Tess's mom had come to greet them. She stood watching from the door leading into the house, her arms folded, as Tess's dad pulled into the garage.

After one of the most stressful weeks of her life, Tess was more than ready to begin the weekend. Not only did she have the date with Isaac to look forward to—and she could hardly wait for that—she had a meeting with her counselor, Dr. Mark. Going to counseling wasn't easy; it was usually the opposite of easy, but she almost always left feeling better than she'd felt when she went into a session, and over time she'd come to look forward to the regular engagements.

Tess climbed out of the car as soon as it had stopped.

"Hurry, honey. You're running a little late," said her mom, stepping aside to allow Tess into the house.

"Thanks, Mom. I'll be in my room."

"Tell him I said hello. Hi, dear."

Tess heard her mom and dad exchanging a kiss—she certainly didn't stay to watch. She hurried inside and up the stairs. As she tossed her backpack onto the bed, she glanced at her alarm clock: 2:34.

Oops. The appointment had been for 2:30.

Slumping into her computer chair, Tess woke her laptop and opened Skype. Dr. Mark was already online. She opened an instant message with him.

[TESS] Are you there Dr Mark? Sorry Im late.

[DR. MARK PATTERSON] Yep. Give me a call when you're ready.

Tess called him, and he picked up almost immediately. She smiled as the video came through. Dr. Mark Patterson—frowning and squinting at his screen as he set up his side of the call—was almost too young in the face for his mostly silver hair. He looked the same as he always did in his collared shirt, bow tie, and glasses. On either side of him were the tall bookshelves Tess remembered from his office, laden with a variety of titles, from picture books she assumed he used for his youngest patients to intimidating door-stoppers only a doctor would understand.

"Hey, Dr. Mark," she said. Tess thought addressing a doctor was weird. When she'd first met him, he'd insisted she use a name she was comfortable with, so she'd traded the stuffy-sounding "Dr. Patterson" for a slightly less formal alternative.

"Hello, Tess. How are you?"

"I'm glad it's the weekend. How are you?"

Dr. Mark smiled. "It's nice of you to ask, as always. I've had a good week."

"How's Arthur?"

He leaned to one side, reaching for something that was outside of Tess's view, and when he sat straight again, he had a picture frame in his hand. He turned it toward Tess, peeking around the side of it as if trying to ensure it was coming into focus. "Can you see it? I have a new photo from the dog park."

Tess leaned in, grinning. It was a great picture: in it, a golden retriever lay in lush grass with his paws tucked in to his chest, three tennis balls in his mouth. "He got a new collar!"

Dr. Mark turned the photograph and looked at it in surprise. "I guess he did since the last time you've seen him. You might not be able to see, but you will not be surprised to learn that it has small tennis balls on it."

Laughing, Tess sat back in her chair again. "He's so cute."

"Thank you. I think he knows it, and he uses it to his advantage." He set the photo aside again and looked at Tess. "All right: last time we chatted, you were gearing up for the first day of school. Do you want to talk about how the first week went?"

Dr. Mark usually did this; he offered topics of conversation, and if Tess wasn't ready or interested in something, he didn't press her to talk like her parents did. Although it was counterintuitive, this made Tess more willing to talk to him about a variety of things. "It's been a little hard."

He leaned back in his chair. Tess could just see the corner of his yellow legal pad sitting on the desk, mostly out of her view; she knew he would jot down notes unobtrusively during their session. She sometimes wondered what he wrote in there about her, but she never asked. He didn't prompt her to continue, just waited, looking at her with quiet interest.

"I met a friend," Tess said, drifting away from the stressful stuff. "Her name is Jacqui. I only have her in one of my classes, but she's really smart. And she's got a lot of friends. I'm not even sure I can remember all their names."

"That's an interesting observation."

"Hmm?"

"Well, one of the first things you mention is that Jacqui has a lot of friends. You don't consider them your friends, too, Tess?"

She gave a short laugh. "No. It's hard for me to make friends on a good day, and...you know."

He gave her a knowing look; he didn't smile, but his eyes crinkled with a touch of amusement. Tess knew what he was going to say before he said it, because she'd heard it before.

"I don't know, actually," he said. "I can guess what you mean, but it's always better for you to share with me."

"You know, it's just stressful. It's a new school and everything. I have so many classes, how can I even think about making friends? I don't care, anyway. It's not like I have time for much hanging out."

"What about the girl from your summer school class, Rebecca? Have you kept in touch?"

"Oh, yeah. We've texted a bit. I don't think I'll get much chance to hang out with her again this year. She works after school, and I'm going to drown in homework."

Dr. Mark nodded, and then he waited.

"Mostly I'm thinking about my classes and how I'm going to survive this year. The homework is...more challenging than I expected. More than I remember."

"What do you mean by 'challenging,' Tess? Do you mean the curriculum is difficult, or do you mean it's challenging in a different way?"

Tess was silent for a moment. Dr. Mark had a way of navigating through her words, which she often felt were jumbled and sometimes nonsensical, and probing for the details of her thoughts and feelings that she wouldn't consider on her own. "I think both."

"It's your senior year. It's natural that the work is more difficult than it has been before, especially with college on the horizon. Try not to be too hard on yourself if you feel the curriculum is rigorous. Other students would likely agree with you."

"I know." Tess thought of Jacqui, and how she'd confessed that she was often hard on herself, too.

"Is there more to it than that?"

"I guess there's this feeling that I'm not going to be able to do well enough to graduate. And there's this...worry." Tess looked away, focusing on a cactus she kept on her desk in her room. Its pot was blue on one side, with a frowny face painted on it, and yellow on the other, with a smiley face. She looked into the glossy eyes of the smiley face. "I don't know all of what's tangled up in there, but it's worry about graduating, worry about failing...but also worry about someone finding out what happened. The accident. And worry about worrying."

Dr. Mark glanced toward his pad of paper and Tess saw his arm move as he jotted a note. "There are a couple things you said that I'd like to ask you about, if that's all right."

"Sure."

"Let's talk about the worry about worrying first. You've used similar words before. How has your anxiety been?"

Why did she feel so embarrassed when he asked that? If anyone understood, it was Dr. Mark. He'd gone to years of school to help people like her. He had never judged her before. Still, for some reason, her face flooded with heat.

"Tess, will you look at me for a moment?"

She tore her eyes away from the smiley face and looked at Dr. Mark instead.

"I want you to remember what we've talked about. Your anxiety is a condition you're living with. It doesn't define who you are. Your struggle with the symptoms of this condition do not define you, either."

"I just feel like I should be better." Her voice was shaky. God, she thought, don't cry. "You've been helping me for so long and I have this new life and I should just be better."

Dr. Mark's expression was kind, but serious. "You are better. You're doing things every day that you were unable to do before. You're able to talk more about the accident and about your sister. But Tess, that doesn't mean that you're cured. This isn't a cold. You will have your ups and downs, and when you have your downs, you must be kind to yourself and recognize that this is a journey."

Tess let out her breath in an impatient sigh. "I know. I know."

At last, he smiled. "I know you know. If you don't mind, I'll just remind you every now and then."

"Since you asked so nicely, the anxiety hasn't been great. I had a panic attack yesterday at school." She paused, but Dr. Mark didn't say anything; he was in listening mode again. "It was over the stupidest thing—this little one-page assignment. I just...I was in the computer lab and trying to come up with a topic to write about, and I just got overwhelmed."

Dr. Mark nodded. "How did you handle the situation?"

"Badly. I wasn't even thinking of the advice you gave me about getting through it. But my friend—Jacqui—I guess she knew what was happening. She took me to the bathroom, and then I was able to ground myself and get calmed down. She said her brother has the same thing sometimes."

He nodded again. "How did you feel learning that someone else Jacqui knows has anxiety, Tess?"

Tess reflected. "I didn't think much about it at the time. At the time, I was just really grateful for Jacqui. I was thankful that she knew how to help me. I think if she hadn't been there, I would have been the center of attention, and it would have been even more embarrassing and people would talk about me. She kind of saved me from myself."

Dr. Mark jotted another note. "I'd like you to reflect a little on the knowledge that another person in your life—even if you do not know him yourself—may be on the same journey as you. Will you do that?"

Tess nodded her head.

"You did well handling a scary thing. Having an anxiety attack in class with students you don't know well is a difficult situation. You leaned on the support of a friend and managed to make it through. Looking back on it, how do you feel about the way you managed your experience?"

She shrugged, but considered the question. "Good. Thanks mostly to Jacqui. But good."

Dr. Mark nodded, looking pensive. "I'd like to return to what you said before. You said you worry about someone finding out about the accident. Can you tell me a little more about that?"

Tess drew a knee up to her chest, resting her heel on the edge of her seat, and propped her chin on her knee. She didn't respond at first. This was getting into the difficult territory, the types of things Dr. Mark liked to nudge her gently toward talking about. If she said she didn't want to discuss it, she knew he wouldn't push her. But this had been weighing on her mind. "I'd just be the girl with a dead sister."

"Many people have lost loved ones and relatives, Tess. You are not alone as a survivor."

"It's not the same."

Dr. Mark was silent. His gaze searched her face, his eyebrows slightly raised.

Tess shook her head. "It's just not the same." She hesitated. She was done talking about the accident—she couldn't go down that path today. "I have a date this weekend."

Appearing unperturbed by the abrupt change in topic, Dr. Mark cocked his head—but Tess could tell that he was taking a note off-screen about what she had said. "Oh? Is this another friend?"

"Yes—I guess, yeah. His name is Isaac. He was in summer school with me, too."

"What do you plan to do with Isaac?"

"We're going to go to the new Thor movie."

"Ah, of course. I hope you'll enjoy it. Was the movie your idea, or his?"

"It was his idea, but I'm looking forward to it. He kind of makes me feel...well...not normal. But he makes me feel like I could be." And it was a good feeling: the feeling that she might just be normal someday.