"Why don't we start with that night? Are you comfortable talking about it?" the doctor, Alan, asks Molly while balancing a pad of paper on his knee. "It's important that I know everything when I make my assessment."

"You already know everything," Molly whispers. "Everyone knows what happened to me."

"Hearing your account is crucial to-"

"My parents were murdered!" Molly yells. "Is that the answer you're looking for? My mother, father and sister were killed in our own home. Do I need to go into detail about how I felt about that?"

Molly's outburst doesn't phase the doctor. He's trained for them. She's angry and he'll feed off of that like every other therapist she's seen.

"I'm not interested in how you felt," he says candidly. "I'm interested in how you feel."

"It still hurts. Shocking isn't it?" she hisses.

"Is that why you were on the bridge last night?"

"I didn't jump."

"I didn't ask if you jumped."

Molly grins and folds her arms. She turns and looks at the window to calm herself, knowing getting worked up won't help her situation. It's true that relaying memories of that night hurts her but she's hurting anyway. It makes no difference.

"I lost my family," Molly says. "I lost my life. I go through dark times but last night wasn't one of them. Last night I felt peace on that bridge. For a minute, just a minute, it didn't hurt anymore."

"Is that because you were going to end your life?"

"No," she says. "It's because I was finally ready to let them go. I was on that bridge because I was trying to find a way to say goodbye. I slipped and I fell."

"There was a witness that reported something different," he says. "One of you is lying."

Molly clenches her teeth. "He is."

Alan smiles for a moment. "If your version is true then he saved your life last night and you don't seem that grateful."

"Not much of a life to save," she mutters. "There isn't much of one for you to save either."

"I don't believe that."

Molly laughs. "Of course you don't, you're a doctor. You look for life in people, you don't really see the other side do you?"

"You want me to look at you and see death?"

Molly nods. It's the truth. Even she isn't a good enough liar to disguise it. Death follows her, it's all around her. It is her past, it is her future and it doesn't relent. This is one topic that Helen could never break through. Molly doesn't have an explanation for it, she doesn't understand it herself. All she knows is that death is inside of her, it is in her memories and it is turning her heart cold.

"I won't do that," he says. "Even in adults, survivor's guilt is a major factor in-"

Molly rolls her eyes. "I've been in therapy for four years," she says. "Whatever you're about to say, I've heard it. I've heard it all. Save your breath."

"Survivor's guilt is a major factor in death envy," he finishes.

Molly looks at him and she almost smiles. "Well, I've never heard that," she mutters.

"Some that experience survivor's guilt become isolated and torture themselves with guilt over and over. Whereas others in rare cases envy those that have died because they have been left behind. And with that envy they wish to put things right and join them."

"I don't have survivor's guilt," Molly says confidently. "I have grief. Do you know what that's like? Grief?"

Alan nods. "I do. I lost my parents too just like you. I know first hand what it feels like."

"Oh really? Were they murdered by a family annihilator too? Did you have to spend years being moved around by the FBI in protective custody too?"

"Grief is grief," he says. "No matter the how. Maybe we don't ever heal from it but that pain is there to make us remember how much they meant to us. It either takes away who we were or it makes us who we are. Either way we become someone else."

Molly glances away. If he's right then she knows which she is. Grief didn't just take away who she was, it destroyed everything she was meant to be. Maybe it shaped him to be the doctor he is today, to save lives and stop depressed teenagers from hurting themselves. Maybe that's his reward for not letting his grief suck away every inch of life inside of him. Maybe through his own life experiences he believes no one can ever truly be lost but he is stronger than her. They are all stronger than her.

There is a still a dormant part of Molly that wishes for the future she was once desired. That isn't gone completely it's just quiet. Once that part is gone she will be able to fully erase the suppressed belief that someone somehow can take her pain away and give her her life back. As long as that part exists Molly can still be susceptible to believing everything the doctors say. But no one has ever come close to taking her pain away.

"It isn't just grief," Molly says. "It's fear."

"I can help you with that fear. I just need you to be honest with me."

"I am being honest."

"About last night," he says.

Molly bites on her lip. What is happening to her? Suddenly, she's debating whether or not confess her actions of last night. Suddenly, she wants his help. What if he can help her with her fear? What if he can help her heal? Every other has tried, and failed, but this doctor is different. What if there is another way to find freedom without dying? She's never considered it. The idea is unimaginable to her. Living? A future? Happiness without her family?

"Molly," Alan says. "I need you to trust me. You said you've spent four years in therapy and no amount of counselling can help you but I'm not like every other therapist. Those people, they're all about feelings and mental stimulation. I believe in a different kind of therapy, physical therapy. I believe in showing my patients the world that they're afraid to live in and helping them accept that it's their only world. If you put your trust in me then I promise you that I can help you do what no other doctor has been able to do. I can help you. Will you let me?"

Molly isn't sure if it's a trick or not. He could be lying and the moment she confesses her suicidal feelings she could be locked away for weeks. How can he do what no other has been able to do? Therapists talk. That's what they do, they like doing it. They like to tell you how you're feeling after you've already given them an answer. Therapy doesn't help people like her. It never will. Still she wonders, what if it could?

She thinks of Charlie accidentally. He yelled at her but for good reason. She liked feeling that way, she liked feeling angry and broken. Charlie opened her up to explore emotions that she was too numb to feel again. She remembers the way he held her, she remembers falling asleep in his arms and the cold shiver that overcame her when she awoke to find him gone. It was like the moment he saved her from that bridge all of her emotions woke up inside of her. The anger, the pain, the sadness, the frustration. But, also, the need to be comforted. The need to just lay next to someone and somehow know that she was safe. It was the strangest sensation, one she is clinging to as she nods at the doctor.

"Good," he says. "Now I'm going to ask you a question and I just want you to be honest with me. Did you try and kill yourself last night?"

Molly takes a deep breath and nods.

"That's alright," he says. "Don't feel ashamed of that. That is who you are right now. That is what your brain has been programmed to tell you is the right thing to do. You are in control of that."

Molly narrows her eyes. A therapist would never say that, a normal one wouldn't anyway. Alan doesn't look at her in a sad or sympathetic way, he keeps the same still composure and that startles her.

"I'm in control of my death?" she says.

"Yes," he replies. "You could kill yourself in this very room if you tried hard enough. You were inches away from an officer's gun which you could have attempted to extract at any moment and end your life. But you choose to wait. You choose the bridge. Why?"

"It's a certain death," she mumbles. "I didn't want to end up in hospital."

"That's your control. You know the where and you know the how. You lost that control when someone stopped you. It angers you doesn't it? That others can't accept your choice because it's your life? They have no right to intervene. Why shouldn't we be able to control the way we die?"

Molly smiles, just for a moment. "Am I supposed to believe that you agree with me?"

"I do agree with you," he says. "Why live? It's exhausting, painful, not to mention long. We work ourselves into oblivion just to be able to survive the next month, we hardly have time to make ourselves dinner let alone see our family and friends. Every time we walk out of the door we know exactly how our day is going to go. And who can even afford vacations anymore right? We're stuck in the same town, same house, with the same draining and boring neighbors. We become dull and miserable. Where is the living in that? What's the point?"

"I guess the point is love," Molly whispers. "For family, friends, even pets. And if things are miserable then they put up with it because they hope it will someday change."

"Right." Alan's lips curl into a smile that Molly hasn't yet seen him wear. "Because if things were really that bad then everyone would be turning to suicide. It's in our DNA to survive, Molly. Dating back thousands of years. We are a complex species capable of monstrous and unforgivable things but life is about more than just wishing those monsters didn't exist. Whether we like it or not we have to co-exist with those monsters to remind us that there's something better out there."

"How do you co-exist with a monster that took everything from you?" she asks frailly.

The doctor smiles again, his eyes wide and serious. "By forgiving yourself for being left behind."

Molly doesn't know if she can. She doesn't care about life or death, she just wants to be with her family. She just wants to see them again. She can't remember the last time she saw them. She was young and she wishes the last time she looked at them she'd have just looked a little longer, memorized a little better. She loved them so much, they were everything to her. What else could ever come close? What could the world offer that is more powerful than that?

"It sounds scary but it's not," Alan says. "If you're ready to try then I've got a gift for you."

"Okay," she says. "What gift?"

"Well, it's not a gift, more of a friend." The doctor walks over to the door and leaves the room for a few seconds. When he returns, Molly jumps up out of her seat. "This is Shiloh, he's a qualified therapy dog and a very good friend of mine."

Molly falls to her knees as a golden retriever with a blue harness around him runs to greet her. She pets the dog as it sits in front of her and licks her face.

"He's beautiful," she says.

"I only let him stay with the sane so I'm trusting you." He grins as he points a finger at her.

"He can stay with me?"

"Do you want him to stay with you?"

Molly nods.

"Then he's staying. I'll go fetch his stuff and we can even take him a walk around the grounds if you like."

"Okay," Molly says.

Alan leaves the room and Molly strokes the calm dog slowly. She knows what the doctor is doing, she isn't a fool. This is just phase one of physical therapy but she can't deny that a part of her is warming up to it.

"Hi, boy," she whispers. "Are you lonely too?"

The dog places his head onto her shoulder and he allows her to hug him. She feels the fur underneath her fingertips, the warmth of the most caring and loyal creature in the world. She's been around many dogs while in foster homes and they became her source of comfort when humans couldn't. She told them all her problems, she cried with a few of them and it broke her heart when she had to say goodbye over and over again.

She understands the process. Dogs are supposed to be masters at making sad people feel better. She does feel better, she feels happier, just a little. But it won't be long before the world once again comes crashing down on her.