Therapy
Confessions
I hardly spoke as the three of us sat around the table. Kris and Travis fell into conversation immediately, discussing the Penguins training camp starting soon, Travis’ upcoming graduation from University, and what they were planning to do for the rest of the week.
“I’m surprised you haven’t headed back to visit your folks yet, Katy,” Travis said, causing me to look up from my sandwich and blink at him, surprised to suddenly be a part of the conversation.
I could see Kris glance at me from the corner of my eye as he lifted up the last bit of his own sandwich and stuffed it into his mouth. I forced a small smile at Travis, my eyes falling back down to the hardly touched turkey sandwich in front of me. “I just didn’t feel like heading back, is all,” I lied.
Travis nodded, knowing not to push the subject of my parents, and turned back to Kris. “How’s counselling?”
The question peaked my interest more then I wanted to admit, and I found myself turning in my seat to face Kris as he thought up an answer, glancing nervously at me when he realized I was actually listening. He cleared his throat, rubbing a hand over the stubble on his chin as he began. “It’s been good. At first, it was hard. She made me talk about a lot of things that I was not ready to speak on yet, but now I feel much better. I didn’t see how angry I was until just a few sessions ago,” he admitted, glancing quickly at me. “She thinks that I’m blaming myself too much.”
The last comment caught me completely off guard, and it was evident in my face judging by the way Travis sent me a semi-confused glance as soon as I reacted to it. It was a confusing thing to hear Kris say, especially after he had been so adamant in telling me that Evan’s death was my fault.
Kris took a long drink from the bottle of water he had ordered before setting it back onto the table and sending a tentative glance in my direction, inhaling deeply before he asked, “Do you still play piano, Kaitlin?”
Travis turned his attention to me also, seeming interested in the answer. He leaned his elbows against the table and waited for me to reply, exchanging a look with Kris that was so subtle and quick, I almost wondered if I had imagined it.
I scratched the side of my face for a moment before nodding, looking between the two of them before diverting my eyes to the surface of the table. “I actually teach piano now. I don’t play my own songs anymore, though. I guess I’ve just been lacking passion, lately.”
I saw Kris give a small nod from beside me, hearing him sigh to himself. “I’m glad you did not stop,” he said quietly. “Evan wouldn’t have liked that.”
Travis nodded as well, a hint of a grin forming on his face. “He loved listening to you play, Katy. He had a recording of one of your recitals and he’d fall asleep to it when the team was on the road. I don’t know if you knew that.”
I couldn’t find my voice for a second, torn between the outrage at Kris mentioning Evan to me, and the pain of Travis sharing that fact with me. I shook my head, clearing my throat. “I didn’t know that, actually.”
There was a pause, and I could see the two of them exchange another look before Travis reached across the table to place a hand on top of mine, catching me off guard. “Katy, I know you just finished counselling, and I’m glad that went so well for you, but if you want to talk about Evan, even just exchange stories, I’m always here.”
I nodded, unable to voice a response in that moment as my emotions were beginning to take over. Kris had turned himself so he was facing me once more, peeking my interest enough that I turned my face to look at him, aware of the fact that he was searching for something to say to me, or maybe the right way to bring something up. He studied my face for a moment, something I had found him doing a few times throughout the lunch, and finally frowned, pursing his lips together for a brief moment before speaking. “I think we should talk. You can hate me afterwards, or still hate me, but we should talk.”
I felt my eyebrows twitch a bit, looking over at Travis who was busy checking his phone before looking back up at Kris. “I don’t know if-”
“Please, Katy,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that happened that night that you are not aware of.”
The comment scared me, my mind immediately racing to conclusion on what Evan could have been doing that night that I was not informed of. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know, or if I should know. I wasn’t sure that I trusted Kris again, which was another problem.
“Please, Katy,” he repeated, the intensity in his eyes glowing into my own.
I found myself nodding in agreement without meaning too, telling him that I’d swing by his place the next afternoon.
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The house that Kris lived in was alarmingly intimidating when you hadn’t been to in over a year. In fact, thinking back, it had probably been two years since I had actually been there.
It wasn’t a mansion by any means, but it was certainly too large for only one person. It had three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, a kitchen the size of Sara and I’s apartment, two living rooms and a basement that Kris had transformed into a home gym. Evan had probably spent more time in that house then he ever did at my apartment, and standing outside of it without him was intense enough that I debated running back to my car before Kris could even know I was there.
I must have stood outside of the door, trying to coax myself into knocking for at least five minutes. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath of air, trying to mentally prepare myself to sit down and talk to Kris. There was a part of me that was terrified, that truly believed that if no one we knew was around, the same angry man he had been at the counselling office would return. I tried to shake the fears out of my head, deciding that it was time to suck it up and knock.
“Katy?”
I cracked an eye open, slightly startled to find Kris standing at the now open door with a confused frown on his face. “Are you okay?”
I let out a nervous laugh. “Uhm, yeah. I just… I needed to-”
“You’re not sure that you should talk to me?” He guessed, nodding with a bit of a sad glow emitting from him when I admitted that he was right in his guess. “I think we just need to talk. That’s all.”
I twisted my mouth to the side, nodding curtly and stepping past him into the house. I heard Kris pull the door shut behind him, watching as he moved past me and into the kitchen, waiting for me to follow.
I stood at the edge of the kitchen, noting the changes in the house since the last time I had been there. The counters in the kitchen had been changed from a white oak into a granite, and there was a new fridge. There were a few pictures on the fridge, mainly of his friends or old Christmas cards he had been sent, but other than that, the house was bare of decorations.
“Did you want a cup of tea, or coffee?” He asked, holding up a coffee pot.
I declined, still standing at the very edge of the kitchen, my arms crossed.
Kris’s shoulder seemed to sag a bit, but he nodded, pouring himself a cup, mixing in his cream and sugar and then leading me into the main living room. I took a seat on the love seat, a giant, dark red couch that I sunk into as I soon as I sat down, my body being absorbed by the comfort of the cushions. I nodded, running a hand down the arm rest beside me. “Nice couch.”
“Thank you. My mom bought it,” he admitted, smiling slightly as he took a seat across from me on the larger couch, lifting his feet up to rest on it.
I glanced beside me, taking in the room, my eyes landing on the picture frame resting on the table next to me. It was of Kris and Evan, the two of them in their Val-d'Or Foreurs jersey’s, grinning into the camera with their goofy, 16 year old smiles, Kris holding his Emile Bouchard trophy proudly.
“It’s my favourite picture,” Kris said, causing me to turn my attention back to him. “I don’t know why, we both have bad hair there,” he joked, his crooked smile taking over his face, “but I love it.”
I glanced back at the picture, smiling at it as well. “You look happy, both of you.” I turned back to look at him once more. “That’s why you love it.”
Kris nodded, looking down at his cup. “The night that of the accident,” he began, his voice so soft I could hardly hear it, “Evan and I had a disagreement. I uhm…” he paused, glancing up at me quickly, but long enough that I caught sight of the tears glistening in his eyes. “I said some things that he didn’t deserve to hear. I told him-” he stopped, clearing his throat and struggling to keep his composure, “I told him that he was a bad friend, and that I was better off without having him as one, and then he left and, few hours later, I get that call and-”
He didn’t finish the sentence, his eyes being covered by his free hand as he his shoulder shook a few times, releasing the emotions that he had been struggling to keep hidden for who knows how long. I wasn’t sure what to do or how to react to this unexpected display of regret coming from Kris, and I watched helplessly as he took a couple of minutes to compose himself before he finally lifted his head back up at me, allowing me to see his now pink eyes and the red colouring in his cheeks. I almost wanted to walk over and hug him, try to heal some of the pain and guilt he had been harbouring for the last 15 months, but something in my mind told me to stay put.
Kris ran a hand through his shaggy hair, having to take in a big, shaky breath. “I tried to blame you, because we started fighting after you called and he wanted to go see you. I almost believed it, too. I mean, after a year of telling myself that it was all your fault, that Evan would have never died if he had left here, it just becomes easy to agree with, you know?” He asked, not actually expecting a reply. “I’ve been so angry, Katy. And I still am, but it’s not at you, It’s at me, and I’m so sorry, because I lost my best friend, but you lost your best friend, and your soul mate, and your joy, and I was just blaming you and I-”
“Kris, stop,” I said, cutting him off, my voice wavering a bit. “I understand. I was angry too, for a long, long time. I still am, I guess. There’s days where I hate everyone around me because they’re not him, and there’s days where I hate myself because I know that if I didn’t call him he wouldn’t have been in the car. I get that you were mad, and I was mad at you, too. But you can’t blame yourself.”
He wiped his nose, flipping his hair out of his face again. “The things I said, Katy,” he stopped, swallowing hard. “The things I said were so terrible.”
“You know that you were his best friend.” I said, trying to calm him.
He shook his head, “No, Katy, he hated me when he left. The things I said to him-”
“Kris, he could have never hated you. You knew him longer than I did, you were his best friend for years. He would never hate you.”
Kris only shook his head. “You don’t understand, Kaitlin. You don’t know what was said.”
I wasn’t beginning to grow frustrated, almost feeling guilty about it since I knew that he wasn’t intentionally bothering me. He was trying to smooth things over, trying to make some sort of peace between us, and I was sitting across from him, pissed off that he truly believed his best friend died hating him. I let out a loud sigh, almost a groan. “Then why don’t you tell me? Tell me what you said that was so horrible that Evan would have died hating you.”
He stared at me for a long time, seeming to debate the idea in his head. He placed his cup down on the table in front of him, resting his elbows on his knees and resting his chin on his hands. “There were a lot of words that I said,” he began, not meeting my eyes. “But the one that made him leave, that made him tell me I wasn’t a part of his life anymore,” he stopped, licking his lips and lifting his head up a bit to look at me, a mix of fear and guilt clouding over his eyes as he looked at me. “I told him that he didn’t deserve you. And I told him that it wouldn’t be long until you realized that for yourself.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t headed back to visit your folks yet, Katy,” Travis said, causing me to look up from my sandwich and blink at him, surprised to suddenly be a part of the conversation.
I could see Kris glance at me from the corner of my eye as he lifted up the last bit of his own sandwich and stuffed it into his mouth. I forced a small smile at Travis, my eyes falling back down to the hardly touched turkey sandwich in front of me. “I just didn’t feel like heading back, is all,” I lied.
Travis nodded, knowing not to push the subject of my parents, and turned back to Kris. “How’s counselling?”
The question peaked my interest more then I wanted to admit, and I found myself turning in my seat to face Kris as he thought up an answer, glancing nervously at me when he realized I was actually listening. He cleared his throat, rubbing a hand over the stubble on his chin as he began. “It’s been good. At first, it was hard. She made me talk about a lot of things that I was not ready to speak on yet, but now I feel much better. I didn’t see how angry I was until just a few sessions ago,” he admitted, glancing quickly at me. “She thinks that I’m blaming myself too much.”
The last comment caught me completely off guard, and it was evident in my face judging by the way Travis sent me a semi-confused glance as soon as I reacted to it. It was a confusing thing to hear Kris say, especially after he had been so adamant in telling me that Evan’s death was my fault.
Kris took a long drink from the bottle of water he had ordered before setting it back onto the table and sending a tentative glance in my direction, inhaling deeply before he asked, “Do you still play piano, Kaitlin?”
Travis turned his attention to me also, seeming interested in the answer. He leaned his elbows against the table and waited for me to reply, exchanging a look with Kris that was so subtle and quick, I almost wondered if I had imagined it.
I scratched the side of my face for a moment before nodding, looking between the two of them before diverting my eyes to the surface of the table. “I actually teach piano now. I don’t play my own songs anymore, though. I guess I’ve just been lacking passion, lately.”
I saw Kris give a small nod from beside me, hearing him sigh to himself. “I’m glad you did not stop,” he said quietly. “Evan wouldn’t have liked that.”
Travis nodded as well, a hint of a grin forming on his face. “He loved listening to you play, Katy. He had a recording of one of your recitals and he’d fall asleep to it when the team was on the road. I don’t know if you knew that.”
I couldn’t find my voice for a second, torn between the outrage at Kris mentioning Evan to me, and the pain of Travis sharing that fact with me. I shook my head, clearing my throat. “I didn’t know that, actually.”
There was a pause, and I could see the two of them exchange another look before Travis reached across the table to place a hand on top of mine, catching me off guard. “Katy, I know you just finished counselling, and I’m glad that went so well for you, but if you want to talk about Evan, even just exchange stories, I’m always here.”
I nodded, unable to voice a response in that moment as my emotions were beginning to take over. Kris had turned himself so he was facing me once more, peeking my interest enough that I turned my face to look at him, aware of the fact that he was searching for something to say to me, or maybe the right way to bring something up. He studied my face for a moment, something I had found him doing a few times throughout the lunch, and finally frowned, pursing his lips together for a brief moment before speaking. “I think we should talk. You can hate me afterwards, or still hate me, but we should talk.”
I felt my eyebrows twitch a bit, looking over at Travis who was busy checking his phone before looking back up at Kris. “I don’t know if-”
“Please, Katy,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that happened that night that you are not aware of.”
The comment scared me, my mind immediately racing to conclusion on what Evan could have been doing that night that I was not informed of. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know, or if I should know. I wasn’t sure that I trusted Kris again, which was another problem.
“Please, Katy,” he repeated, the intensity in his eyes glowing into my own.
I found myself nodding in agreement without meaning too, telling him that I’d swing by his place the next afternoon.
---------------------------
The house that Kris lived in was alarmingly intimidating when you hadn’t been to in over a year. In fact, thinking back, it had probably been two years since I had actually been there.
It wasn’t a mansion by any means, but it was certainly too large for only one person. It had three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, a kitchen the size of Sara and I’s apartment, two living rooms and a basement that Kris had transformed into a home gym. Evan had probably spent more time in that house then he ever did at my apartment, and standing outside of it without him was intense enough that I debated running back to my car before Kris could even know I was there.
I must have stood outside of the door, trying to coax myself into knocking for at least five minutes. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath of air, trying to mentally prepare myself to sit down and talk to Kris. There was a part of me that was terrified, that truly believed that if no one we knew was around, the same angry man he had been at the counselling office would return. I tried to shake the fears out of my head, deciding that it was time to suck it up and knock.
“Katy?”
I cracked an eye open, slightly startled to find Kris standing at the now open door with a confused frown on his face. “Are you okay?”
I let out a nervous laugh. “Uhm, yeah. I just… I needed to-”
“You’re not sure that you should talk to me?” He guessed, nodding with a bit of a sad glow emitting from him when I admitted that he was right in his guess. “I think we just need to talk. That’s all.”
I twisted my mouth to the side, nodding curtly and stepping past him into the house. I heard Kris pull the door shut behind him, watching as he moved past me and into the kitchen, waiting for me to follow.
I stood at the edge of the kitchen, noting the changes in the house since the last time I had been there. The counters in the kitchen had been changed from a white oak into a granite, and there was a new fridge. There were a few pictures on the fridge, mainly of his friends or old Christmas cards he had been sent, but other than that, the house was bare of decorations.
“Did you want a cup of tea, or coffee?” He asked, holding up a coffee pot.
I declined, still standing at the very edge of the kitchen, my arms crossed.
Kris’s shoulder seemed to sag a bit, but he nodded, pouring himself a cup, mixing in his cream and sugar and then leading me into the main living room. I took a seat on the love seat, a giant, dark red couch that I sunk into as I soon as I sat down, my body being absorbed by the comfort of the cushions. I nodded, running a hand down the arm rest beside me. “Nice couch.”
“Thank you. My mom bought it,” he admitted, smiling slightly as he took a seat across from me on the larger couch, lifting his feet up to rest on it.
I glanced beside me, taking in the room, my eyes landing on the picture frame resting on the table next to me. It was of Kris and Evan, the two of them in their Val-d'Or Foreurs jersey’s, grinning into the camera with their goofy, 16 year old smiles, Kris holding his Emile Bouchard trophy proudly.
“It’s my favourite picture,” Kris said, causing me to turn my attention back to him. “I don’t know why, we both have bad hair there,” he joked, his crooked smile taking over his face, “but I love it.”
I glanced back at the picture, smiling at it as well. “You look happy, both of you.” I turned back to look at him once more. “That’s why you love it.”
Kris nodded, looking down at his cup. “The night that of the accident,” he began, his voice so soft I could hardly hear it, “Evan and I had a disagreement. I uhm…” he paused, glancing up at me quickly, but long enough that I caught sight of the tears glistening in his eyes. “I said some things that he didn’t deserve to hear. I told him-” he stopped, clearing his throat and struggling to keep his composure, “I told him that he was a bad friend, and that I was better off without having him as one, and then he left and, few hours later, I get that call and-”
He didn’t finish the sentence, his eyes being covered by his free hand as he his shoulder shook a few times, releasing the emotions that he had been struggling to keep hidden for who knows how long. I wasn’t sure what to do or how to react to this unexpected display of regret coming from Kris, and I watched helplessly as he took a couple of minutes to compose himself before he finally lifted his head back up at me, allowing me to see his now pink eyes and the red colouring in his cheeks. I almost wanted to walk over and hug him, try to heal some of the pain and guilt he had been harbouring for the last 15 months, but something in my mind told me to stay put.
Kris ran a hand through his shaggy hair, having to take in a big, shaky breath. “I tried to blame you, because we started fighting after you called and he wanted to go see you. I almost believed it, too. I mean, after a year of telling myself that it was all your fault, that Evan would have never died if he had left here, it just becomes easy to agree with, you know?” He asked, not actually expecting a reply. “I’ve been so angry, Katy. And I still am, but it’s not at you, It’s at me, and I’m so sorry, because I lost my best friend, but you lost your best friend, and your soul mate, and your joy, and I was just blaming you and I-”
“Kris, stop,” I said, cutting him off, my voice wavering a bit. “I understand. I was angry too, for a long, long time. I still am, I guess. There’s days where I hate everyone around me because they’re not him, and there’s days where I hate myself because I know that if I didn’t call him he wouldn’t have been in the car. I get that you were mad, and I was mad at you, too. But you can’t blame yourself.”
He wiped his nose, flipping his hair out of his face again. “The things I said, Katy,” he stopped, swallowing hard. “The things I said were so terrible.”
“You know that you were his best friend.” I said, trying to calm him.
He shook his head, “No, Katy, he hated me when he left. The things I said to him-”
“Kris, he could have never hated you. You knew him longer than I did, you were his best friend for years. He would never hate you.”
Kris only shook his head. “You don’t understand, Kaitlin. You don’t know what was said.”
I wasn’t beginning to grow frustrated, almost feeling guilty about it since I knew that he wasn’t intentionally bothering me. He was trying to smooth things over, trying to make some sort of peace between us, and I was sitting across from him, pissed off that he truly believed his best friend died hating him. I let out a loud sigh, almost a groan. “Then why don’t you tell me? Tell me what you said that was so horrible that Evan would have died hating you.”
He stared at me for a long time, seeming to debate the idea in his head. He placed his cup down on the table in front of him, resting his elbows on his knees and resting his chin on his hands. “There were a lot of words that I said,” he began, not meeting my eyes. “But the one that made him leave, that made him tell me I wasn’t a part of his life anymore,” he stopped, licking his lips and lifting his head up a bit to look at me, a mix of fear and guilt clouding over his eyes as he looked at me. “I told him that he didn’t deserve you. And I told him that it wouldn’t be long until you realized that for yourself.”
I Love this story!
4/7/14