Amend || Bucky Barnes FanFiction

5. therapy

She had not bothered to even attempt at glancing her way in the mirror, for various reasons, as she entered the bathroom and turned on the hot water of the shower. In fact, she avoided it at all costs as she dumped her somewhat neatly folded clothes on the messy counter-top that was still covered in make-up, hair curlers and straighteners, and hair-ties as a result of graduation. Some make-up brushes fell to the tiled floor as the clothes landed on the counter, but Estella chose to ignore the inevitable clean-up she would have to do as she began to undress herself.

The warm water that pattered down against her skin gently soothed her fatigued and sore body; allowing the muscles to relax against the water, letting the pain slowly fade away momentarily. The voices in her head, the ones that spread the negativity down her entire body and the ones that were so loud that it hurt, began to quiet down as she let her head fall back against the stream of warm water. It was only for a moment; just a few seconds of peace and quiet before she subconsciously began to remind herself of all the things she had done to disappoint the people she loved the most.

It was only when she found herself lathering her hair in shampoo that she decided that she needed to come up with a plan of what to say to her therapist. Firstly, since her anxiety levels were increased thanks to her hangover, she planned to have something to take the edge off, which would ultimately help lying to her therapist too. It would also help with her hangover, though that was beside the point. She planned to waltz into Doctor Turner's office, a convincing fake smile plastered on her lips before she would sit down and come up with some bullshit about how great her life is. Maybe throw in some grief to make it a little more convincing, something about missing her dad, but overall, act as if she was not crumbling.

And then maybe, just maybe, she would not have to keep making these appointments and wasting her time. It was the only way to avoid what was really going on in her life. She was sick of talking about it.

"Not you being awake at a reasonable time." Matilda let out a breathy chuckle as she buttered her toast in the kitchen, while Estella continued to dry her hair with her eyes strained on the cupboards.

"You need to get off of TikTok." Estella let out a groan as she threw her wet towel in the washing basket on the floor – Darcy's. She was probably going to go down and wash her clothes, so, it would not hurt to throw in a towel that had not been washed in forever. "I'm seeing Doctor Turner today. That is the only reason why I'm awake right now."

Matilda watched her friend intently, momentarily stopping her actions to analyse her hungover friend who had so obviously began her search for alcohol. "You know, you scared the shit out of me last night. You're so lucky Bucky is a gentlemen, honestly."

Oh, yes – Bucky. The man who was not at all happy, with a grumpy frown that remained on his face the entire ride home, was a true gentlemen. While she was thankful that he was not one of those guys to try and take a drunk girl back to his own apartment, she could not stand that man sometimes. Matilda had the pleasure of meeting the ex-assassin as the gentlemen insisted that he walked Estella all the way to her apartment door, which was just embarrassing, but maybe that was just because a guy had never done that for her before. Nonetheless, Matilda angrily opened the door only for a warm smile to fall upon her face the moment her eyes landed on the attractive man, who apologised profusely for waking her.

Bucky could not even give her a smile; an innocent woman who was just answering the door.

"You know, it's so unnecessary for you to come with me all the way to the door." She slurred grumpily as she stumbled along the long corridor that would lead to the penthouse she shared with her closest friends. Bucky walked alongside her; his hands prepared to grab hold of her at any moment with the lack of balance she seemed to be presenting. "You made it pretty clear that you didn't even wanna be with me this late at night."