A Gay Vibe From Me?

Chapter 10

It's Tuesday morning, and Amanda Rollins presently finds herself astounded at the fact that she is voluntarily attending therapy for the first time in her life. She had been mandated to therapy a couple of times before throughout her short time at Manhattan's Special Victims Unit, but she was never able to open her mind up enough to the possibility of receiving help from anything other than a casino or a bottle. This time, however—after another traumatic event has plunged its way into her life without warning, something feels different.

She suspects that what is different stems from her growing relationship with her beautiful superior, Lieutenant Olivia Benson: a woman she has idolized and pined after for so long, and is only beginning to scratch the surface on as friends. After Olivia had nearly melted the stoic blonde's heart into a puddle with her response to her father's suicide, Amanda had felt comfortable enough to mention that she had played around with the idea of seeing Dr. Lindstrom for a few sessions. Though she isn't devastated, Amanda feels absolutely dedicated to bettering herself lately, and she figures her father's suicide is a good enough reason to seek out some therapy. The smile that so blatantly plastered itself across the brunette's face was enough to make Amanda's skin prickle with goose bumps, and fill her insides with a warm, blissful heat. Due to the brunette's uncharacteristic, giddy response, Amanda consented to seeing someone. Olivia was more than willing to send in another referral to her trusted therapist, and Dr. Lindstrom happily obliged to give Amanda another chance at healing.

Shortly after her confession to Olivia, Amanda was able to put on a brave face for the rest of the day and stick to her earlier admission of not caring about her father's suicide. As soon as she left the building, however, and started walking to her car in solitude, she fell into a pit of despair. Suddenly, the same streetlamps and the same cracks in the same sidewalks she had grown so accustomed to over the past seven years seemed foreign to her; it was as if she was a visitor in her own mind. She felt her body heave with loss, stumbling in a grief-filled daze as she tried to locate her vehicle. At that moment, a space had been cut into her heart; a piece of her soul evaporated in a way she had never experienced before.

She had spent the remainder of her evening sorting through old photos of her father that she has shamefully kept tucked underneath her bed for many years now; sobbing as she listened to his favorite records on repeat, and feeling rather safe wrapped inside his torn, extra-large, red, plaid shirt. It didn't take long for the guilt of not attending his funeral to set in once she was acquainted with the tangible images of his face; although he was awful to her, he was still her daddy. And, before she was old enough for him to start hating her, and for her to notice how screwed up her family truly was, she remembers spending most of her days outside in a hazy bliss. She remembers just how perfect her peaceful, ranch-styled home in Georgia truly was; sure, it was tiny, but just roomy enough to fit her mother, father, Kim, and herself in a cozy paradise. She remembers the way a soft, gentle breeze would sort through the wisps of her short, blonde tresses on a warm summer day, until she inevitably resorted to hiding her head underneath a ratty baseball cap. She remembers the sound of her mother's voice, yelling at her for getting mud on a recently pressed pair of pants, after digging around in the dirt to collect worms. She remembers the scent of peach trees and blueberry pie lingering in the air. That damn pie, she remembers, its intoxicating smell always taunting her always sitting so picturesquely atop the kitchen windowsill just like a storybook. She remembers just how free she felt, running through the tall blades of grass in her big, flat backyard without the weight of the world on her shoulders screaming at the top of her lungs into the open air, and giggling as she chased her wobbly, baby sister around, who could barely walk at that point.

Somehow, his shirt still smelled of cigars and his favorite brand of whisky.

The strange, psychological feeling that she had somehow managed to take up residence outside of her own body had not dissipated until the late hours of the evening; it took everything she had in her to not pop open a bottle of her own favorite brand of whisky to drown her ceaseless sorrows. She decided to indulge in staring at the bottle for a while, imagining in detail just how wonderful it would feel to take a swig and feel it travel down her throat; frequently licking her lips in response to her fantasy as the mossy green bottle, with its perfectly formed black and red lettering taunted her with temptation. Luckily, the regretful weekend she had just experienced with Olivia, was enough to keep her from repeating the same behaviour at least for the night.