The Student Therapist

Chapter 20

I stare at my reflection as I run the comb through my wet hair and wonder, why did it bother me so much when Lisa said she wouldn't kiss me again?

I wanted to chalk it up to me being emotional because I was home, but I wasn't sure that was the only culprit. The past few weeks, Lisa went from my arch nemesis to someone I wanted to kiss.

How did that happen?

"Pancakes are done!" The girl bellows up the stairs.

I take a deep breath and yelled back. "Arasso!"

I was acutely aware how suspicious my quick exit had been from the kitchen after Lisa promised to keep her lips to herself. So much so that I had been ready to go downstairs for almost 10 minutes, but I continued to hide in the safety of my bedroom.

But in order to keep myself from looking even more suspicious, I had to go back downstairs and act like everything was fine. So I forced myself out of my room and down the steps until I saw a plate of horribly misshapen pancakes stacked a mile high on a plate.

"I think I made a little too much." Lisa admits sheepishly, pointing the spatula at the mound of pancakes.

I raise my eyebrows and survey the massive stack. "You think?"

"In my defense, I told you I needed help." She reminds me. "You left me to fend for myself."

In an attempt to get as far away from the subject of me running away from her as possible, I sit at the counter and look up at her. "Can you grab me a plate?"

Lisa gives me a flat look. "You think I know where anything is?"

"The cabinet to the left of the stove." I tell her. "And the forks are in the drawer in front of you."

She looks unimpressed, but I simply grin at her. We sit and put a dent in the mountain if pancakes in a semi-awkward silence. It felt like the air surrounding us was thick and charged with apprehension. The silence only broken for Lisa to crack a joke a few times.

After eating we cleaned up and started physical theraphy. Lisa was nearing the end of her treatment and a lot of the activities I had laid out for her had become routine. Luckily, this meant that I didn't have to go through most of them beforehand but simply aid her while she them a try.

As I watched her, my mind kept wandering to our 'sorry I spilled your coffee on you' kiss. And I found it difficult to focus on much else. However, I somehow made it through our session right up until the timer on my phone sounded to signal the end of it.

"I'm going to take a quick shower." Lisa says as she stands up. "And then we can go see Jisoo?"

I nod. "Sounds good."

She hesitates for a moment, like she wants to say something else but decides against it and simpy nods before stalking off. I let out a deflated breath and sunk into the nearest chair, almost as if I was physically exhausted by the tension between us.

By the time that we were walking out the front door, the chronic awkwardness between us had only grown more palpable. I was looking forward to being ablt to hang out with Jisoo, and simple thought of thay when we were in the car together in an attempt to avoid thinking about the tension.

This was going great for me until Lisa taps the wheel and huffs, "Are you going to keep acting all awkward?"

Her abrupt call out left my jaw hanging open for a moment. "W-what?"

"You're the one who kissed me, by the way." She adds as an afterthought, stealing a pointed glance in my direction. "So you can't act like I did anythint wrong."