Shattered Vows

September 17th

dedicated to @AaranaAananya for being first to vote and comment ❤

September Seventeenth:

He isn't at school on Monday. It bothers Juliette, not that he isn't there, but that she notices. Only two evenings ago, they spent the whole night talking about nothing more than nonsense until their eyelids had fallen heavy with sleep. Their words were erased with a promise between them to forget by morning.

    Of course, she knew then that she wouldn't forget.

    The day passes by slowly, everything ostensibly dragged out. She meets Mare in the parking lot in front of the school, sliding easily into the car. Throwing her backpack down at her feet, she sinks her body into the chair and closes her eyes, letting her eyelids flutter shut. She hasn't gotten any more sleep since that night.

    Mare doesn't say anything as she peels away from the school, her silence louder than any words. Juliette just sighs, everything feeling more today.

    Maybe her stress is because they drive to meet her new therapist. Moving homes always means leaving her old therapist behind for someone new, making it hard to establish any relationship with them. She'd walk into the room knowing that in a month or so, she would be leaving them. Her next therapist will then re-analyze her trauma and subject her to the same sequence of evaluation questions.

It is a tiresome cycle that she's memorized her lines for.

"I've met her, honey, she's really nice. You'll love her." Mare's voice breaks the silence as if reading Juliette's thoughts. Juliette glances over.

"Okay," she whispers, accepting it.

Therapy has never been helpful as they never get deep enough into her past to truly understand her. She's grown to be an expert liar in the fact that she can make situations seem better than they are by warping her words and style. She is a writer, after all, and does this with the characters she crafts in her novels.

They don't say anything after that. The drive is quietly held by the music that plays softly from the radio. Juliette closes her eyes, seeing nothing but black behind her eyelids. Feeling every motion of the car against her body. The gravity of the turns has her shifting to one side of her seat. The warmth of the heater is being blown on her face as she tries and fails to quiet her mind.

They pull up to the small commercial building located in the heart of the quaint town. Its exterior is made of a sand-colored stucco. There's a large window next to the front door decorated with festivities, orange and yellow leaves cut from paper and taped to the glass.

     Its warm exterior hides the darkness shared inside.

    Mare and Jules walk in, not bothering with taking a seat in the waiting room; they don't have to. She was already waiting for them with a delighted smile.

    "Hello. My name is Doctor Alisa Singh, and you can call me any one of those names." The younger woman dressed in a navy blue blazer and black jeans greets them chipperly. Her dark brown skin is glowing beneath the soft lighting. Her jet black hair, long and thick, cascades down her back in loose waves. Everything about her look is natural, her makeup almost imperceptible.

    "I'm Jules," Juliette reacts. She follows as Dr. Singh enters her office, leaving Mare behind with a soft wave.

    "I'll be here when you're done," Mare says before the door is shut behind them. Dr. Singh doesn't lock the door, which makes Juliette silently thankful.

    The room is organized so that every piece of furniture- from the rocking chair in the corner to the small sofa shoved against the wall- are facing each other. The walls are painted a pale shade of coral blue with plentiful lighting flowing in from the large window. Its sheer blinds are closed so that while you can't see through, lighting can still slip through the fabric. A soft gray rug consumes the center of the room, the wall space next to the desk dedicated to trinkets. Juliette scans her eyes over the room before returning back to Dr. Singh.

    "You can sit anywhere," she smiles, offering up her room. Juliette picks the sofa, the rocking chair resonating a memory. Dr. Singh nods as if this puts into perspective something about Jules that she didn't know.

    Picking her seat had been a test.

     "I'm not going to waste your time, Jules. I've read your case enough to know that you understand what you're doing. Of course, I have to inform you that everything you say in this room is held confidential unless it's threatening to yourself or others." Dr. Singh grins softly, her eyes knowing. Juliette nods, having heard the speech a hundred times. 

    There was a point in her life when times were darker. A period in her life when blades were pressed against her skin. Seeking a pain to fill the void. Her mind was an extinguished fire, the burnt tinder of who she once was. For some time in her life, hope had felt like a four-letter word.

    Of course, she told this to her therapist. Who, in return, told her foster parents and her case manager. It was the first and last time she trusted authority. Despite knowing he had only been doing his job, feeling so lost at the time, she had felt betrayed.

    "I understand," Juliette whispers, automatically brushing her fingertips over the healed scars. Almost invisible these days, but the memory still seethes.

    "I've also taken a look into your mother's case," Dr. Singh starts, making Juliette freeze. She frowns so deeply that Alisa stops talking.

    "Why would you do that?" Juliette's stern voice is cold, closed off. Her jaw set hard as she grinds her teeth down on themselves. It is supposed to be about her, not her mother. She doesn't want it to be about her mother.

    She doesn't want to remember her mother.

     "Because genetics are equally as important when it comes to understanding a person. Especially someone who has gone through all that you have, not to be so harsh about it. To understand you, I have to understand your past."

    It makes sense in practice.

    Juliette had suffered abuse of love. There is no way else to describe it. Watched at with an emotional distance, always able to be left. Her mother could not love, not in the way the fairytales spoke of the affectionate mother-daughter relationship. Her mother could not care for anyone beyond herself in a way that destroyed Juliette's innocence before she was born. She was an adult before she was a child. Stripped of something so fragile it could never be returned.

    "I don't want to talk about my mother," Juliette says through gritted teeth.

    "And we don't have to. Not today. Not ever, if you don't want to. But, you see, the difference between me and them is that I understand you a little bit better, and therefore I can help you. You can trust me, Juliette."

Trust. That one is only a five-letter word, easily manipulated.

    Her mother was so caught in the fires of her own suffering that she didn't realize the pain she inflicted on others. It wasn't just Juliette whom she hurt. Her mother could not do relationships; she could not care for someone else longer than a few hours. She was a person consumed by fury, a spark about to go out, just needing the flame to set it free. And when she detonated, she not only obliterated herself, but the daughter she birthed into a world of hatred and scorn.

    "I don't trust," Juliette says, simply and plainly. She wouldn't lie to Dr. Singh, who seems like a nice enough person.

    "Not yet, but we will work on that. Of course, only if you want."

    Everything Juliette says is met with a response so fiercely crafted that it is hard not to partially believe what she tells. So instead of fighting it, she nods. Just one bob of her head, but it's enough to satisfy her therapist.

    "Lovely."

Authors Note:

boring chapter, I'm sorry. but those of you who read stolen voices know that therapy is an important part to the mental health aspect of my stories and the realism of it.

anyways, next one is more fun!

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- <3 Nia