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but Abby. Although I felt vulnerable, I also kind of liked having an audience, someone to watch me wallow. Someone who was paid to care about my miserable life. It was almost like having my own reality TV show, only with an audience of one.
                  Another sigh. “I’m ticked, actually.”
                  Rose seemed pleased with this. Her usual tired-looking gray eyes lit up like Las Vegas at night. “You’re angry. Good. Why are you feeling angry, September?”
                  “They say there are five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. There must be something seriously wrong with me. It’s been three weeks since Abby died and I’m only now entering stage two.” I’d read all about it in Kubler-Ross’s book, On Death and Dying . “Not to mention no tears.”
                  “Everyone deals with grief in their own way. Some people skip phases or jump around. Your friend meant a lot to you. This isn’t something you’re going to get through instantly. Grieving takes time. It’s not like cooking ramen noodles.”
                  Ramen noodles? I laughed a full-throttle, gut-busting laugh.
                  “It’s nice to see you laugh,” Rose said, resting her elbows on the desk, smiling.
                  Between the ink on her nose, the sinister trolls hovering over us and the ramen noodle comment, I was now in hysterics. And once I start, I can’t quit. Tears began cascading down my face.             
                  It finally hit me like a fallen plane: Abby was gone.
                  Just as quickly as my laughing episode began, I began crying. Three weeks worth of stored up tears poured out of me. Snot, too. Rose leaned across the desk, resting a hand on mine. Another hand slid a tissue box over. I grabbed fistfuls and started wiping, blowing and tossing them aside until, like giant popcorn kernels, white balls encircled my ankles on the floor.
                  “Tears,” Rose said, frowning sympathetically.
                  At the end of our fifty minute session (which ended up being two percent talking and ninety-eight percent crying), Rose scribbled something on her notepad, ripped out the page and slid it across her coffee-stained desk. “Your homework for this week.”
                  Express your anger in constructive ways.
                  “Like how?” I said as worked my way out of the spongy couch.
                  “Go somewhere private and scream. Beat a pillow. Break something,” she said as she opened the heavy office door. A man with wet hair, a crooked tie and plastic grocery bags covering his feet sat in the waiting area.
                  “Hello, Steve,” I heard Rose say as I swung the glass door of the main entrance open. Hamster-sized drops of rain greeted me outside.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    5
     
     
                  Twinkies. I love them. Too much, maybe. But you see, Twinkies and I have a love-hate relationship. So you may or may not be surprised to hear that, for the past three years, Twinkies and I hadn’t been on speaking terms. While I allowed myself a respectable portion of dessert on special occasions—a sliver of cake at a birthday party, three bites of rich cheesecake at a wedding, two or three red vines at the end of a long day—I vowed to give up Twinkies when I reached a size fourteen my freshman year of high school. It was the only time I ever struggled with weight. It was the same year my parents separated for eight months and my next door neighbor, Adam Christensen, turned into a vegetable after bashing his head in a skateboarding accident. You see I love Twinkies, but Twinkies don’t love me. I’m allergic to them. They make my thighs swell.
                  So