Returning Red

session 02/06

NEW YORK - 4 years ago

session 02/06

"Katherine?" I call out as I enter the roof of her therapy building. 

It was shocking enough to get a late evening appointment but what surprised me more was being summoned to the terrace. When I had my last session with Katherine, I told her about my condition with the pills, which was fundamentally why I decided to take therapy. The cause of the pills, however, made me talk about my past. My past, as in Frankfurt. 

It's been four years since I left home and I haven't spoken a single word to any one of them. Sure I'd overheard about them from mom, dad, and Grace but I didn't speak to any of them personally. I stalked them on social media, thoroughly. Liam's account is the only public account and he has nearly 500K followers so it makes it easy for me to spy on them with whatever he posts. 

They all spend so much time together, I have their routine memorized. Monday through Friday all he puts is college happenings, university happenings, product promotions, and mini vlogs with late-night study calls. They spend Friday nights in a cafe where Austin goes up on the stage with his guitar and sings a song. They party on Saturday nights and on Sundays, it's a compilation of their drunk and hungover selves trying to hold onto sanity. 

The problem, as Katherine suggested, was not the pills, it was the emotions I was trying to hide from. I didn't agree with her when she told me I wasn't over the separation, because I know I've moved on. But she said she wasn't asking me if I was and the pills are just proof that I am not able to get over the past. Why she told me the pills were dangerous was because it was unprescribed. I self-prescribed myself these anti-depressant pills as I studied serotonin reuptake inhibitors and their symptoms in the prevention of anxiety. As I tried it once, it helped me ease myself out of an anxiety attack. Then it became a habit. 

Although Katherine told me to reconnect with my past because the way I came out seemed like I ran away from something I had to stand up and face it. I told her I couldn't. And I'm glad she didn't push me to do that. 

"How was your week?" I gasped when I heard her voice from behind me. She came out of a small cabin with two yoga mats, one blue and one purple. 

"I-It was alright," I exclaimed still gawking at the yoga mats. "Are you going to make me do yoga?" 

"Pft, no, I am a psychologist, not a yogini." She winked at me as she went to spread the mats. "Blue or purple?" 

I watched the two mats. My instinct would make me choose blue but I'm afraid she'll catch onto that point and slap it in my face in due course of time so I want to say purple but that would need me to lie and if I lie to my therapist she won't be able to help me out, which seems pointless--

"Oh lord, time's up." She rolled her eyes at me. "I want the purple one, so here, you get the blue one." 

Great, instinct it is. 

I held the blue mat in my hands and I began to unroll it beside hers. She seemed excited. And for some reason, my energies around her changed. I was more free, open, and surprisingly, very smiley. 

"How was your week?" She asked me again. 

I frowned. "It was alright, I told you." 

She stopped unrolling her mat and turned to me with a smile. "Right, how was your week?" 

I scoffed. "Katherine, I just told you, it was alright." 

"Beep," she screamed. "Wrong answer." 

I was too confused at this point. So I shrugged and turned to her. "Katherine, how was your week?"