New To This

Therapy

"You're not coming inside?" I ask.

"Nope, I gotta get to training," he says smiling.

"But I've never been here before."

"Well this is mom's therapy," Vince says sternly.

I've always knew my mom went to therapy, but I thought she stopped when Sawyer was born and she recovered after the divorce. She never talked about her appointments, and I never expected her to. Vince sees the change in my expression, and softens his. "So as much as I would love to be here for this moment of realization training is mandatory."

"Fine," I say.

"3rd floor room number 7 the waiting room has magazines," Vince shouts as I head towards the building. "Love you," he adds and slowly drives out of the parking lot. I get into the building that's quite bland with pictures of roses, happy people, and famous buildings. Vince was right there is magazines on the little stand between the chairs, but the latest one has a picture of Kim and Kanye getting married.

"Waiting for someone ms," the lady who sits behind the front desk asks.

"Yes," I say. I give her my mom's name, and she tells me she'll be out and coming through the door in the middle of the waiting room in 15 minutes.

I sit in one of the maroon chairs across from a lady in a chanel suit reading an old People magazine. She shoots me a viscous scold, and I open my phone to text Ziyah who tells me he's playing with Sofia. We go back and forth, and I tell him about Navia's party. and he tells me about Lucas's jesus loving mom which I didn't expect. After he tells me he wants to see again, I go into a bit of a daze until the waiting room door flies open and a girl with black hair and all black clothes walks out.

"I'm done," she whines and the woman in the chanel suit follows her out as they each scold the hell out of me. For a second I think it's going to be just me sitting in this bland waiting room, but the door flies open again, and due to my short attention span I turn at the sound. I almost let out a gasp as my eyes glue to the person who walked in.

In a wife beater and black adidas pants Chase walks in as he runs his hand through his curls.

"Chase good to see you! He will be out in 15 minutes," the same woman who helped me gushes. Chase gives her a nod, and turns around making me look at my feet hoping my mom will finish her session soon. It's so weird that I hope he doesn't notice me, because just last year I was doing the complete opposite.

"Daya?" he asks and I do the smallest wave. He plops down in the seat next to me, and I stare at my feet uncomfortably as if the rumor about him having Chlamydia was true. It turns out Jada got her names mixed up, because she got her information when she was high. Chase scrolls through his phone, and I out of awkwardness pick up one of the old People magazines. Chase's eyes jump from his phone to the magazine.

"Steve Harvey: How I changed my life," he reads off the cover of the magazine, and then raises one of his eyebrows.

"I wanna learn how he became the person he is today," I lie. Chase leans in a little more to look at the page I'm on.

"If you say so, but it looks like you're looking at a neutrogena ad," he says and the smirk I used to watch from afar comes across his face.

"Ok I'm just trying to pass the time," I admit and close the magazine.

"I feel that. Your mom's in here?" he asks like he already knows the answer..

My eyebrows automatically scrunches together. "How did you know?"

"Just a guess."

The door to the therapy hallway opens and my mom storms out behind some bald guy with a clipboard. I think she needs to go back in there because she wears a scold that isn't far from the expression she through me out with. It's way worse than the woman in the chanel suit's.