Together (Demi Lovato Adoption)

Chapter Seventy-Five

ELLIE'S POV

"Hi, Ellie! How are you today?"

Aubrey was the one to greet me at the front desk today, the woman collecting some paperwork at the same time that Demi, Sam, Grace and I had walked in. She hadn't seen the others as they all went straight towards the waiting room, both Demi and Grace dealing with Sam who hadn't slept well last night and had, in turn, decided to be difficult. 

"Hi Aubrey," I greeted the woman with a small smile, not nearly as enthusiastic as what my therapist had been. "I'm good, thank you. How are you?"

"Better now that you're here! Come on through, we'll go to the blue room."

The cool thing about the rooms at Aubrey's office was that they were all colour coded. There was the red room, the blue room, the purple room, the grey room and then there was the rainbow room. The rainbow room was the one that Sam usually went to, and on a few occasions, I had been taken there too — it's safe to say my eyes hurt after coming out of that place.

Following Aubrey to the blue room, I opted to take a seat on the blue faux fur beanbag rather than one of the couches, the soft texture one that was comforting. I pulled my phone from my pocket and placed it down on the ground beside me while Aubrey pulled together her paperwork. I watched as she also grabbed a beanbag — this time from the corner of the room — dragging it along so she could sit across from me.

"You by yourself today, Ellie?" Aubrey asked as she sat down. 

"No," I replied, shaking my head. "The others went straight to the waiting room. Sam was whining about one thing or another — she didn't sleep well."

"Ahhh, I see," Aubrey nodded in response. "Alrighty, so last time I saw you, we were talking about reviewing your meds, right?"

"I think so. A lot has happened since I last saw you — like, a lot a lot."

"It has been a while, hey? Like, two and a half months." Aubrey looked down at her notebook, nodding to confirm that it had indeed been that long. 

We began the session by just going over everything that had happened since I had last caught up with Aubrey. Me being in hospital, Nick's new song, finding out that Olivia was coming back to school at the end of the summer, the whole situation with Grace's biological family, and lastly, the spider incident from the other night. It was a long list — it made me realise just how dramatic two and a half months can be in the Lovato household.

"Have you moved back into your own house yet? Or are you still staying at your aunt's?" Aubrey asked.

"We went back home yesterday. The exterminator said that they managed to find a few spiders — the others must have crawled outside through the windows or something."

"Makes sense. I'm sure waking up to see a whole bunch of spiders on the roof was pretty scary. I mean, I know I would have freaked out, at least." Aubrey joked, writing down a few things before looking up at me. "Wanna come with me to one of our treatment rooms so that I can set you up for a blood draw?"

I raised my eyebrows suddenly, tilting my head in confusion towards Aubrey. "Why do I need a blood draw?"

"It's part of me reassessing your medication. Basically, there are a lot of organic causes that can mimic psychiatric symptoms and conditions, so I want to get a blood draw to make sure everything is normal before I evaluate you again." 

After giving some forms to Demi in the waiting room, I followed Aubrey into a treatment room and sat down on the table in the back end of the room, allowing my legs to dangle down as I studied the rest of the room. Not gonna lie, I was freaking out just a little bit over the fact that getting a blood draw meant having to roll up my sleeves, but I quickly racked my brain for some kind of excuse that would be reasonable and avoid suspicion. It's not like there was anything but old scars littering my arms now, but the sight of it would likely still be enough to cause a shitshow.