Her First Mistake by Carey Baldwin (books for 10th graders txt) 📕

she’d expressly instructed her to throw away? Mia had hung on to the pills as a fail-safe, but since when did the risk of a potentially sleepless night outweigh the danger of wandering around like a zombie, maybe even driving? There was no point in bringing up the sleepwalking now that she knew all she needed to do was throw away those pills.

No.

She would use her time to talk about the keys instead. That was a mess she did need to sort out.

Dr. Baquero studied her—eyes crackling-smart and, as always, charged with empathy.

“I did something I’m ashamed of.”

“Mm hm.”

No alarm in her voice at all. If only Mia could be so cool. “Something pretty rotten.”

“I see.”

Last week, she’d been so proud, albeit a bit anxious, when Dr. Baquero released her from therapy, and now, just days later, here she was asking for help. She wanted to go back to being a success story, but since she couldn’t, she might as well get on with it. “I played a trick, sort of, on someone I wish I could be friends with. I guess you could say I self-sabotaged again. And the worst part is that what I did was unkind.”

Dr. Baquero didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink. “We’ve talked about this. You’re not going to be perfect. No one is. If you slip up and do something self-destructive that’s not the end of the world. You can review the situation and take the steps needed to prevent a recurrence. But I must say, as often as you put your foot in it in social settings, it’s not like you to be unkind.” She tapped her pen against her teeth. “Suppose you tell me exactly what happened.”

So she did. And twenty minutes into the story it occurred to her that Dr. Baquero had a point. What she’d done wasn’t nice, but it wasn’t terrible either. After all, Mia had quickly realized her actions had been wrong, and that they’d taken her further away from her goal of making friends with the other women at the preschool.

“So what were your thoughts when you slipped your friend’s keys into your own purse?” Dr. Baquero asked.

“I wasn’t thinking at all. It was pure impulse.”

“That’s a cop out. Impulse implies you weren’t in charge of your behavior, and we know that’s not true. So what about before? What were you thinking and feeling a few minutes earlier?”

Mia knew where this was going. Dr. Baquero wanted her to identify her triggers so she could head things off before they went south. Use her deep breathing to offset anxiety, replace irrational thoughts with realistic ones. But that was the tricky part—thinking and behaving rationally. “I guess I felt bad.”

This drew a half-smile from Dr. Baquero. “Care to elaborate? You can do better.”

“Bad. Weird. Anxious. Not good enough. Worthless—I should have stopped that chain of thinking when I came to worthless. I’m not worthless just because someone left me out.” Looking up, she was relieved to find Dr. Baquero nodding approval. “And I wished I had Celeste’s life. That I could be like her. You could say I’m jealous, but I guess another way to look at things is that I admire her.”

“See what you did there?”

“I reframed jealousy into admiration—a negative into a positive.”

“Fantastic! Now let’s keep moving that direction. In what ways do you admire Celeste?”

“She’s glamorous and fun. People love to be around her. She says what’s on her mind. Never takes any guff. Not from the preschool director, not from the other teachers, not from anyone. Celeste Cooper is fearless and fabulous.” So fearless and fabulous that Mia had been studying her from afar, trying to emulate her style.

“I understand why you’d want to be like her. But maybe her life isn’t the perfect one you imagine.”

Celeste’s perfect world was hardly a figment of Mia’s imagination. It was right there in the society pages for everyone to see. A quasi-celebrity father, a mother celebrated for her charitable work with at-risk youth. And even if Mia hadn’t read a word of such things in the papers, she’d still recognize the difference between her world and Celeste’s by the telltale, life-is-good smile Celeste always flashed.

“You never know until you walk a mile in someone’s shoes what struggles she may face. For example, I’m sure she doesn’t have any idea what you’ve been through.” Dr. Baquero came out from behind her desk, and then she sat next to Mia on the couch. Something she’d never done before. “Think back to when I first met you. You spoke so quietly I had to threaten to get you a microphone so I could hear you. You were having nightmares several times a week—and then there was the sleepwalking.”

“I’d still be having those nightmares if you hadn’t changed my meds.”

Dr. Baquero nodded. “Yes, but you’ve been off all medication for years. And still, you speak up, and you’re no longer afraid to look me in the eye. No more sleepwalking.”

Mia cast her gaze to her lap. She couldn’t bring herself to interrupt this litany of praise with the truth. Last night had been an aberration. And the minute she got home, she’d flush the rest of the pills.

“You’ve got a license, you drive your own car, and soon enough you’ll be in your own apartment.”

“I know, but—”

“No buts, remember? Give yourself the credit you deserve. A year ago, you’d have been too ill at ease to accept a dinner invitation from a casual acquaintance. But last night you found the courage to show up. Then, when you ran into the other teachers, out-on-the-town without you, instead of pretending not to see them, you stood your ground and engaged them in conversation. I agree that what you did later—keeping those keys—was wrong. But it was also human. The way I see it, this is a good opportunity for you to pick yourself up and figure things out. So tell me, how do you plan to handle this setback?”

Mia raised her chin. Snatching up