Rosie's Thorns 🥀|18+|🥀

55 | His Cologne

Falling Apart ~ Michael Schulte

《¤Rosie¤》

I'm not okay.

I'm not okay.

I'm not okay.

"I feel fine." I force my lips into a grin as I hold her icy gaze. Looking away would show signs of deception.

With the top of her pen, she pushes her gold wired frame glasses onto the bridge of her small nose. She regarded me in stock silence, her sapphire eyes shifting over every slight movement I make or sudden intake of air. She wasn't what I had expected. I expected an older woman... or at least, not someone so young looking.

Red curly hair was pulled back by a large clawed clip at the nape of her neck, thin strands falling beside her ears as she bowed her head to her leather bound notebook. Freckles flaked her cheeks and nose, with a few flecks across her exposed collarbones. She had a round baby face, a small buttoned nose, and a small pouted mouth.

Dr. Stevens was a woman barely in her early thirties, but she sat poised and confident before me in her slimming navy blue blazer and its matching pencil skirt. One slender leg crossed over the other, I stare at the red bottoms of her black heels as she makes a few notes.

"Does telling yourself 'you're fine' make you, in fact, feel fine?" Her icy eyes flash up to me, little to no emotion evident in her gaze as she studies me.

My throat tightens on its own accord as my hands twitch, my knuckles popping as my fingers curl and the tendons stretch. I could feel the faint prickle across my cheek and throat, but I fought the feeling to scratch.

"What do you want me to say?" I clasp my hands together and squeeze tightly in hopes it will somehow stop them from trembling. "Fake it 'til you make it?"

Her eyes fall to my hands. "Can I be honest with you, Ms. Costa?"

"Okay?"

Her eyes, such a pale icy blue, flickered back up to my face. Slowly she tucked her pen within the pages and closed her notebook. She placed it next to her on a little black metal side table, but her eyes never left me.

"We won't make progress if you are deflective or defensive. I want to help you, but there's only so much I can do on my own. You have to meet my halfway, at least. We can start small, if that helps. But lying about how you feel ties my hands, Ms. Costa. Either you start telling me the truth, or you sit here for an hour dancing around the problem."

My jaw locks and nostrils flare. Irritation picks at my hastily thrown together front, but I reign it in as I level her gaze with a guarded glance around her tiny office. Do all shrinks have the same decorator?

"I'm not dancing around the problem, I'm not ready to talk about it." I straighten my spine, hoping in vain somehow it would solify my response.

"I'm not asking for what happened." She shifted her leg off of the other and then leaned forward in her seat. "I asked you how feel."

My knee-jerk reaction was to say I'm fine, but as my mouth opened to say it, I realized she was right. My teeth snapped shut with an audible click as my lips pressed into a thin line.