Read Unbound for Free Online

there.
      “Do you
believe in guardian angels?” I asked Alex.
    “Depends on the day,” she smiled. “But I wonder if
you’re really asking if I believe what you’re telling me?” she asked.
    Yes . But I said nothing.
    “I believe in you, Rachel. Perhaps it’s time you
found out if you believe in yourself. Will you come back next week?”
    I nodded, knowing I would come back. I had nothing
left to lose now.
    *           *           *           *           *
    For
the next few weeks, my sessions with Alex continued in the same way. I felt a
little less apprehensive about talking about my past and the secret I’d been
holding on to so tightly. Talking to her, I could feel something loosening in
my chest, as if the chains I’d been bound by for so many years were slowly, link
by link, unravelling. Although I still found myself double-checking locks, and
climbing out of bed in the middle of the night to make sure the stove was off,
I wasn’t as angry at myself as I did it. And I understood that this was how I
coped, when there didn’t seem to be any other options.
    “You’re
seeing yourself in a new way,” she said, when I told her what I’d noticed.
    My
smile was wry. “I’m a little less worried that I’ll be committed, if that’s
what you mean.”
    She
sighed and looked at me with such kindness that my throat tightened. “You’ve been
very lonely since your father’s been gone.”
    I
teared up, as I always did when I tried to speak about him. When I let myself
think about him. I conjured up his warm smile that crinkled his eyes and how it
felt to be wrapped in his hug. “I miss him every day,” I said, letting the
grief come. When I was having a particularly hard day, I would imagine he was
behind me, with his hands on my shoulders.
      “Since he’s died, your world has felt a
lot less predictable. When was the last time you felt safe?” she asked
    “The
last time?” I didn’t have to think about it. I knew. It was two years ago. I was
sixteen years old.
    The
three years after my father’s death had been harder than I could have ever
imagined. Losing my dad alongside of my mother’s fragile mental health had
catapulted me violently from pre-adolescence into a pseudo-adulthood I was
barely prepared for, much less capable of understanding.
    Although
my grandmother continued to watch over us, I was never able to re-enter
childhood in any genuine way.   Instead, my tremulous temperament transformed itself into a fierce
vigilance that kept me wary, effectively separating me from my childhood
friends.
    I
simply could not live in the world that they lived in – knowing what I
knew. They believed themselves invincible, immortal and immune to the demands
of impending adulthood. I knew better. I knew that people died. And I knew that
the ones they left behind were meant to put the pieces of their life back
together, even if they were broken beyond repair.  
    My
worries were not the normal fears of a teenage girl. I didn’t toss and turn at
night wondering what to wear the next day or if the boy I sat next to in
biology liked me. I worried about other things, like my mother’s mental health,
or my grandmother dying. My fears generalized to things to which typically
developing 16-year-old girls rarely turned their thoughts. Environmental
disasters were high on my list. My mother had raised an eyebrow when I began
stockpiling bottled water and batteries in the closet. But global politics, the
faltering economy, high school massacres, they were also on my radar. While the
other kids at school laughed about episodes of SNL, I became obsessed with CNN,
particularly the live news coverage. Hoping for some warning this time. Hoping
that the next time someone I loved died, I would be ready. Waiting for the next
bad thing to happen, I made myself as small a target as possible.
    Never
the most popular girl, I became nearly invisible at school and faded into the
background