Her Therapist

Chapter 15.

I used to dream to be able to have one small apartment, I was scared that I wouldn't succeed in finishing my studies, but I did. And I managed to buy my own place, the one I should be calling home, but for some reason, I don't, enormous just like Conor's, even though my goal was to buy a small one, but the opportunity just came up, from the corner, surprising me, and again if it hadn't been for my best friend I wouldn't have taken it. 

I prepare a coffee, waiting for it to heat on the burner, behaving like this is my own house because I've used to live here for a long time, so, I don't feel shy anymore.

In the beginning, when Conor has proposed to me to live together, I was skeptical. I didn't want to make a problem, but then again, the bills in my one-room apartment kept increasing because I wasn't earning enough money to pay them all. Conor and his dad offered to help me, and at first, I didn't want to accept not because I was proud, but because I didn't want to be a burden, but in the end, they managed to persuade me and I moved in. 

In the beginning, I felt so shy, I kept saying sorry for everything, and that used to irritate Conor so much. Instead of the money, I was the one who needed to clean Conor's mess, who would just sleep, not going to classes, while I was running from one shift to another, and then on the college, hoping I would find Conor on any of them.

Then, was when his dad threatened him and asked me to help him with his studies, and I did, so, he stopped partying so much and focused on studying the last year of our studies, so he could come to his dad's place. But Ethan took that place literally in front of Conor's nose, so, most of the things were blown, and to say that Conor had gotten into depression, wouldn't describe the situation at all.

"I will change, Seb", he cuts my thought about him, and I snap my head in the direction of his voice. I only nod, and remove the coffee from the burner, sipping it in the mug, and placing it in front of my best friend, my colleague, my brother.

I used to call him a brother in my mind, the one I never had. Not even the five-year-old boy who had told me about the sky's tears did I consider a brother. We were paired in the same room for a short time before he had been put in the foster family. But Conor... I  have known Conor for years now, and I consider him family. The only one I have. 

"I didn't say anything", I shrug.

"You have. You don't believe me", he complains, wrapping his hands around the hot coffee mug, after brushing his short greasy blonde hair. "You never believe me."

"Because you never completed what you said. Prove it, and I will start believing. But you have to know", I point my index finger at him, "you fail this time, I tell your father. There is no other. He has to know what his son is doing."

"Okay, okay", he rolls his eyes, "Did you prepare a coffee for you, too?"

I shake my head, "No, I don't feel like drinking it."

"Why?"He cocks his eyebrow, drinking, his eyes the only thing piercing in my soul. "You have a hangover, too?", he chuckles.

"You aren't funny", I make a sour face. 

He has to know.

I have to tell him.

He is the only one I can tell this to. 

"Then? Come on, tell me."

I can't lose anything, can I? Yeah, dignity.

"Esther", is all I say. "Esther Larsson", I add her last name because she always calls me by mine. Except when she has asked me to let her go, and she whispered my name so soft, so vulnerable, that I wanted to...