"Christopher Sawyer!" the over joyful woman at the front desk called my name and I stood up from my previous seat in the waiting room, watching the worried look one my grandmother's face.
This was my first time seeing this therapist.
After the death of my little sister occurred, my parents were always bickering and fighting with each other. I didn't really pay attention to much of what they said, or even what they were fighting about, very sure it's something not worth it.
Eventually they divorced, for the 'best' of all of us. I don't even think they were considering me in their plans. Mum went on with her job, being a successful lawyer afforded her enough money to live on her own with three kids, but she chose to stay unmarried, or that's what I thought. While my father got a girlfriend that couldn't be older than twenty two, which was pathetic.
As for me, after I drank my pain away, and snorted some lines in the bathroom of some guy that I don't know. I decided to go live with my gran. I already worked at some dinner. I was a waiter four days a week, while I delivered pizza for the rest of the week. I had already saved enough money, when I thought I was normal enough to attend 'college'. However one night I got furious and I don't even remember why, I wasted all that money on some drugs, tattoos and drinks....
And I don't regret it.
I squeezed my gran's bony hand reassuringly, managing a small smile her way.
I walked up to the room where I have to answer the same questions that I have been asked in numerous therapy sessions over again. Where I would have to give all the private information that I didn't feel like talking about.
To say I wasn't ready was an understatement.
My sister had died three weeks, two days and seven hours ago.
Her vision vivid in my brain, floating around my mind and destroying what remained of it.
"Don't be like this," Darcy laughed trying to snatch the controller out of my hand. I laughed myself, shaking my head and lifting my hand out of her reach while trying to beat up the monster in my video game, at the same time.
"You suck at that game anyway!" she would shout playfully, trying to make me leave the television so she could watch whatever she wanted, oh so desperately to watch.
"Darcy, I am warning you," I would try and say seriously, but she would look up at me from where she would lay her head on my lap.
With her wide light brown eyes, her smile reaching her eyes.
Or so I thought.
I snapped out of my flashback, my hand flying up to the wooden door and knocking, frustratingly, might I add.
"Come in!" a female voice said from behind the door, making me twist the doorknob slowly in my pale, very cold hands.
Why did I decide to wear a short sleeved shirt in November? Probably trying to kill myself and die from the cold. My figure, awkwardly slipped in the room. My eyes immediately falling on a petite figure sitting on a nice wooden chair with black leather covering the armrests.
Dr. Samantha, smiled up at me, in that reassuring way that still made you feel nervous.
I don't know the reason behind my nervousness and my sudden need to throw what I had for lunch, which wasn't a lot.
I mean I have been to many, way many therapists before I came here.
Before and after Darcy's death.
Maybe I was nervous because I didn't feel like I have to do a progress for someone before. I mainly went to my old therapy sessions to annoy the therapists that had to bear with me. You can say I wasn't really into them, neither did they like me.
The feeling was mutual.
However, after I lived with gran it felt like since I am in a therapist clinic, I had to do an effort.
For her and for Darcy.
My grandmother used to be very close to the both of us. She used to talk to Darcy a lot, and they were very close. If not, they were best friends even.
She cried more than my mother did on her funeral. In fact, she cared about the funeral more than both my parents did.
Oh, the funeral.
It was the worst feeling a guy could experience in the world.
I felt like my insides had been smashed, slowly and painfully. It felt like there was a potato in my chest and it was being smashed for dinner.
And that was where my heart laid.
Or what remained of it.
"Christopher, am I right?" she asked politely, and I nodded my head in affirmation, clearing my throat.
She eyed me, sensing my awkwardness and my uneasiness.
"No need to be shy, take a seat or lay down if you want," she suggested, gesturing to a chaise longue with her tall painted finger.
Nodding, I took a seat in front of her on a similar wooden chair.
She cleared her throat casually and opened my file that laid open between her hands.
Everything she needed to know about my mental issues were registered down in that file, then why the hell am I even doing here?
"So Chris, if you don't mind me calling you that of course," she kinda asked, smiling easily at me. She wore a nice white blouse with some flowers patterned on the long sleeves and a black skirt that reached just above her knees. She couldn't possibly be older than forty and she looked professional.
I flinched at the nickname, shaking my head wishing that she wouldn't call me by that nickname again.
She looked at me with her wide blue eyes and pursed lips, nodding her head in understanding. Then she let her lips settle in a small polite smile, as she went on again.
"So, Christopher-" she empathized my name. I nodded for her to keep on talking, before I totally lose interest because I was starting to, honestly.
"You suffer from..."
Anger issues, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and I am not sure if I forgot anything else.
"Anger issues, depression, anxiety, eating disorders and-"
I sighed waiting for her to say the last and the worst thing my sick brain suffers from.
"Schizophrenia," I released a breath I didn't know I was holding, glancing down at my hands that turned white from gripping too hard on the armrests.
I released my death grip and wiped my sweaty palms against my jeans.
And suddenly I didn't feel cold anymore.
"Would you like to tell me what's the cause of all these problems?" Dr. Samantha asked, the same small smile on her glossed lips.
I started hating that smile already. However, I needed to make an effort. I needed to get better.
The real question that floated around my mind was,
If I wanted to get better?
Did I?
Honestly, I didn't know. A big part was nagging at me to get out of here already.
"I love it when I make you smile," her smile was bigger than Texas, eyes beaming with glee and face flushed from the heat.
I was blinking rapidly, the blurry wall of tears trying stubbornly to escape out of my eyes, but I rubbed at it aggressively. And I can feel my cold stone face back on again.
"A lot of things I would rather not discuss," I mumbled quietly, my eyes roaming around her office. A picture of a little boy and a baby girl rested on her desk and I am guessing they are her kids. There were those weird drawings, the ones you always find in any therapist clinic. The ones that look like some ink just splashed on the paper in random angles, and people thought that was art.
It's looks irritated me for some unknown reason that I couldn't pinpoint.
Dr. Samantha seemed, totally, taken aback by the fact that I talked to her. I mean, I rarely talk.
Hell, I rarely even pay attention to anyone.
However, I was trying and she was making it harder.
I looked back at her and she was writing down what I am guessing was some observation about me and my case. Then she looked up at me nodding her head in understanding.
"Are you on any kind of pills ? Medicines?" She asked me, her eyebrows shooting up ever so slightly.
I licked my lips, cracking my knuckles nervously.
I went to several therapists before, and they all gave me different kinds of pills. Pills that made me sleepy, they made me feel something I never longed for.
Normality.
So I simply stopped taking them. Before my sister's death, I wasn't completely that psycho. I only had anger issues, eating disorders and I would rarely get anxiety attacks. My parents thought I completely lost my mind. Because I used to get angry with a lot of people at school and I would beat a lot of guys up in that way where they were showered in their own blood and they would get a concussion. I would usually beat the hell out of them out of the school's land, nevertheless, I would come back home with bruised knuckles and black eyes. Sometimes, sliced skin. I remember even once, a friend drove me back home because I couldn't even walk properly. Immediately, my parents sent me to therapists to help me recover from my 'sick mind'. The doctors would usually instruct a big ass list of medications and pills for me to take in order to get better.
However, me being me, I didn't take any of that crap.
Sometimes I wouldn't even buy them. My parents didn't care enough to check if I took them or not.
Then after my sister's death everything seemed to get fucked up even more.
I drank more.
I smoked more.
I skipped school.
I did drugs more.
And I beat up a lot more kids than I used to.
"No," I answered the doctor's question, effortlessly fiddling with the many wristbands on my wrists.
Half of them were my sister's.
"I am going to give you a few medications and pills at first to see if it works out with you, don't worry everything is going to be just fine," she reassured me calmly, writing down in a rapid motion the list of shit I would have to swallow to get better.
I depended on these little colourful pills, to become a normal person.
I felt my jaw clench as I stretched my hand out, accepting the list out of her hand, she said:
"I will be seeing you after two weeks, I know you're a good kid, you're gonna get through with it," She smiled brightly, waving her hand at me. Nodding silently, I exited the bloody room and speed walked out of the complex.
"Mr Sawyer!" my head snapped, and I was met by a smiling woman. I recognized her being the lady behind the counter, the one that called me into the doctor's office half an hour ago.
I nodded my head while she stretched out her arm, with a warm looking jacket in her hand.
"Your grandmother left you that," She informed me, making a smile stretch it's way across my lips.
I took it from her, nodding my head as if to say 'thank you'. She nodded back understanding, then walked back to her work.
I exited the building, smiling slightly as my arms slipped into my jacket.
Gran probably got called in the hospital. She worked as a nurse and sometimes behind the information counter in the night shifts. She had probably taken me to the therapy in her break.
The hospital wasn't that far from our house and the therapist building.
She wasted her break to take me to the therapist, while my parents didn't even know if I took my medicines or not.
I sighed, a gust of wind hitting my face forcefully. It was getting darker by the second, and I am guessing gran would spent her night at the hospital.
I entered the pharmacy, shoving the door with my shoulder and walking in quietly. The heated air was a nice feeling against my freezing skin. I handed the pharmacist standing behind the counter my medication list, and he smiled up at me before he disappeared behind the counter. I scratched at the mess of orange-reddish hair on top of my head, noting mentally that I needed to get a haircut soon, because it was getting longer for my liking.
I scanned the pharmacy, that was illuminated with a blinding light that flickered every second and I had a feeling it's gonna go out pretty loudly. My eyebrows furrowed, my eyes landing on a mosh of brownish- reddish pixie cut hair.
A girl that could barely hit 5'3, stood with a red basket that hung loosely from the crook of her elbow. Her hand shot to the top shelf, reaching for a big chocolate bar, her tongue slightly stuck between her cherry red lips. Her face was covered lightly with freckles.
I remember how Darcy used to say "freckles are angels' kisses, and look at you, you have a lot," and she would laugh, ruffling my hair.
I sighed and the strange girl seemed to feel my stare on her, because her head shot up so suddenly. Her eyes, a shocking see through blue that pierced straight through mine.
I felt the heat rush up my neck and I caught her smiling slightly, the shade of a dimple forming on her left cheek.
She got a lip ring that gleamed at me.
I averted my gaze away from her. Ignoring the strange feeling of heat that burned against my skin. The pharmacist was back, a plastic bag full of small pill containers in his hand.
He wrote down some instructions on a sticky note and then stuck it on one of the containers in the bag. I couldn't seem to bring myself to focus on the pharmacist's voice as he said the price. My mind seemed to be on another planet. Handing him the money, I walked out of the pharmacy.
My eyes, wandered until they got a glimpse of that girl. Pushing the door open to exit the pharmacy, I could feel her stare on me, burning holes in my back.
Walking outside once again, I was greeted by a cold rush of air. The sky completely dark, after the sun has set.
My grip tightened around the plastic bag, taking long strides down the street. As I caught a glimpse of my old, red truck, I noticed the drizzling sky.
And soon enough, it was raining cats and dogs on my head. I thanked gran silently as I jogged down the street, the jacket's hood pulled up my head, trying to make it as quick as possible to my truck before I get soaked.
Although I loved the rain, I mean who doesn't?
The sweet feeling of water on your clothes and the beautiful sight of puddles forming on the pavements. I reached my car and ripped open the door. I ditched the bag of colourful containers in the backseat, with all the other empty chips, crackers and candy wrappers.
My car was a dumpster.
Empty food wrappers on the floor, squished cigarettes on the dashboard. Soda cans and juice boxes were thrown on the back seat. Clothes and boxers hung on the back of the passenger seat. Oliver was sleeping on the passenger seat snuggling in a wool black blanket.
Oliver was my fat, white and orange cat.
It was originally Darcy's, but after what happened, I promised to take good care of it. He did enjoy spending the days with me in my truck.
However, he seemed to enjoy scratching his small paws on the leather seats of my truck, which were all, thanks to him, scratched and cut.
My hands roamed the dashboard in search for my lighter and as soon as I found it. I dragged open an old glove compartment, taking out an unlit cigarette and resting it between my chapped lips.
As I was about to light it, my eyes caught a pair of shocking blue ones that managed somehow, to warm up my chest.
She was standing on the pavement, her clothes drenched and I watched as she tried to hide desperately from the falling rain.
I found myself rolling down the passenger's window.
"Hey, do you need a ride!" and she smiled at me, her lip ring glowing under the dim light of the lamppost.
Sending my heart on fire
****************************
A/N:
Shit, sorry.
I don't know exactly how I feel about that chapter, but I hope you liked it anyway. I promise it's gonna get better.
Your opinion really matters to me.
So leave me your comments and votes
That would fantastic.
Thank you!!
☆MariaM