Une Fleure Fanée

Week 2 Part 1 (Monday)

     I still have not figured out what has happened. But at least some good news: Brady is moving into my apartment complex today. Apparently, he was in a different building in the apartment estate. It's awesome. I like hanging out with my friends during my free time, and Brady being in the same apartment complex makes it easier to do so.

     The way the producers set us up is there are two apartment complexes in the apartment "estate." They're called the Dragon and the Ladybug. I'm in the Ladybug. Turns out there was a mistake and four kids were sent to the Dragon, so they moved Brady over. Sarah lives in Pittsburgh, so they didn't give her one, but she lives like an hour and a half from the dance studio. Oof.

      I have to go to therapy for an hour in the morning before the team goes out for some FroYo today. I am not on speaking terms with my mother yet. Maybe another day. I wear a maroon long-sleeved top, cream-colored Hambledon pants, and brown boots. I wear my hair in half-up half-down space buns. I take my Fluoxetine and grab my stuffed animal. It is a stuffed llama. I got it when I was four, and it's gone through a lot with me.

     We have to go to a 24-hour therapist's office about half an hour from our apartment. I have to go early in the morning, from eight to nine o'clock. All of my information has been transferred, and the thoughts are flooding my head on the drive.

     The thoughts are scary to deal with. They're intrusive and they throw you off guard if you're not used to them. Even if you get used to them, you can still be thrown off-guard. They like to pick at you to the extent of the destruction of your brain. Their main objective is to get you back to the thoughts' comfy state. For me, it is hunched over a toilet, vomiting your undigested food.

     The creepiest, and in my opinion, the worst part is that the thoughts are an exact replica of your voice. It's like you're saying these things to yourself. You are beating yourself down. But, they're better than they've been. They've happened more often because of the significant change in my life of starting back up dancing at the ALDC, Mom tells me. So I'm not too worried.

     We quickly go to Starbucks for breakfast. I get a decaf unicorn frappuccino thingy and one of those egg and bacon cheese sandwiches. When we arrive at the therapist's office, I grip my Mom's hand in my right hand and clutch the stuffed llama to my chest with the other hand. My mom opens the glass door and there is a reception area.

     It doesn't have the doctor smell I'm used to at my old therapist's office. It smells of that air freshener that you would get at Walmart. Febreze mixed with roses. It's refreshing, and I like the smell.

      The walls are pale green, and the oak wood floors are a tawny brown color. Mom checks me in, and I am a little anxious. Nobody else is in the waiting room, so I sit in one of the sticky black leather chairs, my feet barely able to touch the floor. I take a sip of the drink.

      "Lilly?" somebody calls out and I whip my head up from the ground, where I have been staring unknowingly. I get up from my chair and walk down a hallway that seems to go to the back of the building. The person leading us stops at a white door. She opens it, and a woman is sitting in a chair facing the left wall.

     She has curly dyed blue hair and she had a buzz cut on one side. She had thick black glasses, a silver nose ring, and tattoos on her arms. She isn't wearing a medical jacket. She's wearing a long-sleeved pink sweater, dark blue flare jeans, and white tennis shoes. I notice the medical jacket hanging on the door as I cautiously walk in, so at least she graduated from medical school and isn't unqualified.

     There's a gray couch on one side with a white fuzzy rug. Behind it is a dark oak wall filled with shelves of sensory toys for the kids who need those. The walls are white and white blinds are on the window. On the couch, there's a fluffy pale pink throw pillow and I sit down, putting the pillow on my lap, leaning on one of the arms of the couch.