"There's no right way to feel, Seren. I want you to know that." Lucy peered over the edges of her small framed reading glasses, a small sympathetic smile on her lips.

I remember my first day in this office, my first therapy session. My therapist insisted I call her Lucy, which I rolled my eyes about at the time. Maybe at the forced informality, but also because she's at least 60, a head full of grey hair and her wardrobe mainly consists of brightly coloured ponchos. She did not look like a Lucy, to me at least. I hadn't trusted her. What would she know? What could she possibly know about me? What could she possibly understand about me? Those were the thoughts running through my head, as I stared at the purple butterflies on her shirt.

It turns out, Lucy did understand me. I don't know how, but she did. Sometimes she was able to know what I was thinking before I was thinking it. She could produce valid reasoning for my chaotic actions. She could pull poetry from my confused and unintelligible thoughts.

I didn't answer her, my fingers drumming on the arm of the black chaise I was perched on. I just stared back at Lucy. She wasn't phased. She knew the drill.

"It's okay to feel happy about his death. It's also okay to feel sad." Lucy said gently, her pen was bouncing between her fingers, hovering just over the pad of paper she had in her lap.

"I don't know how I feel." I said finally, looking down at my hands.

"And that's okay, Seren. It's normal, actually. Understandable. Can we walk through your thought process?" Lucy asked me as she leaned forwards towards me.

I groaned. I hated walking through my thought process, as she put it. It was exhausting.

"It will help. You know it will." Lucy reminded me.

Reluctantly, I nodded.

"So, let's go back to the night you found out. What was your initial reaction?" She asked me.

I blinked rapidly as I remembered the moment she had asked me about. "I laughed."

I did, and I felt guilty about it.

"Okay. You laughed. Why did you laugh? Did you think it was funny, or were you happy?" Lucy started writing in her notepad. "And remember, Seren, there are no wrong answers. Your feelings are completely valid, no matter what they are."

"I laughed because it felt like a joke." I said bluntly.

"A joke?" She tilted her head as she asked.

"Yes."

Lucy wrote something down again. "Why did it feel like a joke, Seren."

I sighed. "I don't know. I guess because the detective had just told me that he got away with it, and then in the next breath told me that he died. It's a joke, really."

"Sure." Lucy was looking at me the way she usually does when I say something that she doesn't quite understand yet. "And let's move on to your next reaction. Do you remember what that was?"

I felt my bottom lip jut out as I remembered. "I cried."

"Okay. And why did you cry?" Lucy asked.

I let out a deep breath, trying to verbalize my feelings. "I was sad."

"Why?"

"He used to be my friend." I said quietly.

Lucy nodded. "And do you think that you were sad and crying because you were upset that you had lost the person you used to know as your friend?"

"I think I had lost that person a long time ago." I told her.

"I think you're right. Did you ever give yourself time to feel that, though?" Lucy asked me.

"I guess not."

"Something to think about." Lucy bobbed her head, writing again. "Now, let's jump forward to the next day, after you found out. What were you feeling?"

"Nothing." I mumbled.

"Nothing?" Lucy raised her eyebrows. "Okay. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that it could have been me." I told her.

"It could have been you, what do you mean by that?" She asked.

"It could have been me that was in a car crash. It could have been me that died instead of him. There's no reason it wasn't, except for luck I guess." I fidgeted with my hands.

"You say that as if you were in the car with him." Lucy said as she peered at me.

"Not like that. I mean... I don't know. I wonder if Jax had known that his time was about to end, would he have still did what he did?" I wasn't making sense again.

"I don't think anyone will ever know the answer to that, Seren. But, I think the more important question is why does that matter to you?" Lucy gave me time to answer, but I didn't know the answer. "Are you unhappy with the way your life would end if it did, let's say, tomorrow?"

"Obviously." I wanted to roll my eyes at her.

"Yet you had tried to end your own life in the midst of it all." Lucy didn't phrase her sentence as a question this time.

"It's different." I told her.

"Why?" She asked me. "Why is it different?"

"Because."

"That's not an answer, Seren."

I sighed again. I spent the majority of my time in this office sighing, I think.

"I couldn't breathe then. Jax was suffocating me. Everything was suffocating me. I wasn't thinking about my story, I was only thinking about not being able to breathe." I told her after a moment.

"And now? Can you breathe again?" Lucy questioned.

"Yeah. I think so."

Lucy smiled at me, writing something down again. "I'm glad to hear that, Seren. I really am. So, it sounds to me like you are questioning how you want your life to continue. You're considering the choices that you make now, so you can be satisfied with your life."

"I guess so."

"I think it's a beautiful thing, if you contrast it from where you've been." Lucy told me.

I titled my head as I absorbed her words. I guess she was right.

"So, what would make you satisfied with your life?" Lucy continued.

"I don't know. I just want to be happy, for once." I chewed on my bottom lip after I spoke the words. It sounded like a tall order.

"So then, you need to find what makes you happy." Lucy mused.

"That's the problem." I breathed out. Wasn't that always the problem?

"Why?"

"I don't remember what makes me happy. I used to think it was drugs... alcohol... but, I don't think those really made me happy. I think they made me forget my own pain enough that I just wasn't actively hurting anymore."

Lucy smiled at me as I spoke. "You've come a long way, Seren. You really have."

I smiled back at her, feeling a swelling of emotions in my chest. I guess I have. And it did it by myself. Well, with a little help.

"So, let's try to remember the last time you felt happy. Close your eyes." Lucy continued.

I did as she said. I remembered the first time she tried this exercise with me. I felt so silly, sitting here with my eyes closed. I hadn't seen the point. I had no problems complying with Lucy's request now. I trusted her.

"I want you to focus on your chest, and the feeling that you get when you smile. Maybe it's a little flutter, maybe it's a feeling of floating, maybe it's a little tickle in your heart. When you remember that feeling, I want you to concentrate on it. Really feel it. Take your time. Take some deep breaths. Now, when you have that feeling, I want you to let your mind create a picture of the first thing it wants to. What does that feeling correlate with, in your mind? What does your mind relate to that feeling of happiness?"

I followed her directions. I felt the feeling in my chest that she was talking about. I remember feeling it so vividly. So clearly. I barely needed to listen to the rest of her words, because my mind had already painted a picture in my mind. The sun, the water, the smell, the feeling erupted over my skin like I was being kissed by butterflies.

"When you're ready, Seren, you can open your eyes."

I didn't want to. I wanted to stay in this memory. It was my favourite.

But eventually, I allowed my eyes to flutter open.

Lucy was watching me, she had that smile on her face again. It was a motherly smile, I had come to realize. The one that a mom wears when watching her daughter in their first dance recital. She was proud of me.

"Did you find some happiness?" She asked me.

"Yes." I didn't fight that smile that came to my face.

"Well, I'm glad. So..." Lucy moved the pad of paper from her lap, crossing one of her legs over the other and clapping her hands together in her lap. "Your homework is to find some more. Happiness."

"Okay." I nodded.

"Remember, Seren. Happiness doesn't just happen to people. Happiness results from a series of choices. Happiness is available for everyone, but you have to choose it."

The sun was shining as I walked out of Lucy's office. It was on a fairly busy street downtown. A flurry of people were on the streets, each of them walking with their own purpose as they moved across the concrete. I spun around, searching for a place to sit. I walked over to the unoccupied bench when I saw it. I sat down, raising my head to the sky, watching the sun peak behind the clouds.

Lucy was right. I did have to choose happiness.

I pulled my phone out, the new one that my dad had given me after I destroyed my old one. He had Austin put my contacts in it. I was thankful that he did. I pressed down on the number, holding the phone up to my ear.

"Zane?"