"What?" I asked, sure I had misheard.
"Don't sound so surprised," he laughed on the other end of the line. "And don't even attempt to act disappointed. You've been waiting for this moment since you first got saddled with me."
He wasn't wrong, but to my own shock I felt just that. Disappointment, mixed with a dash of fear, worry, and anxiety. I had come to rely on this time, once a week, when I could say anything I felt without feeling judged. I could spew the most hateful or self-depreciating things imaginable, and all he did was make me dig deeper.
When I had started my therapy sessions, I couldn't wait to get out of them. But when he said it was time for them to end, I felt an immense sense of panic at just the idea. "Are you sure?" I asked, thinking it might be a test, another part of his process of gauging my progress.
I thought I heard a reluctant sigh. "I am positive, Katniss, and I think you are too. I know you don't see it, and it's hard for you to even imagine it, but you're doing so much better than when we first started. You've allowed yourself to work on your interpersonal relationships. You even went and saw Gale-"
"Which went terribly," I reminded him.
"Exactly!" came the opposite response of what I was expecting. "It was terrible, and it only made you feel even worse and more confused. But you pulled yourself up out of that misery, and you've gone on living. That alone is a huge improvement over where we started."
"But I only did that because Peeta made me," I protested again.
"We both know that Peeta has never made you do anything in your life. No one can make you do anything you don't agree to, Katniss." I wanted to argue a thousand times over, but it was useless. "You opened yourself up to a relationship with Peeta, and it has helped you grow a little stronger each day."
"I still don't even know what kind of relationship we have!" I felt like screaming and crying at the same time. It was the most common feeling during my sessions with the doctor, and he knew it too. I think my open hostility at times was the major reason he never came to District Twelve to have our sessions face to face. It was safer for everyone involved to have a telephone and a good distance between us.
"You don't need me to figure that out, Katniss. You just need time. All you have to do is open yourself up to the possibilities for you in life. And that's something I cannot help you with. We've set the groundwork, but you have to take the walk the rest of the way yourself."
Grating my teeth, I held back my opinion on his stupid metaphor. "What about the journal?" I asked instead.
"What about it?" he countered.
Clinching my fists in annoyance, I counted down a few numbers in my head before I exploded on him. "What the hell am I supposed to do with it?" I asked, my jaw clenched tight.
"Whatever you want," came his reply, which was the most useless thing he'd said yet.
"Do I keep writing in it?"
"If you wish to. But you don't have to."
"How much is the Capitol paying you for this worldly advice, again?" I asked.
"Katniss," he laughed, immune to my irritation. "If you think it helps sort out the jumble of thoughts in your head then by all means, continue writing in it. But if you feel like it helps stick you to the past, and pulls you out of the present, then maybe stop. Toss it in the fire. Store it away in your closet for a rainy day. The possibilities are endless. That's my point."
I had given up on him having any point at all in this session, which was apparently our final one. "Wish you had started with your point. Could have saved us six months of this torture."
"There you go. No disappointment at all."
I sucked in a deep breath, impressed and a little unnerved that my head shrink was just as sarcastic as I was. "So this is really it?" I asked, still unsure.
"This is really it," he confirmed. "But that doesn't mean you get to stop working. A little each day, just like we've been doing." Leave it to him to still assign homework even after school ended. "Don't be afraid to reflect back on your past, but don't go there. Don't get stuck in the past, Ms. Everdeen. Your future is in front of you, and it's a bright one, if only you'll let it be."
"Fine." I said nonchalantly. I felt like I was letting him off the hook a little too easily, but didn't know what else there was to say. After nine months, or however long it had been, I had finally run out of things to say to him.
He seemed to sense it. "Good luck, Katniss."
"Are you sure you're sure?" I asked once more.
"Sure as the summer sun," he said, as if that was supposed to mean anything at all.
But I guess it had to do, because after that he promptly hung up. And just like that, my therapy ended. As did this mandated journal I've been keeping under his orders. So I guess the only question is, what comes next?