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Chapter Thirty-Seven
Bodhi King
One Week
Dear Jules,
You were right… this place isn’t nearly as bad as I was making it out to be in my head. I have my own room with my own bathroom attached. The staff is really friendly and welcoming.
I started therapy a few days ago. It’s… hard. This may come as a shock to you (okay, probably not), but talking about feelings, discussing things that I’ve gone through, it’s not easy for me. I’ve spent basically my entire life feeling alone. Feeling like I couldn’t talk about how I was feeling. After so long, it’s like I built an impenetrable wall that even I couldn’t tear down, let alone anyone else.
There’s so much I think I need to tell you about my past, and what shaped me into who I am today, but I refuse to do that through a letter being sent snail mail. You deserve face to face, and you deserve honesty. I’m hoping by the time I get out of here, honesty will come a little easier to me.
I’m so sorry for everything I’ve put you through. I think the fierceness of your attention and your feelings scared me, and so subconsciously, I tried to push you away to protect myself. It’s become more than clear since we first met at that hotel lounge that you are not someone I ever need to protect myself from.
I want you to know that you’ve changed my life in a way I can never explain clearly. You made me feel seen. You made me feel beautiful. You made the pain inside me hurt a little less. With you, I don’t feel as lost. You’ve shown me what it’s like to be truly loved for exactly who I am, and for that, I will be eternally grateful. More than anything, I want to be someone deserving of your love. I want to feel a little less broken, a little less damaged. For me, but also for you, because you deserve the entire world.
You’ve changed my life and brought sunshine in when I needed it the most. You never gave up on me even when I gave up on myself.
When I get out of here, I plan to show you just how much you mean to me.
Thank you for pushing me to come here and thank you for seeing me—therealme, and not Jamie.
Love always,
Bodhi
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Bodhi King
One Month
Dear Mom,
Today is day thirty-two at Blackwood Ranch Treatment Facility. It’s been thirty-seven days since the last time I made myself throw up after eating, and today also marks day thirty-two of eating every single day.
You probably don’t even know I’m in here, and I’m sorry you’re finding out this way. But Dr. Fuller says that a huge part of healing is getting things off your chest. Finally saying the things that have been bottled up for days, months, years. So, that’s what I’m doing.
To be honest, I don’t even know if I’ll end up mailing this, but I’m writing it anyway.
Growing up, I held no animosity toward you, nor did I think you were at fault for anything that happened. Or at least, I thought I didn’t. If the last month here at Blackwood Ranch, and the daily therapy I’m attending, has taught me anything, it’s that I was holding on to a lot more resentment than I even knew. And some of that resentment was toward you.
I can’t help but wonder why you didn’t stand up for me, not even once? Why would you let me get tormented by my own father and my brother for years? It feels like you turned a blind eye and ignored that it was even happening.
Charles recently filled me in on some of your own secrets about how Dad isn’t really my dad. So maybe you were scared of him too, and that’s why you tried not to rock the boat.
When I was seventeen years old, I swallowed a bottle of your ibuprofen. The weight of all the lies and the abuse got to be too big a burden to carry. I was tired, and at the time, the best and only option I could think of to stop the hurting, was to kill myself. You don’t know about this—at least, I think you don’t—because your husband hid it from you. He found me in the bathroom, on the verge of unconsciousness, and rushed me to the hospital. They pumped my stomach and performed a psych eval on me. I’m not exactly sure where Dad told you I was during this three-day period, but after I got discharged, he told me I needed to see a therapist “if I knew what was good for me.”
I know that you know about therapy and the anti-depressants. But I don’t think you knew about the rest.
I know this is all hard to hear, and I’m not telling you to hurt you. But in order for me to get better, I need to get it off my chest. Dr. Fuller insists that opening these old wounds can be extremely beneficial in the healing process. You’re my mother, and I love you so much. For years and years, I justified not confiding in you, and keeping all the hurt and torment to myself by telling myself that I was protecting you. In my eyes, you were too pure, too good of a person to see everyone’s true colors. But I’ve come to realize that protecting you isn’t my job. I’m the child and you’re the parent, and the truth is, I needed you, Mom. I needed an ally. I needed a safe haven to protect me from the bullying and the abuse.
What I saw as willful ignorance on your part broke me. The one place I was meant to feel the safest in the entire world was the place I felt the most scared. The most alone.
I really, truly hope one day to be able to let go of the resentment I’ve held so close to my heart for all these years—even if I didn’t realize I was holding on to it. I also hope to be able to sit down with you eventually and fill you in on the atrocities I faced at home that I kept from you.
