Chapter Fourteen

The screen behind the girls flickered black and gray like an old lost signal. Our group was hanging at the edge of our seats. I took in a shuddering breath, aware that I was crying, too. My heart ached for Aideen. I couldn't begin to imagine what she'd gone through or how she'd found the strength to keep going long enough to end up here. She gave birth to a little girl, and then she selflessly gave her to a mother who could give her more than Aideen could. How did you come back from that kind of loss?

I wasn't the only one having trouble keeping my emotions in check. Marco couldn't even look at her. He wiped at his eyes as he focused his attention on the wall beside him. The loss might be something we hadn't experienced and may never experience, but it dug deep into our souls and touched a place inside of us that was hurting. We were all wounded. That's why we were there—because we each had a gaping wound that wasn't healing. Aideen's had just been shown in full color for all of us to see.

Damien cleared his throat and adjusted his position. He had been rocking again, tapping his head like he had when we'd first met. Maybe rocking was his way of soothing himself, much like the way scrubbing my skin to the point of breaking it seemed like the answer to my unease until I'd learned it wasn't enough. It would never be enough. My wound wasn't on the surface where I could attack it and come out the victor in this stupid war against my demons; it was buried deep beneath my skin, all the way in my core, and I was helpless to get my hands on it.

"What the fuck?" Ken said as he used his shirt to wipe at his wet face. "We shouldn't have seen that," he insisted, his voice cracking. "That was her secret. It feels like we've violated her in some way." He looked to Dr. Crimm, his hand outstretched as he pointed to her. "You let us into a place she was keeping locked up. How is that going to help her? How will it help to be vulnerable in front of strangers?"

Dr. Crimm didn't take her eyes off of him. She clearly wasn't the type to back down, even in the face of such anguish and anger. "You have to go through it to get past it." She was calm yet firm in her delivery. "No one should be alone during something like that—no one." Her voice wavered this time at the end. I couldn't prove it, but something told me she was speaking from experience. She was impassioned about her message and she leaned forward, staring at Ken as he shook his head. "Hiding away the things we are ashamed of doesn't make them untrue. It doesn't rewind time and make them not happen or change other people's opinions of our actions and character. Pick the dirt from your wound and bleed it out. It's only then that the real healing can start.

"We rush to stop the bleeding. We rush to soothe the hurt. We all want it covered so others can't see it. 'I'm okay. Nothing is wrong. It's all better now.' But is it really? We don't even give ourselves the time to properly care for it. We cover the wound so others can see the physical representation of our healing when our own body isn't clotting it fast enough. But it's there. It isn't better or fixed or healed."

Aideen opened her eyes, overwhelmed with emotion and completely exhausted. She folded herself up and hugged her legs, crying into her knees as she continued to wake up from the medication. She had to know she wasn't alone, but was unable to pull her head up and see the reactions of the others in the group.

Damien wiped at his forehead and then pushed his glasses up a little higher on his nose. They slipped again, as his skin was covered in a light sheen of sweat. Twice during the experience, the Shima and Aideen had reached for each other, holding tightly to the other's hand before letting go again as if they were falling away from each other.

The whole thing hadn't lasted longer than a half hour, but my body was sore from the tension it had held as we waited for the girls to come back.

Damien's fingernails had been chewed down until they bled. He stretched out his fingers, refusing to take his eyes off Shima until she recovered. Her body was relaxed into the chair, but tears had been streaming down her face for a while now. Her wailing earlier was so sharp it had felt as though it pierced my heart.

Ken didn't hide his emotion as well as Damien and Marco. He sniffed in the chair beside Damien and appeared to be trying very hard to get himself back in control. Watching the girls twist and cry out had weighed heavily on him. He lifted his shirt up to his eyes and wiped away the salty tears, taking a moment to breathe in slowly in an attempt to calm himself down.

Shima's eyes slowly opened, letting in the dull lighting of the room. They looked sore and tired, and her throat must have been hoarse from her earlier wailing. She swallowed carefully a few times, trying to moisten the dryness. When she turned her head in Aideen's direction, she found her staring back at her. Without a word, the two girls reached for each other and embraced in a tight hug. Shima's fingers tangled into Aideen's shirt with desperation and I wondered how long it had been since she had truly held someone.

Only days ago they had been strangers, but now they shared something so intimate it felt as if they could be sisters. The experience had brought the whole group closer. Marco cleared his throat, the only sign that he was feeling the emotional wreckage the rest of the group was feeling. He used his thumb to swipe at his nose and then dropped his eyes back to the floor, unable to look at the two girls as they held each other. He was an expert at hiding his emotions.

What we had just seen was remarkable. Every vision was a gift, a small window into a forgotten world—the perspective of someone other than ourselves. How wonderful it would be in real life to know you were not alone. I finally understood the importance of the buddy system with this medication and technology. For the first time in group, I wasn't curled up into a ball. I was resting at the edge of my seat, watching with intensity the scene playing out before me.

In the distance, the crackle of the PA system could be heard. A doctor was being called to the phone and the day outside was continuing like nothing strange was happening. For months I'd been withdrawn completely from human connections and expressions. I didn't want to be noticed and I certainly didn't want to have to be intimate with my group members. Too much of me had already been exposed.

Marco's strength was apparent. I almost felt an attraction to it. I was the weakest, so it only seemed right that I'd be drawn to the strongest of us. In the past, I might even have liked him a little. I was a different person now, but before everything changed, I used to be able to laugh and have fun with friends and even strangers. I watched as he adjusted his position in the uncomfortable chair. When his eyes moved to mine and his lips turned up in a small smile, I looked away.

Inside my head I was reminding myself that I knew nothing about him. Looks could be deceiving, after all. Even the people you thought could be trusted, turned out to be the biggest frauds. I had no interest in learning that lesson twice. Instinctively I drew my legs back up on the chair and turned my head to rest my cheek on my knees. I knew I couldn't be trusted, either, and the group would be well served to figure that out.

Shima and Aideen finally stepped away from each other. Each girl wiped at her eyes and tried to compose herself. The doctor looked on, seemingly happy with their new closeness. She wanted us to bring everything out into the open so that we could stop carrying our burdens alone. The whole point of this experience was to show us that they weren't out on some island, isolated. Our lives were intertwined with others' and every move we made had an effect on someone else.

"You can take out your lenses. Let's move our chairs back into a circle," the doctor said as she moved a chairs near the center of the room. Ken wheeled himself over and took a spot across from her. The others followed, bringing our chairs to form the circle. When everyone was seated, she looked to the girls, who had chosen to sit beside each other. "Would one of you get us started? You could tell us about what it felt like, or what you encountered once the medication took effect."

Aideen looked to Shima with a contrite smile. "I'll go first." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as the group seemed to lean in a bit further. All eyes were on her with a focus that spoke of how important her words were to the other members. "It was like nothing I've ever experienced before. The colors seemed brighter and things took shape right in front of my eyes."

Dr. Crimm stood and retrieved a box of tissues from a cabinet near the console. She returned to her seat and handed the box to Aideen. "Please continue."

Aideen took a tissue and held it in her hand. Her lower lip quivered slightly and she tried to stop it with another big breath. It felt like she was about to expose herself to everyone.

"I got pregnant when I was fifteen." Her eyes immediately looked down at her shoes. "The father and I weren't very serious. He didn't want the baby, but I did. My mother—well, the woman I thought was my mother—made me give up my child." Her words were strained at the end and I felt the guilt and pain tear through my own chest in empathy for Aideen.

Aideen's chest stuttered with oncoming tears. She tried again to steady her breathing. The group shifted a little in our seats. It was silent in the room except for the creaking of the chairs beneath us. She took a minute to cover her face with her hands. She cried into the tissue, mostly without sound, but a few small whimpers escaped.

"Take your time," the doctor reassured her.

Aideen pulled the tissue from her face. "Is it true?"

Dr. Crimm looked into her sore, red eyes. "I'm happy to discuss anything with you, but it's your choice whether you want the information from your file shared during group."

"Is it true?" Aideen repeated.

Dr. Crimm took Aideen's response as consent and nodded. "It is. Your file says your maternal grandmother adopted you at birth."

"I don't understand why they never told me."

"I'm sure they have their reasons. If you want to reach out to them this week, I'm happy to arrange that. I think it might be best if you think carefully about what information you want to know. Have it come from a place of curiosity and not judgment or trauma."

Aideen nodded. "I felt how much Colleen loved me. I felt it in my heart. She had to have done it because she believed it was the best option. She's been a wonderful sister to me. I can't believe I never put it together before." She reached for another tissue and blew her nose.

Dr. Crimm waited for her to compose herself before she moved to keep the group going. "I'd love to hear about the rest of it."

Aideen pulled her lower lip into her mouth and worried it between her teeth. Her eyes welled again, but she blinked the tears away. "It felt like the world was falling away but at the same time it was being built right in front of me. I saw the leather shoes the woman who adopted my baby wore the night I gave birth. I don't remember too much else about her, but she had on these adorable brown flats. I remember thinking they were perfect mom shoes." She laughed a little through her tears, but her face fell again quickly.

"She came in during my labor. I remember that. She told me something but I didn't remember it until today. She thanked me for what I was giving her and then she told me, 'You're a mother.'" Shima reached over and squeezed her hand.

"I got to see her," Aideen said with a smile. "I got to see my baby. She was perfect. A tiny little thing with long fingers and dark eyes." She smiled at Shima and the two girls embraced again, holding tightly to each other. "Not seeing her that night was one of my biggest regrets. Only in the hallucination, when I held her . . ." She let go of Shima and looked up to the group. "I knew I was making the right decision. I got to feel how grateful her adoptive mother was to have her and how excited her new dad was to be waiting to see her. I got to experience the most painful hours of my life again, but with all the pieces to the puzzle instead of just the ones I had been holding. She's with a loving family."

Dr. Crimm tried to keep in her own tears. "Thank you, Aideen, for sharing that with us. I hope the new perspective can be a comfort to you when things get tough. What you went through was traumatic and you were so young. I'm sure there will be many things over your lifetime that will bring you back to that night, but now you don't ever have to doubt the choice you made."

Ken sniffled from his chair and Aideen sent a tissue around the circle for him. No one was judging. Each of the group members had been touched by Aideen's story. Dr. Crimm looked to the group again. "Trauma is stored in many ways in our brains. We remember things by our senses. We can tell you what something tastes like, what it smelled like. I can tell you if I was cold, or warm or even whether the air was breezy. I could tell you what sounds I heard and how I felt inside. I can describe what it looked like and sounded like. All of these little pieces of information are there and it only takes one small trigger for the entire event to be brought back to the surface."

She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. "We have to help our brains figure out where to put those memories. In order for them to be processed, we need to make sense of it all. Today you have helped make sense of an experience, and because of that you will find some peace. The trauma may not disappear forever, but it won't have as much power over you as it once did."

"God, I hope so," Aideen said softly. "In all of its glory, it has the power to kill me."