Infinite ✓

[10] - Believe

[10] – Believe

Rory stared at the cosy semi-detached two storey house in front of him like it was hell itself.

He’d just come back from lunch with Jeremy and he’d thought being with his boyfriend would eliminate his nervousness for this inevitable meeting but it hadn’t worked. He’d been dilly-dallying for the past two weeks since he’d contacted the therapist, before finally putting his foot down and telling himself that he needed to stop putting this off. He bit his lip and opened the small gate that led to the house, walking up the curvy stone path that led to the door. Beside the polished wooden door was the word “STONE” engraved into a golden plate in capital letters while the house’s number stood underneath it. The little garden in front of the house surrounding the stony path was well attended to, with gnomes all over the grass and flowers.

The gnomes only increased Rory’s sense of foreboding. He never liked gnomes – they were so darn creepy.

He inhaled deeply before reaching up to ring the doorbell. His heart flew into his throat and his stomach started summersaulting. Oh gosh, he was really doing this. He was doing this. Oh my god, he was doing this!

He was about to change his mind and run the hell away when the door came open. He immediately assumed that the person opening the door was his therapist’s brother or son and smiled tentatively.

“Uhm, hi,” he began nervously, his voice coming out as a high squeak and he had to cough to clear his throat, his cheeks burning, “I…I have an appointment with Frederick Stone?”

“That would be me,” the man replied, holding a hand out, “pleasure to meet you Rory Lewis. Please, do come in.”

Rory blinked in surprise, shaking his hand before quickly following the small man inside his house, closing the door behind him. He was shocked because Frederick looked nothing like he sounded in his emails. Rory had been expecting an older man with greying hair and a stern face but the man in front of him couldn’t be older than thirty with shocking dark hair and intense green eyes. He had a very petite frame and Rory was sure he wasn’t more than five feet tall which was quite short compared to Rory’s five foot eleven inches.

They got into the sitting room and Frederick walked through an inner door to his kitchen, calling out, “I know, a lot of people can’t get over the fact that I’m small and under thirty. Some people even go as far as to mention that I’m couldn’t be qualified for the job. It does come as quite a shock, so I forgive them,” Rory heard him laugh softly before asking loudly, “would you like a cuppa?”

“Yes, please, thank you,” Rory replied, biting his lower lip before sitting himself down on the black leather couch, blushing guiltily that Frederick had known exactly what he was thinking.

His spine was stiff and his throat was clogged and he felt exactly like he did when he was still a teenager and was called to the Principal’s office and just like then, it wasn’t anything he did, just some trivial issue concerning his classmates but now, Rory felt like he was going to throw up.

Frederick came out of the kitchen holding a tray with the two steaming mugs on the tray, placing it on the table in the middle of the room. Rory was sitting at the edge of the couch facing the TV while Frederick took the seat beside his which was facing the windows, making them at a ninety degree angle to each other. Rory quite liked that because this meant he didn’t have to face the therapist head on.

Frederick reached over to pick up his teacup and saucer, stirring the contents with his teaspoon and nodding at the other cup and items on the tray, “I don’t know how you take your tea so I left it bland. You can make it as you see fit.”