Living with my greatest fear.

~Chapter 25~

Ellie's POV:

The bell for the end of the day had just rung and I was being dismissed from my class. My friends and I were in the same class so we decided to walk out of school together. They live a bit further away than I do, so they get picked up by their parents at the end of the day. As I was walking out of school, I suddenly remembered what Grant had said to me about meeting him in the medical room, but I couldn't turn around in front of my friends and go back to school.

Just as I am saying bye to my friends, I get a call. Grant. Oh no. He's going to be mad at me for not meeting him at school even though I genuinely forgot about it. I answer it.

(G - Grant, E - Ellie)

G - Ellie, where are you? I told you to meet me in the medical room at the end of the day.

E - I completely forgot. I'm sorry. I was walking out with my friends and then I remembered what you said and I didn't want to turn back around and walk back in. Can you meet me outside?

G - It's okay, as long as you weren't trying to get out of it.. Where are you now?

E - I promise you I just forgot. I'm in town. I'm not really that far away from your office..

G - Okay, I'll talk to you about it when I see you. Why don't you just walk to my office and wait for me there? I'll drive over now.

E- Okay..

Grant hangs up and I make my way to his office.

When I cross the road by Grant's office, I see Tobey looking out of the door and out onto the road. He sees me too and opens the door, gesturing for me to go in. I hesitate before I walk in.

"Hey, Ellie. Where's Grant? I thought you two were coming from school together?" Tobey says to me, confused.

"Hi... I forgot to meet him at school and I was already on my way home by the time I had remembered and he called, so he told me to just come here and he would meet me here..." I say, looking down at my hands not wanting to make eye contact with Tobey.

"Did you forget you had an appointment or did you do it deliberately?" Tobey asks, crouching down a bit so he can see my face.

"I just forgot I had an appointment. I wasn't trying to get out of it, I promise." I say.

"Okay, well why don't we go back to an exam room and get set up whilst we wait for Grant to get here?" Tobey says, quite softly.

I don't reply because all of a sudden a wave of nerves hits me and I don't think I can speak let alone move. Tobey has already started to walk through the waiting area, when he realises that I'm not following him. He turns back around and starts to walk towards me. This time he crouches down further.

"Are you okay, poppet?"

"I'm really scared, I feel sick and my legs feel like jelly...."

"Aww, poppet. You'll be okay, I promise. Do you want to sit down out here and have a drink of water instead?"

I just nod.

Tobey gestures for me to sit on a chair next to where I was standing. When I'm sitting down, he gets up and goes to grab me a glass of water.

As he leaves, I hear someone by the door to the office so I turn around and I see Grant opening the door to come in. He sees me on his left and smiles at me. Tobey comes back into the waiting room with a plastic cup with some water in it.

"There you go, poppet," Tobey says to me as he hands me the cup. "Drink that and then we can go to an exam room, okay?"

The two of them leave me to drink my water whilst they, I'm assuming, set things up and probably talk about me.

I've finished my drink, but I don't want to go to Grant's exam room, so I just sit out in the waiting area hoping that they may just forget about me or something. They probably won't but I'll still hope.

I think Ruby has just come off of her lunch break and now is coming to sit at the reception desk. She sees me sitting down.

"Hi, Ellie! What are you doing here?" She asks me.

"Hi, Ruby. Grant booked me another appointment for today..." I say, not telling her the whole truth but not lying to her.

Instead of responding straight away, she looks down at her computer, I'm assuming to look at the schedule to see if Grant properly booked me in or not, and then says, "Oh, yeah. For once he's actually booked you in! It says that you're meant to be at your appointment now, is he back from school?"

"Umm, yeah he's back. He's in an exam room with Tobey, I think..." I say, almost whispering because I don't want to go in there.

"I'll go and see what they're doing, and see if they are ready for you," she says, standing up and making her way to the corridor that leads to all of the exam rooms.

Oh, god. This is the moment I have been dreading. Having to go back into another exam room. Those rooms scare me so much, I hate it there. I just hope that it is too close to any of Grant's or Tobey's other appointments so I can't have mine done today. I know that I'm in pain and I want to get out of the pain as quickly as possible but I also don't want to sit in that dreaded dental chair.

Almost as soon as Ruby left, she came back again. "You can go and see Tobey and Grant, Ellie. They're ready for you." As she said that, she gave me a faint smile. I hate it when people say 'They are ready for you.' It makes me feel so awkward inside. Instead of replying to Ruby, I just smile at her and slowly get up and start to walk over to Grant's exam room. I walk really slowly to try and waste time so I don't have to do anything and we can just go home but soon enough I reach the door into the room.

The door's closed so instead of opening it and walking straight in, I knock and wait for someone to open the door. It's Grant.

"Hey, E. Come on in!" He says to me, way too happy.

I don't respond to him and I just walk in far enough that the door will close but barely in.

Grant goes to sit down on his stool and Tobey is already sitting on his stool. My heart begins to race faster and faster until I feel as though I'm going to go into a panic attack. Grant notices and gets up off of his stool and comes over to where I am standing and gives me a hug and tries to calm me down. It doesn't really work, so he takes my hand and places it on his chest and tells me like he has done before to follow his breathing. Eventually, I calm down and my heart beats like it was before I came into the room.

"Why don't you have a seat, E?" Grant says, patting the dental chair in the middle of the room.

I shake my head and stay completely still.

"I promise I won't do anything before telling you, princess. Just come and have a seat instead of standing up."

I edge closer to the chair and turn around to sit on it sideways.

"There you go, E. I promise I won't do anything until I say." I nod. "Before you came in here, Tobey and I were talking about what we think the best way of fixing your teeth is. They all have to be fixed within the next week, so infections don't start in any of them, but we thought sorting them all out today would be quite a lot for you. So, we thought about fixing the crack today and the chips tomorrow - we could even do one chip on one day, if that's any better for you...?" Grant says, and Tobey nods.

"Umm.. I guess so..I think I'll be okay with that.." I say, looking down at my lap.

"Okay, do you want to get started now, and then we can go home afterwards?"

"Ok...."

"Sit back on the chair when you're ready then, princess."

Once I've sat against the back of the chair, Grant leans the chair back and cups my cheeks in his hands, "You'll be absolutely fine, okay? If you need or want to stop at any point, put your left hand up, okay?"

I just nod. 

A/N - omg! tysm for 11k reads!!! i really never thought i would get that many! i would appreciate any comments or suggestions <3 !!