Hope Has Ginger Fur

Part 1

He hated this.

He hated the waiting and what came with the waiting. His leg bounced against the floor, clammy hands clenched into fists, fingernails dug into his palm, teeth gritted to a flat point. To a point where Wilbur just wanted this room to split into two. For a crater to bulldoze this therapist's office, the floor to wreck itself into pieces, creating a seeping hole where Wilbur would just fall.

This was his fifth week with Dr Puffy and no offence to her, but he loathed it.

It wasn't because he didn't think all this was necessary, oh it was. In theory, he loved the idea of being able to vent out his problems to a random person paid to hear it all. But then the actual advice came in. The response to his rants. Words and guidance he didn't agree with yet had to try because they'd tell his dad the same thing.

And on this Tuesday morning, a suggestion hit him.

"I've got an idea that you could try," was what Puffy opened with. It was different to her usual greetings or forced questions of how are you? despite well-knowing Wilbur looked like shit. "We've tried comfort items before and you said those didn't work, correct?"

The grit to his teeth shredded at the mention of that.

Comfort items. The entire thing made him feel like a child. A baby clinging to stuffed toys and nightlights. Puffy advised him to buy a comfort item to squeeze or hold whenever he felt like everything was too much. Something to ground him, to keep him steady as the world proceeded to move in ways it shouldn't.

Techno, his older brother, bought it for him. The cow plushie stayed hidden under the two pillows on Wilbur's bed. He was almost eighteen years old, he shouldn't have to rely on plushies to make sure he didn't have another breakdown and forget his own name. It didn't work anyway. Nothing did.

Not the breathing exercises or talking about his problems, the tangles, calming oils, not the medication and orange bottles that stayed filled up because nothing worked.

"What about a therapy animal?" Puffy's voice pulled him away.

He blinked once. And then another and another but that expression on Puffy's face did not change. She was being serious.

"A therapy animal?" he repeated, lips pursed with distrust.

He sat here, on his third therapist of the year, with two diagnoses, and apparently, a pet was what stood between him and not feeling like waking up was a chore.

He scoffed darkly, "Is that all you have or...?"

Puffy readjusted in her seat. "Wilbur, bonding with an animal can benefit you in many ways," she continued on and on about the logistics and psychology behind therapy animals. That they provide comfort, could reduce levels of pain and boredom, increase social interactions and whatever.

It wasn't that it didn't make sense, it did. For Wilbur, the hatred was more because the solution was something so simple. Extensive medication literally fabricated to suit the imbalance in his head didn't work for him. Neither did that summer in rehab or anything else. But an animal. Why would that change anything?

"I've already suggested this to your father before in the past so—"

His stomach dropped.

"So you've told Phil already?" he interrupted, eyes slit into a glare. "You know what he's like, Puffy, he'll jump at any opportunity to fix me."

"Wilbur, don't word it like that you know this isn't a matter of fixing."

"Tell that to him breathing down my neck every fucking minute of the day to see if I've changed, if I'm doing okay, if I need assistance or if I'm his son again," he took a sharp inhale, it burning against this chest. Breathless all of a sudden and red in the face.