Beyond Spain

1

"And why do you think that?" Brooklyn questioned her patient. She loved her job of counseling marriages and just being psychologist. Right now, she was dealing with a teenager who was suffering from being bullied about her looks.

"Well, they say I'm ugly and I don't fit in their school and..." The teenager continued and Brooklyn paid attention to every detail and wrote down once a while.

After she finished with her patient, she went to lunch and Lisa was already waiting for her.

"You're late." Lisa said impatiently with her arms folded.

"By a minute and seven seconds." Brooklyn rolled her eyes as she looked at her watch.

"Still. We could have gotten food by now!" Lisa threw her hands in exasperation.

Lisa had been friends with Brooklyn for as long as she could remember. Their mothers being best friends made it easy for them to be friends. Their mothers had been best friends before they were even born.

Lisa was also known as the dramatic friend who always blew everything out of proportion. She had been known for being dramatic during her schooling years. Even on the yearbook, she was the Most Likely To Be an actress but little did they know she wasn't interested in any of that. Everyone had been shocked when she wanted to become a journalist.

Lisa tugged Brooklyn all the way to the small café at Brooklyn's workplace. They sat down and ordered their usual, which was strawberry milkshakes, chicken burgers and fries. That was their tradition, once or twice a week, they'd order that.

"Did you hear? Michael is back!" Lisa said with excitement. Michael has been Lisa's Prince Charming for six months now but hasn't made a move on Lisa but everyone could see that they are very much in love with each other.

"That's amazing, Lisa." Brooklyn smiled at her best friend. "But you have to make a move on him this time around because I'm tired of watching you two drool over each other like high schoolers."

"No ways! I will never make a move over a guy. Heck no," she wrinkled her nose.

"Come on Lisa, this is the 21st century. Nobody cares anymore," Brooklyn shrugged.

"Yeah but that doesn't mean I have to."

"You know what? I give up trying to set you up with Michael."

"You are right. You have to focus on your love life. You are almost thirty-"

"In three years!" Brooklyn said, cutting Lisa off.

"Anyways as I was saying, you are almost thirty and you aren't even in a relationship. You focus way too much your career. You need to find a husband before thirty or you'll end up with like ten cats. And one day they are going to attack you. I don't want to have to come to your house and pick up your body pieces like in Bones." Lisa finished her speech and Brooklyn rolled her eyes.

"Seems like you already planned my life. And you watch too much Bones. And I also don't like cats. I prefer dogs."

As the best friends continued their lunch, discussing the future and their love lives, Brooklyn wondered if she'd ever get married. She had prayed about it but no answer came.

***

The next day, Brooklyn woke up and did her morning routine as usual. Living with Lisa was like living with a ghost because she was always absent in the mornings. Brooklyn didn't even know she did it. Being a journalist required her to step out of her comfort zone, not that she wasn't comfortable with anything. Lisa was fearless.

Brooklyn got to work early as always and started viewing the profiles for the patients she was going to have a full day. There were about five in total. One was at 8-9 and then she had a break then her next session begins until 10 then after that she has another one straight ahead. Then she had another break.

She sighed as she got through the fourth session with a girl who had suicidal thoughts. She knew she couldn't think about it too much otherwise it will affect her. At least she had one more session.

"Dr.H, your 3 O'clock is here." Hannah, Brooklyn's assistant said as she peaked through the door with a file.

"Thank you, Hannah, you may send them through."

Brooklyn stood up to put she girl's file in the file cabinet while saying, "make yourself at home, sir." When she didn't hear movement, she turned to find a man about maybe her age or maybe a little bit older. Brooklyn tried not to be phased of how good looking he was.

"Uh, excuse me? You may sit down." Brooklyn gestured for him to sit down. He did... eventually, after Brooklyn almost lost her cool about three or four times.

She looked at the file and found that his name is Dylan Santos. He is Spanish, maybe that's why he didn't understand her.

"Do you understand English?" Brooklyn spoke to him like a child. He looked at her and smirked. She was irked by that smirk that she felt like slapping him.

"What makes you say that?" He finally said with a smirk.

Brooklyn wished she could wipe that smirk off his face.

"Well, for starters, you haven't responded to a word I said. And it says here that you are Spanish." Brooklyn shrugged.

"Well,that's stupid reasoning." He grumbled and she really wished she could just hit him at that moment.

"And just because I'm Spanish, it doesn't mean that I don't understand English." He rolled his eyes.

Brooklyn decided to be professional and said," okay. I apologise, Mr Santos. May we please continue?"

***

Brooklyn threw her bag onto the couch and she heard a shriek.

"Sheesh, watch where you put that thing! Gosh, I'm going to have a bump on my head now!" Lisa rubbed her head.

Brooklyn rushed to her,"are you alright? I'm so sorry!"

"Do I look alright to you?" She glared at her.

"I'm really sorry! I was just frustrated by something that happened." She sighed.

"Oh really? Like what?" Lisa stood up from her position to go fill up her popcorn and paused her movie.

"Well, it's my patient." Brooklyn said as she followed Lisa to the kitchen.

"Well, elaborate!" Lisa said.

"He doesn't believe in psychology. He thinks it's dumb."

"Well, then why did he come to a psychologist?" Lisa asked with confusion.

"I don't know! He didn't even talk at first - I know that's normal but he just stared at me then started smirking! He was really annoying!" Brooklyn groaned.

"Seriously? That's just odd for a person who came for therapy." She took her popcorn out of the microwave.

"Yeah." Brooklyn agreed.

"Well, is he going to come back again?" Lisa asked.

"Yeah. On Thursday at 2:30." She groaned as she said it.

"Well, it's only the first session so maybe he will get better." Lisa reasoned.

"I guess so." Brooklyn sighed.

It was probably nothing right? Brooklyn reasoned in her head. I have dealt with difficult patients before and this won't be an exception. She hoped.

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