Her Therapist

Chapter 25.

SEBASTIAN

"An animal shelter?", Esther exclaims. "You brought me to an animal shelter?" She raises her hands in the air and screams in the middle of my favorite place.

"Yes, wh..."

"There is no way, I'm going to work in here. Let's fucking go!" She grabs my hand and then stops marching to the door when she sees that I don't move. Or that she broke her rule about touching people. Maybe she hates when people touch her, but she can touch them. "Let's go!", she cries.

"No. You will work here. Just let me talk with a few peop..."

"No!" She stomps the floor with her shoe like the child she is. She's a child, I remind myself. I kept reminding myself that the whole time we were going to the animal shelter.

What was the thing I did in the alley? I almost told her my biggest secret. And yeah, by the biggest secret, I mean that I'm a bastard, abandoned by my own parents. Thank God, I still haven't said anything. I need to find a way not to tell her anything about me, yet she to tell me everything about her.

But I get a feeling that is going to be damn hard. On one hand, she is very right why would she tell anyone her dark thought when she doesn't know if the other person she is telling them has them too. If they understand her.

I do. I do understand her more than she thinks I can understand her. But damn, when she said that I was alone it hit me in so many places. Firstly in my heart, and it almost broke it as if it wasn't broken already. But it's not broken by a girl or someone else. It's broken by myself. I broke it because I don't want to let go of the past.

I want to keep living in the shelter, surrounded by boys, and doing the dishes, cleaning the bathroom, going to school, anything so I don't feel alone when I come to my empty apartment. But now... Now I have Mery. Do I have her? Is she going to ever come back?

When Esther and I left, I told her to stay until she wants, and gave her my number, so she can call me if she needs something. As a therapist, I should have paid a little more attention. What if she is a robber or someone like that? What if she steals something in my house?

Then it hits me. I am alone. I don't have anything that I value at that house. If you ask me, someone could drop a bomb in it and I wouldn't even blink. All those artworks don't concern me one bit. Maybe I value that couch because Esther slept on it.

I turn my face to her to find her patting her foot nervously on the floor, crossed arms against her chest, deeply frowned, watching me with that familiar death glare, that I'm beginning to like. I can't help but laugh.

"Why are you laughing?", she hisses through her teeth.

"I can't help it", I say, "you're adorable when you pout."

"I'm not pouting!" She stomps and pouts even more. I laugh again.

"Yes, you are! Look at yourself!" I point at her with my hand. She narrows her eyes at me, her hair falling on her face. She puffs and sighs so the air from her mouth is directed to her hair, trying to move it without her hands. She doesn't succeed in it, though.

Nervously, she pushes the strands of her hair and continues watching me deadly.

"Stop looking at me like that. I want to help you."

"No, you want to kill me."

"Why would I want that?"

"Because all those animals are going to devour me."

I tilt my head. "You don't like animals?"

She shakes hers. "I hate them."

"Of course. Will I ever find out what you love? Expect coffee", I remember.