Worthy

I’m 14, and already I’m way past letting anyone see through or inside me. I feared deep down that even if I were to allow anyone in, there’d be nothing to see at all. The raging emotions that had once lived inside long since fragmented, then disappeared, leaving a gaping endless hole where only numbness survives.

And so it is, the burden I carry each day. Not of blame, or of fear, but of a vicious cycle of confusion and deep, unending self-hate — Who am I? What am I truly worth? It’s no wonder, then, that I’m struggling so.

I move stiffly to the end of the hall, where my father sits, waiting. He looks up from his sefer and smiles at undeserving me. “Hang on,” he says, “I need to take care of something small, then we’ll go.”

I nod, the heaviness of having spent the past hour in session starting to settle on me like a fog. He goes down the hall, enters the therapist’s room.