Page 60 of Drop Three

She also favors Frosted Flakes, tiger cereal, over anything else—another thing I’ll make sure to never run out of.

We’ve gotten into a bit of a routine on nights when the guys go out and Navy and I hang out at the house.

I don’t know if I’d call sitting in silencehanging out,but it works for us.

Those nights we indulge in cereal for dinner. The simplest meal known to man, but hits good every fucking time.

Navy sketches in her spiral, and I read.

I collect my thoughts and gaze at Dr. Banks as she changes the subject.

“Are you seeing anyone, Bodhi?”

Hilarious.“No, I’m not.”

“And why is that?” she asks.

“Because I’m too fucked up in the head.”

Dr. Banks studies me carefully, and once again, I feel like she sees more in me than I ever will myself. “I wonder what would happen if you stopped considering yourself as the problem and more as a survivor?”

My thoughts charge into reverse. I’ve never thought of it like that. I think I’ve always known I was the problem. I caused the accident, I served the time, my mom left me, I wasn’t worth staying for, etc.

Did I survive the accident? Yes. But at what cost? Gwendolyn suffered, and I walked away scot-free.

“I’d hardly consider myself a survivor.”

“How so?”

“Because I left without so much as a scratch on my body,” I tell her.

I follow her pen that taps rhythmically on the notepad in her lap. “Now, I don’t think that’s true, do you?” Dr. Banks asks me.

“I know it is. I lived it.”

I remember every first and final detail leading up to the worst day of my life.

Gwendolyn and I were drunk out of our minds, but we didn’t care. We got into the brand-new BMW I bought with some of my sign-on bonus and drove without another thought. As soon as we hit the main road, a semitruck came out of nowhere fast—at least it felt like that at the time—causing me to swerve and sending us straight into a telephone pole on the side of the road.

I vividly remember the sight of Gwendolyn’s body launching from her seat and sending her back. The seat belt saved her. At least we had the brains to consider that form of safety, I guess.

From that point on, everything went black. Last I remember is waking up in the hospital, doped up on pain meds and my sister sobbing beside me.

That and the PR nightmare that followed.

So yeah, I’d hardly consider myself asurvivor. I made a shitty choice and will eternally be haunted by the repercussions of it.

“What I mean is…you didn’t leave unscathed.”

My car was damaged—nothing more. While Gwendolyn was escorted out on a stretcher. Big fucking difference.

“What makes you say that?” I question her.

Dr. Banks leans forward, giving me her undivided attention with her hands clasped against her legs. “You served a prison sentence, Bodhi. You may not have had any physical injuries, but I’d hardly say you went unscathed. If anything, I feel you suffered the worst.”

Well, shit.Her declaration feels heavy and almost cruel to admit.It still won’t diminish my guilt over what happened with Gwendolyn; I know I served my time. If I had a better idea of what happened to her exactly, I’d be able to relate the two.

Prison was a sentence I felt I deserved at the time.

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