking up a new gameplan.

“OK, time is almost up. I would like for you to have this,” Dr. Garbuglio said. He got up and got a copy of The Fragile Phoenix from his bookshelf and gave it to her.

“You don’t have to read this if you don’t want to, but I would like for you to have it. If you choose to read it, you can accelerate the course of therapy. You will have a better idea of what my method is, and if there are things you don’t agree with we can talk about them and save time.”

“OK, thank you,” Freya said, accepting the book. There was no way she would read it, but it didn’t hurt to be gracious.

“Good luck with the class,” Dr. Garbuglio offered, and she went through the door into the hallway with the blue leather volume in her hand. She thought about throwing it in the trash bin outside of the office like she had The Song of Sword, but that seemed childish. Besides, Lassa was late, the BMW wasn’t in the parking lot. Despite herself, Freya began to thumb through the book. An hour later, she gave up and called a cab.